The trading week began positively enough with comms stocks in favour as mobile phone users continue to move to WAP-enabled devices and give the industry a (temporary) boost. Elsewhere signals were mixed although the FTSE100 did manage to end glowing vaguely blue. Little good news from either side of the Atlantic dragged the market down a bit on Tuesday but there was no real enthusiasm for trading and volumes were light. Barclays Bank produced some excitement on Wednesday with its rumoured offer for the Woolwich. That was enough to light up the sector and make sure the FTSE100 finished higher. The situation reversed on Thursday as the banking interest waned and pharmaceutical companies took a hit due to concerns about patent protection. Friday was overshadowed by news that Marks and Spencer's shares had hit a ten-year low and Japan had increased inter-bank lending rates for the first time in ten years. The FTSE100 fell off a little - luckily not back to its 1990 figure - now that would have given PW something to get statistical about!

The Weekly BB Review

With Medical Solutions Interim results due out on 14th August, there was much debate as to how relatively good or bad they might be. Whatever the answer turns out to be, the company certainly had its share of debate this week. (Medical Solutions) PitBull and Wicky sounded as though they had expected news in the weekend press but as the price showed positive signs from the beginning of the week, bigman was preparing to add more to his existing stache and expecting the bullish run to continue a while, although unsure as to where the stock was coming from. ericC was feeling the same vibes. News that the Daily Mirror (of all papers!) was carrying a brief recommendation on Tuesday brought JonC to surmise that the journalists must have reading the Bulletin Boards again to get their story! (How jolly unkind! :=))

Infobank ....... a return to favour? has been an interesting story since it began in May, thanks to KDC. With Interim results published on Wednesday, it was predictable that the debate would heat up. Infobank International came under close scrutiny throughout the week with Addo and Mr Euro leading the pack. The results were pretty well as predicted with the most important facts hidden in the detail. leetrade and Baden sounded completly underwhelmed by the whole thing. Blueflame, meanwhile, was hopeful that the recently improved US sentiment towards B2B companies would give the shares a boost. As is so often the case, by the time the results were published, the value (what there was of it) was already in the price and profit-taking took its toll. Although the company has brought forward its predictions for profitablility, Mr Euro is doubtful enough about them achieving that to have promised to fund the next Christmas bash if it is achieved by the new 2001 target. (Martini and I have written that in the diary for December!) TechNet was just slightly bullish about these - on the basis that a suitable bid must come along soon.

TechNet's continued look at the US markets is as popular as ever on the PBB (see * US STOCKS - August 2000 *) although he has now withdrawn it from the FBB due to lack of interest. I think speed and Sardine speak for a lot of us when they hope it will carry on. There is an element of us taking this series of threads for granted. Time for a big "Thank you, TechNet" methinks. I have known our US stock follower for a long time now and what he doesn't know about the NASDAQ probably isn't worth knowing. I hope the series runs and runs.

Another good series running is the breakout threads from Addo - the latest being Uncovering "BREAKouts" August 7th-11th. Amongst the more interesting were Provident Financial from gausie which has a good start to the week - running close to the 900p mark before profit-taking on Thursday pulled it back a bit. Anite Group (from PitBull) also returned to winning ways leading up to the AGM. Dil favoured Quantica which has continued its good run in advance of interim results next week.

Arthur Shaw, introduced by PW in Are you shaw? a few weeks ago when the share price was in respectable double figures, had been drifting off in the general malaise until this week saw a masssive increase in volumes on Wednesday, reported by Vertigo. A late announcement that the company had bought up internet rights to football heroes such as Emmanuel Petit now of Barcelona, West Ham's Davor Suker, Arsenal's Thierry Henry and Tony Adams and Matt Le Tissier of Southampton appeared to account for the sudden resurgence of interest. With a company EGM due on the following day, it was no surprise to see the price open up at a premium. The news, when it came did nothing for the share price which fell back. Probably due to the references to the additional millions of shares which will be coming to the market mid-August. However, with footballer websites getting plenty of press coverage over the weekend, it might give the shares a boost Monday.

PSSSSSttt...this looks good, introduced by Intfluf towards the end of July, noted a potential breakout-cum-recovery situation for Premysis Group. JonC interpreted the title as a more discreet version of Bullie's infamous "Hmmmmmm but agreed that the signs looked promising. Toogood and bigman entered the fray just as the price was taking a turn for the worse but by Thursday this week things were a bit more relaxed as the share price took off big-time - without any obvious reason. Still way short of the "good times" but with new contract deals rumoured, maybe they will claw their way back somewhere close.

For dirtman the outlook was bright for Photo-Me International. When The true bright picture of today ! began, it took DocProc all of eight minutes to decide it was a good opportunity. Addo, bigman and Pippin were not far behind. The reason for the enthusiasm? PHTM and SanDisk of the USA had announced the creation of a 50/50 Joint Venture to operate self-service Digital Photo Printing Kiosks in the US and Canada. (The joint venture company is to be called Digital Portal Inc.) The share price immediately bounded upwards almost 10% and finished the day well ahead. Pippin and Addo both see this one as a good long-term opportunity, although the idea of running without a stop-loss sounds a bit scary Pippin.....

The interest in forming an Investment Club among BBers has gathered momentum since gumdrop first raised the idea. The biggest problem is a geographic one rather than a will to take part (as well as finding a suitable hostelry in which to hold those essential regular meetings). Losos, for instance is interested, but hailing from East Anglia would not find regular trips to Dorset very practical, although Dead Cat Bounce reminded us that East Anglians abound on the BB. Things progressed rapidly this week and it looks as though there could be two clubs starting up simultaneously with initial meetings next week. A separate thread has now been started for the Flatlanders at East Anglian Investment Club. So, if you are East or West based, there is an opportunity for you to join in what promises to be an enjoyable escapade for those who take part. It will be interesting to see the stories unfold. I hope you will keep us informed. With at least two existing Share Club Secretaries (Timeliner and Boomerang) and a Club Treasurer (Plato) on the BB, there is plenty of first hand experience to call on. Good luck guys!

Anthonyjb returned refreshed from his holiday with the latest in TA technique - Sure Way to Make Big Money On Stocks Tomorrow!!!! which, as Novision reminded us still meant that the Market Makers won the day. I'll stick to Addo's pin-in-the-FT method. Call me a traditionalist!

PW continues his quest for statistics. This time it is based on our preconceptions of the daily performance of the FTSE100. I'm not sure what it is all going to prove, but it will be interesting to see what interpretation he places on the daily "guesses" we have been making.

Meanwhile, in the land of the Free.......

Last week kjc highlighted the brewery industry with ELDRIDGE POPE - CAN WE EXPECT A BID? but got few takers with only afirefly and Xale taking an interest. This week Eldridge Pope continued to show good progress until Thursday when the profit-takers clawed it back some. Good call for those who took notice early on.

This week prankster achieved what Gambo555 had failed to do the previous week in getting people to pay serious attention to London Pacific Group on the London Pacific Bargain of the year thread. big vern added to the praise with information gleaned from external sources and it seems as though I wasn't the only one to add it my Monitor and do nothing about it looking at the wah's response. I agree with the wah that these little gems are sometimes hidden (or drowned) by some of the less sensible postings on the FBB. I would like to add my thanks to prankster for spotting this opportunity and sharing it. Just wish I'd listened more carefully! The share price appears now to have left the bad times far behind and is pushing for a new support level above the 1200p mark. Good luck to all who sail in her.

It has been another difficult week for ADVFN.com with technical problems still not entirely solved and the share price dipping on very little volume. However, it seems from the comments in ADVFN - So Good. Why the share price slump ?? that new users of the site are well pleased with the range of services provided. As jayno pointed out, there has been a distinct lack of "substantial" news which is possibly holding things back. Vague references here and there to the provision of a brokerage gateway sometime in the future seems to be the most intriguing (and popular) rumour. Pooh thinks it is only a matter of time before this comes about but dr-spook would like some statement from the company to back up his faith. Quite a lot of positive PR over the weekend should help the momentum but when ADVFN will catch up with user demands for new facilities is always going to the big unanswerable - every user on the site seems to have a bright new idea at least once every day. Not so easy to keep up with.

We have quite a few members of the Jim Slater fan club here so it was appropriate that PEG choices(Zulu principle) appeared this week, thanks to romil. He picked out WSP Group, Inter Link Foods and Touchstone Group as meeting Jim's criteria. MartinC had already picked out WSP using the same method and Luthor highlighted AMEC as another to watch. The latter seems to be the best of the bunch at the moment but there's a lot of potential in the choices and Jim Slater's methodology still retains a lot of credibility in the world of the private investor. Worth keeping an eye on these.


Winner of the, Poster of the Week competition this week is TechNet for his continued insight into the NASDAQ and the opportunities there. His regular feature is now a permanent part of BB life and I know I speak for many "lurkers" when I say "thanks". You can check out the latest thread HERE. If you will e-mail me a delivery address, TechNet, I will see that a quality bottle of bubbly ends up on your doorstep.

Good Hunting!

I need more new entries for the ADVFN Who's Who! It is still growing steadily but growth has slowed - even though yser umbers are rising. If you haven't sent me your bio yet, please drop me a few lines about yourself - a full editing service is provided! For those concerned about security, any e-mails sent to me are held securely on my own system and only an edited version of the entry appears on the public pages of ADVFN's system. No e-mail addresses are published unless specifically requested.