A Brief Look At The Week Ahead

I expect this week we'll all be studying the various pundits ruminations on where that market might be headed in 2008. Given that most of them were seriously out of kilter in 2007, I think a generous pinch of salt is a good thing to have on hand. Thanks to you all for a fun 2007, I wish you all the best of fortune for the upcoming year. Have a great 2008! Greystone Thanks, as always to Supermum, Kyoto and Digger for their invaluable input to The Traders Thread. Supermum's Weekly Chat View will return early in the New Year. (Greystone is Alan English, City Editor at MoneyAM.)

Morning all. Friday's market reports:

Telegraph
The Times
The Times (Need to know)
FT
The Guardian
The Independent
This is Money

Saturday

Borrowing costs for banks fell for the second week running after co-ordinated central bank action helped unfreeze the money markets. But the credit crunch continued to take its toll as banks offered big discounts to offload leveraged debt. Interbank lending rates, used by banks to lend to each other, have been falling since early December after the Bank of England and other major central banks joined forces to inject billions of dollars into the financial system.
Banks offer big discounts to offload leveraged debt

Ten likely themes that business people and investors should be ready to anticipate, exploit or hedge against in the coming year.
Time to get real as the credit flow dries up

Warren Buffett launched a new bond insurer yesterday designed to help state governments and local authorities in the United States to reduce their borrowing costs and to compete with established players suffering from the credit crunch.
Warren Buffett starts bond insurer to take on rivals hurt by credit crunch

Britains sub-prime lending market received another kick from the credit crunch yesterday as Elephant Loans & Mortgages issued a profit warning and announced an escalation in its losses for the first half of the year.
Elephant shackled by sub-prime woes

House prices fell for another straight month in December, according to the latest figures from the Nationwide Building Society.
UK house prices fall for second month in a row

Internet shopping could account for half of Britains 300 billion-a-year retail market by as early as 2018 after coming of age this Christmas, it was predicted yesterday.
Shopping on the internet predicted to command half of sales by 2018

Sunday

John Thain, the new chief executive of Merrill Lynch, is this weekend in talks with Chinese and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds that could lead to the sale of another big stake in the US bank in a desperate bid to raise capital, according to sources in London and New York.
Merrill seeks more funds to avoid crisis

LEADING economists warn that the UK economy is entering its most uncertain period for 15 years in a series of grim predictions on growth, consumer spending and employment. Many economists have slashed their forecasts for GDP growth to 1.7%-1.8% well below the decent 3.1% rate in 2007.
Economists warn of UK stickyflation next year

Hard pressed UK consumers are turning to sub-prime lenders as traditional providers of credit tighten their lending criteria. BrightHouse, the controversial retailer that sells on weekly credit, reported an 11.5pc increase in like-for-like sales in 2007 in sharp contrast to high street rivals.
Credit crisis brightens sub-prime lenders

A SURGE in postChristmas shopping looks set to banish fears that retailers have suffered poor sales in December. And analysts predict most of Britains large quoted retail groups will show underlying sales increases when they deliver trading statements over the next few weeks.
Sales relief for retail

Insolvency experts are on standby amid fears several high street retailers could collapse in January. Following the quarterly rent call last week many chains are already struggling. Footwear and clothing retailers have been particularly badly hit by the downturn in consumer confidence. The Sunday Telegraph has learned that in a highly unusual step landlords have offered retailers discounts to their rent to prevent them from going bust.
High street chains may slip in 2008

Some of the City's biggest investment banks have stopped lending to commercial property buyers, stifling deals in an already depressed market. According to research by William Newsom, head of commercial valuation at Savills, eight of the 97 lenders in the UK commercial real estate market have shut their doors to borrowers, while 11 more remain reluctant to take on risk. Almost 30 will lend but only on a qualified basis - such as to long-standing clients buying robust assets.
Banks halt commercial property loans

Financial markets will start the new year with more uncertainty about the future than has been the case for years. What Donald Rumsfeld calls the 'known unknowns' are bad enough - will the US economy tip into recession; will Britain follow if it does; can emerging markets remain resilient as the US slows rapidly; will the UK housing market crash?
Winter winds whistle ominously through the markets

WHEN Wall Street is being bailed out by Chinese and Middle Eastern sovereign funds it would be foolish to make any other prediction than that 2008 is going to be tough, certainly for the first half. Thats not to say it wont be interesting.
Doing nothing not an option in tough times

You would have been far better putting your money in a bank - even if it was Northern Rock - than following our professional investors' share tips in 2007: all but one of them lost money last year, with the worst dropping 40 per cent and an average fall of 15.5 per cent. That was significantly worse than the FT All Share, which ended roughly where it began.
Caution: tipped shares may go down as well as up

According to a Citi report, the contrarians who sell the year's best performers and buy the worst rarely succeed.
Contrarians should hold their horses

GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, the drug makers, have been ordered to hand over confidential documents to the Serious Fraud Office as part of its investigation into bribes allegedly paid to Saddam Hussein's deposed Iraqi regime.
SFO seizes drug giants' documents

The value of fines handed out by the Financial Services Authority has fallen to its lowest level in six years despite claims from the regulator that it is cracking down on insider trading and other City crimes.
Tough-talking FSA hands out smaller fines

Monday

Losses arising from Americas housing recession could triple over the next few years and they represent the greatest threat to growth in the United States, one of the worlds leading economists has told The Times. Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University, predicted that there was a very real possibility that the US would be plunged into a Japan-style slump, with house prices declining for years.
Top economist says America could plunge into recession

The credit crunch sparked a 58 per cent rise this year in class-action lawsuits filed by American shareholders against companies and their directors, research shows.
Class-action lawsuits soar as investors try to recoup credit losses

The world's major banking groups are facing unprecedented pressure to repair balance sheets and restore their liquidity as the ongoing credit crisis shows few signs of easing. Conventional commercial pressures are also refusing to go away.
Banks fight to rebuild balance sheets

One of the UK's leading commercial property agents has warned that office rents may tumble next year, dealing a second devastating blow to landlords who have already seen the value of their portfolios plummet in recent months.
Landlords face office rent crisis

The FSA is under pressure to come up with scalps in any crackdown on insider trading. There has been only one criminal prosecution for the offence since the regulator took over responsibility for this area in 2001 and one fine for market abuse.
FSA looks into Biffa share price leap before bid news

According to Grant Thornton Corporate Finance, the value of new companies opting to list on the London Stock Exchange's junior market fell for the first time in five years. AIM hosted 6.5bn in new issues this year, or 35 per cent less than last year.
AIM feels the pinch as small firms stay away from market

How will you profit in 2008? This page gives you expert predictions from the City. Read how shares, bonds, house prices, currencies and economies will perform.
Financial outlook 2008

NIKKEI	AUSTRALIA	SHANGHAI	HANG SENG

Half-day for all the major markets I believe.

Good morning traders!

In Asia today, the Hang Seng closed a truncated session ahead 442.05 points at
27,812.65. The Japanese market is closed for the day.

Have a successful end to 2007!

G.

TFN UK calendar and forecasts for todayTFN economic and business calendar to Friday Jan 11Thomson Financial Europe AM at a glance share guide: Stocks mixed, gold soarsAustralian shares close flat; indexes end year in negative territory - UPDATEAustralian shares close flat; indexes in negative territory on very thin volume

Thomson Financial UK at a glance share guide - weekend

The Monday Press Roundup

Thomson Financial UK at a glance share guide

London shares outlook - Touch higher amid position-squaring on New Year's Eve

RPT TFN economic and business calendar to Friday Jan 11

FTSE opens modestly lower

Metals - Gold hits 7-wk high as dollar slips, geopolitics fuel safe haven buying

Yesterday's Analysis selection for the "UPS" this week

JRVS price 16.75p

Increasing last Friday by 6 times the usual and most liklely any overhand has been cleared

Signs of the share price is on the turning for the last 10 days, on what could be a change of direction into UPTREND

Rumours of a bid are allways on the air as market cap of £33M plus £41M of debt is short of the valuation of around 350M sales

Despite lower full Year expectations, company said: "It still expects to record its best full-year result since 2003". Chairman bought 70,000 shares @ 20.5p a couple weeks ago

Chart for JRVS

Metals - Copper eases in thin trade as soft equities, US data weighLondon shares - midmorning features

FOCUS Carlsberg, Heineken under pressure to raise S&N bid as deadline looms

JSP 7.91 - 8p +0.30p

moving higher since last Friday after making a side way platform lately and looking like a double bottom

US futures edging higher today

Metals - Gold eases from 7-week high as dollar rebounds but geopolitics support

Precious Metals Summary - London AM Fixings