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Dow closes at highest level in more than 2.5 years as investors cheer Greenspan's views Unilever said its 2003 net profit had come in at 4.277 billion euros at the higher end of analysts' expectations, who had predicted a 2003 profit ranging between 3.531 billion and 4.288 billion euros. Niall FitzGerald will retire as chairman  Barclays bank said on Thursday that full-year profit rose 20 percent to 3.845 billion pounds, matching analysts' expectations, boosted by growth at its investment banking business. Rolls-Royce posted an 11.8 percent rise in profit to 285 million pounds beating forecasts of 271.75 million pounds. It said it expected to increase earnings in 2004 despite some challenging markets. BT reported a 7% rise in Q3 earnings near the top end of forecasts, on a 2.6 percent decline in revenues. Underlying earnings per share rose to 4.4 pence for the three months with analysts forecasts at 4.3p. lastminute.com posted a narrowing first-quarter loss, and said the second quarter had started well. Centrica reported a 10.5% rise in annual earnings that met market forecasts, helped by strong growth at its North American operations. EPS rose to 16.8 pence from 15.2 pence, analysts had forecast of 16.9 pence. Marconi said its Q3 loss widened slightly but that sales were still recovering. Its operating loss rose to 66 million pounds from 62 million and sales fell 11 percent to 408 million pounds Glaxo, later.

Calendar: United Kingdom	United States (GMT)	Europe & World (GMT
Alumasc (I), BT (Q3),  McBride Scottish & Newcastle (8 mths & 12 mths) Barclays (F), Centrica (F), GlaxoSmithKline (F) London Bridge Software (F), Marconi Corp (F) Pendragon (F), Rolls-Royce (F), Unilever (Q4) , LastMinute.comBrewin Dolphin (AGM), Mitchells & Butlers (AGM)Q4 housebuilding data (09:00) Q4 ODPM housebuilding stats (09:00)	Analog Devices (Q1) Dell Computer (Q4) Safeway (Q4) NVIDIA (Q4) 13:30 Business Inventories 13:30 Initial Claims 13:30 Retail Sales 13:30 Retail Sales ex-auto 7.00pm Treasury Budget

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THU FTSE PP

R2 4435
R1 4415
PP 4396
S1 4377
S2 4358

Wed close was below the pp! Downtrend brk up at 4396 bang on the close to challenge r1, if not cont weakness to 4365, all down to the dow holding above 10700 tonight for the brk up (10739 as I type)

edit- gap up 17 at open





Updated 2/11 for Thursday's market.
Key DOW Levels for 2/12
UP Above 10,750
DN Below 10,700

Sharp Rally
Dow breaks consolidation to upside, sparks solid rally.

From prior commentary, "...The fact that the Dow has formed a tight consolidation at the highs implies continued strength. An upside break through the top of the range at 10,640 will likely spark another push higher..."
The Dow traded slowly within the consolidation boundaries early in the session, but eventually got a solid upside break from the range at 10,640, sparking a solid rally on the session, seen in the 15 and 60 Minute Charts. The index ended the day at the session highs within the boundaries of a tight consolidation, ultimately gaining 124 points for the day.

Looking at the Weekly Chart shows that the Dow has now broken through the major 10,700 resistance level. If the index can hold above this level, look for an even further upside move in the medium term. Otherwise, a break back below 10,700 will likely pull the index back down within the wide, sloping range, seen in the 60 Minute Chart.

Short Term Dow

Short term, the Dow ended the day within a tight consolidation that has formed at the highs of the 5 Minute Chart from 10,718 to 10,747. Look for an upside break for strength tomorrow morning, but a break either way should provide short term direction.

Medium Term Dow

In the medium term, we entered the market Long at 10,650 and are still in the market. We will move stops up to 10,700 and will stay Long above 10,750. We will also look for Shorts below 10,700, with 20 point stops.

NASDAQ & S&P

The NASDAQ and S&P got upside breaks from their respective ranges today, sparking a solid rally. Watch for a continuation pattern to form, which would indicate further strength. *

Summary

The Dow got the upside break from the consolidation today, which sparked a significant move higher. Look for a continuation pattern to form tomorrow, which would imply an even further advance.

Morning all

Nice to see the press speculation about ULVR's results were wrong. After dropping the last two days it currently over 25p up.

Stockbunny - I presume like me, you are still holding some?

mornin all

Good Morning!! Oh Yes LW I'm in early today and you know why!! LOL
Nearly spluttered my toast this AM whilst eating and watching
the time delayed prices on C4
Had to get online and in here....

Morning all,

Greenspan certainly shook things up yesterday by being
pleased with Dollar weakness helping US deficit.

Gives me conflicting signals now. UK usually follows US,
but weakening Dollar is hurting the Eurozone.

Therefore if the US continues to rise then UK markets usually
follow, but if the reason the US is rising is because their exports
are more competitive and their balance of payments are improved
by the weakening Dollar then the Eurozone should drop.

SHEL are now cheaper than my sell price yesterday. But due to the
weakening Dollar and oil is priced in Dollars, their profits should
devalue. But when the Dollar strenghthens again, the Dollar profits
they already have will start to increase in value again in relation to their
base currency. Do I wait for a possible cheaper price or build a position
at various levels.

My head hurts! :-) I'll trade what I see.

Melnibone.

FTSE doesn't seem to want to stay above my 4410 level.

It looks like the focus is going to be on FTSE/DOW 4400/10700
respectively.

Melnibone.

Melnibone - have a virtual Headex and a cup of tea.
Still sitting on ULVR, being stubborn!

Stockbunny - ULVR are in my long term portfolio for the div. I keep raising the stop loss price to just below S3, so if they take a really big dive, I can cash in. Otherwise just sit tight and ignore the small dips.

Thanks stockbunny, advice taken. :-)

Decided to ignore all this conflicting noise and
started building my long SHEL position again.

Will watch FTSE/DAX/CAC/EUSTOXX50 for my Sterling/Euro denominated
intraday scalps. I still don't fancy holding any Dollars
so I'll leave the US markets alone for the time being.

Melnibone.

Yes, I missed the 559p this AM - my own fault, didn't
get on to streaming prices quick enough this morning!
Looking for bid of 5.53 ideally....Profit will than
counter balance the divi loss.

Looks more likely I'll settle for around 551p now
will watch it for a while longer just in case it rises further...
4 months investment and a 47p gain will still do nicely!
9% roughly I think, but maths is not my strongest point LOL

I'm going to stick it out to see if it'll continue rising long term. By revising the stop loss to just under the highest S3 level, I'll keep a decent profit if it does drop heavily, but benefit if it doesn't. The trouble with some shares, is that they don't always drop enough to justify going back in at a later date!

Agreed and there must be people with stop-losses in place
currently I presume as there are sales going thru' as low
as 548p, presume the stop-loss is being triggered - shame
without that it could recover upwards...

People would not have had the chance to put new stop losses in place on the current price since I suspect most put them in like I do, based on the previous days close.

My stop loss is at 5.26 based on the S3 level of 5.29 from last Friday. Tonight I expect the S3 level to go up based on the closing price, and I'll adjust it tommorrow based on that.

Stockbunny, I am presuming you know what S1, S2 & S3 are?

There goes GSK. Sold my long term holding a loss, but will buy back once the dust settles.

Sorry to hear that little woman. I liked GSK, same as you.
This is what I was worried about on GSK which is why
I switched from holding to scalping on it.

1150p support should have held longer than this. As I posted a few
days ago, if 1150 goes then there is a real danger of seeing
1000p again if the FTSE retraces.

The generic competition seems to be spooking the holders.
The Paxil generic competition won't do a lot for SKP's share price
either, imho. Paxcil Cr is a big part of SKP.

Melnibone.

GSK keeps trying to pull back, but is not holding. I was looking at the heat map for the FTSE100 and there is a huge range from RR which is 12% up through to GSK which is 6% down. The question is whether the shares currently up will pull back and to push the FTSE100 down even more.

LW/Melnibone - made a nice profit on gsk short and am looking to open another long again. I agree with your comments re: SKP. I have a fairly large holding in my ISA, but will continue to hold till results - hopefully we will get Depomorphine announcement the share needs to give it another lift

GSK will bounce around now as daytraders have fun and longer
term Bulls or Bears use the price action to sort out their positions.

Ref. FTSE, I'm sticking with my other posts in that iaw my swing
charts the FTSE is currently range trading between two swing lows
of circa 4330/4430 with the 60Day EMA of 4410 acting as a pivot
point at the top end of the range. A good break of these levels, that is led
by the US markets, will give short term direction.

Melnibone.

Nice calls, Fundamentalist.

You seem to be using GSK as a trading vehicle to good effect.
Told you it was more satisfying trading them rather than holding
them.:-)

GSK's price of 11 gives it a nice tight % spread.

Melnibone.

345/50k jobless exp



363k act fig

retail sales worse down .3

Taken ages to get back into traders room for some reason,
loading slow - no doubt my machine...

LW No I'm none the wiser (not unusual - all ears no brain! lol)
not familiar with S1 etc...

Wonder what the DOW will do on opening...any ideas?

Stockbunny S stands for the support level which a share will normally get supported. (Its to do with Pivot Points - PP ) R are the Resistance levels.

If a share drops to S1 it will normally get support to stop it dropping any further. If it passes S1 it will get support again when it reaches S2. Very few shares pass S2, but those that make it pass S3 tend to keep falling, as all support has gone......... It works the opposite way for R1, R2 & R3, which why many people will purchase shares which have passed R3 on the grounds it will continue up.

Ah with you - I'm used to the support and resistance levels
but have never taken any notice of it being abbrev. Thanks!

I know what you mean about abbrev terminolgy # - I keep asking Playboy to spell out a lot of the abbrev. comments he makes - so I'm trying to use it so I can remeber it so I know what the traders are posting (especially over in the Traders room!)

I just closed my D4F account. They closed all my positions without telling me, and then informed me that because it was because I left less than $200 margin equivilent on the account. (So it's my fault for keeping my balance low) It wouldn't have been so bad, if they had closed one position (or part) to bring it in line - or even asked me to fund the account. But they closed everything. Of course its somewhere in the small print that they can do it. Well that me going back to old fashioned trading shares instead of CFD's.

Sorry to read that LW, your not the first and won,t be the last no doubt, try etrade Da imho, 3k to open!

tx melnibone - opened a long at 1103 GSK. You commented on SKP earlier - do you hold/trade them?

Also, anyone here trade GFRD (Galliford Try) - i say trade i have them as a long term investment. They've had a nice rise today and are starting to climb back to the levels they were at when ROK were trying to buy them - wonder if ROK are back or if there is another potential suitor?

Hi Fundamentalist,

I traded SKP up from their lows last year but left
them alone when they got to the 66/70p levels.

Too much jam priced in at that level for me with the
way they keep failing to meet profit estimates.

What they need to do is lower their estimates, along with
the share price, so then we can buy it again and profit
as they beat the lowered estimates. :-)

Melnibone.

Sorry to hear you got closed out little woman.

I thought they were meant to phone you with a margin call?

I always keep a good margin spare so that I'm
in control. So if they ever manage to close me down it will
be due to a false spike.

Still checking out spreadbetting firms as a back up/alternative,
but spreadbetting margins seem to be variable, even on open
positions, so I'm being rather thorough in my research at the
moment.
I can see why a lot of spreadbetters, rather than CFD traders,
get wiped out.
It seems to need very careful position size management to avoid
stops being moved closer and activating on spikes.

Melnibone.

All the Indices seem to be comatose at the moment.

Waiting for Greenspan Part 2 ? :-)

Melnibone.

Do you know what time he speaks?

i thought 4

OK that's me out of here for the day now - still holding ULVR!
Will check it tomorrow, but for now I've seen enough red and blue
blocks of colour to last me a week (lol)
Be lucky people!!!

LW
How do you calculate S3/R3? the other R & S's I use 'Crocs pivot point calc'

Hope you don't mind if I butt in little woman.

optomistic, use this and just extrapolate to S3.

The calculation for the new day are calculated from the High (H), low (L) and close (C) of the previous day.


Pivot point = P = (H + L + C)/3

First area of resistance = R1 = 2P - L
First area of support = S1 = 2P - H
Second area of resistance = R2 = (P -S1) + R1
Second area of support = S2 = P - (R2 - S1

May I suggest that if you are doing this for longer term positions
that you use the weekly High/ Low/ Close for the purpose of
performing your calculations.

Daily data contains far too much noise for longer position trades, imho.

Melnibone.

Thanks Melnibone
All understood except this 'extrapolate to S3'
As said I use the PP calc for the rest- no problem, its just this S3/R3 I can't get.
optomistic

OK, P = High+Low+Close divided by 3.
So you are basically getting an average of the range.
R1 = 2P - L
R2 = (P - S1) + R1
R3 = (P - S2) + R2

S1 = 2P - H
S2 = P - (R2 - S1)
S3 = P - (R3 - S2)

I think I've got this right, I'm sure that Croc will leap in
and correct anything that is wrong.

Please double check before making any trading decisions, we
just give views here, not necessarily facts. ;-)

Melnibone.

Optomistic,

Can I suggest this link http://www.stelaronline.com/resource/pivot.htm

cheers,

sw

Thanks Melnibone
After reading earlier post by LW consider 'S3' would be a usefull guide to setting stop losses. Appreciate trading decisions are always down to No 1.
Thanks again
optomistic

seawatcher

That is a great link, takes all the work out of it.

Thanks a lot
optomistic

I have to admit - I use the Pivot Point thread over on the traders thread so I don't have to work it out myself!

Well what a plonker I am!
All Longs :- ISYS 20 @ 200 p/p closed @ 19.75 went to 29.
Javis 119.75 @ 50 p/p made 375 went to 152.
OOM 84.5 @ 200 p/p now 90!
S&P 500 (1124 last Wed) @ 10 p/p went to 1158.
Euro/USD 300 points missed in a week @ 2 p/p
This must be the best drop bo***ck PCM Sept 99 bought 2300's worth @ .o95p (just less than a 1p) kept them for about 6 weeks sold em end Oct 99 lost 250 went to 15p in 3/4 months, another 30k down the pan!and speaking of pan PRE dropped 7500 on that one.
SPT 38.5 @ 300 p/p 04-08-03 spiked down to 32.5 2 days later CMC did a 'chrissie'on me. CMC didn't close me out @ 100 margin remaining, they closed me out owing them 450,work that one out. a bad week, was also the day I went on holiday! so instead of returning from hols 4500 up...took the shine off a little. The crazy thing is I pulled out half of me capilal at the end of July, had I not I would be 's in now SPT went to 82p.
And an other CS. long @ 4.5 @ 400 p/p (yes I picked the bottom for once) closed @ 5.75 took 600 off CMC :o) went to 42p! Now what was thingi about letting your profits run.

Here endeth the moan for today, must learn to get to grips with this trading malarkie! Or give up or seek help!
I also have a few good days but not many! DUC + 9K - BLT 5K- GIM 20k - VOC 5k -KWL 6k, now only down 70k in 5 yrs!! :o)
Chrissie hope this cheers you up a little. I know how you feel I realy do, take care Mike...