This week guest 'Diarist' and 'Thoughter' is BrianTrayda who has kindly stepped into the breach and gives his own thoughts on the week ahead. If anyone else would like to be the guest 'Thoughter' next week please let us know.

Monday 7 JuneFinals - Charles Stanley Group-The investment bank had a smashing 2003 as its share price soared by 300%.Meanwhile, 2004 looks to be shaping up nicely, with full-year earnings said to be well above market expectations.Second-half turnover increased across all divisions, thanks to the high level of stock exchange transactions.Finals Mitie Group -The building and infrastructure services group has won some lucrative contracts this year, thanks to its ability to provide a variety of services such as pest control and cleaning. Not particularly sexy then,but who cares when profits are up and a 55 million cash pile is lying around?Tuesday 8 JuneInterims Arla Foods -All eyes will be focusing on Arlas future trading. The dairy group is the envy of its peers after winning the Asda milk contract, and investors are hoping for an indication of its profit potential. Analysts will be calculating the benefits of the groups merger with Express Dairies last October.Finals Severn Trent - Management may be deserting Severn Trent, but shareholders are staying put. The impending departures of its chairman, chief executive and finance director have not moved the water utility groups shareprice. Profits are expected to meet the consensus 266 million and the dividend will improve.Wednesday 9 June Ex-dividend Hardy Underwriting -The Lloyds insurance underwriter more than doubled its profits this year, and duly increased its dividend by 14% to 8.25p. The group produced its best underwriting result to date, mainly from aviation and marine insurance. In 2004, it is diversifying into areas such as finance and direct property.Ex-dividend James Smith Estates -Investing in this small real estate company could pay off in the long term. Full-year profits grew by 10% and the dividend rose by 8%, in a year that saw its share price rally by 57%. The group specialises in mixed-use residential and commercial schemes an area that its larger peers are zooming in on.Thursday 10 JuneFinals Kewill Systems -The software provider released an upbeat trading statement in April confirming that second-half profits had improved on the first half. Figures are expected to meet expectations despite the groupschallenging trading conditions. Kewill has made three significant acquisitions.Finals Yates Group - The pub group should be celebrating a decent set of results, if Marchs trading update is anything to go by. Pre-tax profits are expected to beat the top end of consensus forecasts of 9.9 million. Like-for-like sales were up 2.6% in the first 10 weeks of 2004,with the new 21st Century Yates bars up 5.3%.Finals - TBI - Cheap flights are everywhere and airport operator TBI is loving it. The group should meet consensus forecast of around 23 million, after its second half trading met expectations. New destinations from Luton and a five year contract to manage its car park are part of the good newsflow. Friday 11 JuneAGM - Eastern European Investment Trust - The trust faces a continuation vote this year, as it is almost 10years old. The board is said to be proposing a range of sweeteners to ensure the vote goes smoothly. It is talking about introducing a discount control mechanism, likely to take the form of a regular tender, buy-backs or both.

Thoughts Everybody is looking for a bit more direction at the moment so I thought I would look back in time for some ideas. We follow the American market so it's natural to look at that. The graph below shows the last 5 DOW years (in weeks) and the associated price/volume bars. The first thing to note is the declining volume in 2004 with no sign of it turning up. So when did that happen before? Look back to the last USA election year - 2000. There are similarities and the indication is for sideways until the election. At which point the volume jumps up (almost doubles) with some very significant swings. It surges up to 11,500 and then collapses back again. It's worthy of note that that 11,500 is an amazing lid on everything and is the all-time high. The horizontal bars on the left show the volume at the differing levels of the DOW. You can see that the largest one comes at about the point the DOW topped out this year (approx 10,800). That seems to be the maximum for now until the world settles down. The oil price is meant to include about a 20-25% terrorist attack premium and I am convinced the world doesn't want to pump more into stocks because of the massive sell offs that occur when large attacks happen. Ok, so they're scared to buy, but the economy is improving, so why sell? That's why I think it's going to be the same as 2000, namely, range of 10,000-10,800 with big spikes come the election time. Ho hum, no clear trends, so back to the roulette wheel.

Have a good weekend - BrianTrayda

All the above comments are purely a personal opinion and no investment advice is intended. Please do your own research