#FTSE #Nasdaq It proved easy to waste a few hours, speculating on the prospect of “X” (aka Twitter) being listed on the US markets again. For a Dow Jones listing, the company would obviously treasure the share epic of “X”, currently assigned to US Steel Corp, a share value which looks capable of tumbling from 38 dollars to 21 dollars. But on the Nasdaq, the moniker “X” remains unassigned. Given Mr Musks liking for the 24th letter of the alphabet, we wouldn’t be entirely surprised if he discovered a need to own a company capable of making big tubes on which to attach rocket motors.
Back in the day, it was also quite amusing to go skiing in Colorado, discovering at the last moment the resort was a “Visa” town or a “Mastercard” town. And of course, they would all boast cheerfully American Express and Diners Card were not welcome. Thankfully, it proved easy to visit a bank to withdraw a couple of dollars, ensuring cash was always available to pay for things. Thankfully, in the UK and Europe, this sort of nonsense ever broke out aside from many retailers refusing to take Amex or Diners, due to the processing costs. It was quite literally the case, when accepting Amex as payment for petrol or diesel, ensured the retailer made a loss on the transaction, due to processing costs.
Obviously, there are few companies with a cool single letter share code moniker and Visa with their “V” stand out quite prominently.
Visa and the companies latest travails with the US justice system, is worthy of a glance, their share price being trashed by over 5% on Tuesday.. The justice department in America has accused Visa of behaving like a monopoly, leading to a strong suspicion this is yet another case of the US Government engaging in what’s becoming known as “Lawfare”. The immediate candidate for the job of President, Harris, has made going after credit card companies part of her word salad program, arguing further competition is needed in the area of credit card processing to reduce prices. The politicians have finally figured out high transaction costs are passed onto consumers by retailers and with Visa controlling over 60% of the processing market, the company can therefore be accused of contributing to the higher cost of living in the USA. Given the timing of the announcement, we suspect this legal action shall be quietly dumped in legal mud, once the US election charade is complete.
Oddly, this is one of our specialist subjects with us writing software to interrogate specific credit card machines for several large companies throughout the UK. It was all pretty straightforward, generally our software accessing EFT (electronic fund transfer) machines at 11.15pm, collating the national data by 11.20pm, issuing potential fraud reports to area managers by 11.21pm, dumping the days relevant data to banks and credit card companies by 11.25pm. And of course, issuing smug statistical reports to senior management by 11.30pm. The entire system, dealing with over 3,000 retail outlets, was actually running on a desktop PC in my office at home but invariably, when a posse of grown ups from the clients wanted to view our “data centre”, we created a steel Faraday cage containing a pile of important looking servers with the requisite number of flashing lights. From a personal perspective, this was my first indoctrination into the costs of processing data. A few hours writing software, a few days creating a load of BS in important looking offices, and utter horror at the realisation the real processing cost for each transaction could be calculated against the charge for electricity. The cost of processing had been handled when the clients paid for their software and the cost of electricity was probably 1/1000th of a penny per transaction.
But the credit and debit card companies had teeth, debit card companies charging a single transaction fee whereas credit card companies would charge a percentage. And the oil companies restricted retailers to accept a 2% profit margin at best, a notion which has now thankfully changed. But it left the UK with an unpleasant number of fenced off derelict sites which once employed people selling petrol, groceries, and giving away free wine glasses…
The immediate situation for Visa (NYSE:V) looks like share price value below 272 risks promoting reversal to 262 and perhaps a bounce, due to the uptrend since 2022. Our Big Picture secondary, should such a level break, calculates down at 222 and a pretty confident hope for a rebound. However, we suspect 262 shall be “it” and shall probably designate the level at which the politicians stop posturing.
If things intend go right for Visa, it needs above 293.07 to signal the potential of further movement to 300 with our secondary, if beaten, at 329 and a pretty certain chance of some hesitation.
In summary, while we regard the entire cost of credit card processing being a complete rip-off, the reality is of companies being in the business to make money and nowadays, they dangle free everything to retailers with the hope their equipment is taken, trapping the retailer in a field of charges. Our preference would be the establishment of data handling companies, such as we provided back in the days of dinosaurs, with the giant credit and debit card companies being handed their data. To confirm, the cost of handling data was – from our perspective – a one-off payment which cleared several personal mortgages, credit card debts, and a load of other things. But once the company had our software, everything ran smoothly. Nowadays, we’d of course had the bright idea of a lower purchase price along with an annual service contract. It was one of our bigger “oops” moments but asking us about email software, speech recognition, Bluetooth headsets, or direct debits, is liable to provoke a few snarls. As a company, we screwed up in several areas before most folk knew they existed! To give a clue, Microsoft Outlook Express proved to be visually identical to some communication code we sold to the UK government. And yes, we still harbour a grudge.
FUTURES
| Time Issued | Market | Price At Issue | Short Entry | Fast Exit | Slow Exit | Stop | Long Entry | Fast Exit | Slow Exit | Stop | Prior |
| 9:53:33PM | DOW | 42152 | ‘cess | ||||||||
| 10:00:09PM | BRENT | 7447.8 | |||||||||
| 10:12:03PM | GOLD | 2656.77 | Success | ||||||||
| 10:15:38PM | FTSE | 8260.5 | 8250 | 8224 | 8193 | 8280 | 8317 | 8340 | 8387 | 8280 | |
| 10:20:11PM | STOX50 | 4936.6 | Success | ||||||||
| 10:22:49PM | GERMANY | 18990 | ‘cess | ||||||||
| 10:28:04PM | US500 | 5735.6 | |||||||||
| 10:30:44PM | NASDAQ | 19957.1 | |||||||||
| 10:34:35PM | JAPAN | 37867 | 37692 | 37309 | 36860 | 38010 | 38086 | 38199 | 38366 | 37807 | ‘cess |
24/09/2024 FTSE Closed at 8282 points. Change of 0.28%. Total value traded through LSE was: £ 5,379,835,021 a change of 25.1%
23/09/2024 FTSE Closed at 8259 points. Change of 0.35%. Total value traded through LSE was: £ 4,300,418,012 a change of -66.74%
20/09/2024 FTSE Closed at 8230 points. Change of -1.18%. Total value traded through LSE was: £ 12,930,077,535 a change of 99.09%
19/09/2024 FTSE Closed at 8328 points. Change of 0.91%. Total value traded through LSE was: £ 6,494,685,893 a change of -5.91%
18/09/2024 FTSE Closed at 8253 points. Change of -0.67%. Total value traded through LSE was: £ 6,902,679,441 a change of 22.65%
17/09/2024 FTSE Closed at 8309 points. Change of 0.37%. Total value traded through LSE was: £ 5,628,109,018 a change of 50.11%
16/09/2024 FTSE Closed at 8278 points. Change of 0.06%. Total value traded through LSE was: £ 3,749,335,232 a change of -16.44% 
SUCCESS above means both FAST & SLOW targets were met. ‘CESS means just the FAST target met and probably the next time it is exceeded, movement to the SLOW target shall commence.
Our commentary is in two sections. Immediately below are today’s updated comments. If our commentary remains valid, the share can be found in the bottom section which has a RED heading. Hopefully, this will mean you no longer need to flip back through previous reports. HYPERLINKS DISABLED IN THIS VERSION
Please remember, all prices are mid-price (halfway between the Buy and Sell). When we refer to a price CLOSING above a specific level, we are viewing the point where we can regard a trend as changing. Otherwise, we are simply speculating on near term trading targets. Our website is www.trendsandtargets.com.
UPDATE. We often give an initial and a secondary price. If the initial is exceeded, we still expect it to fall back but the next time the initial is bettered, the price should continue to the secondary. The converse it true with price drops.
We can be contacted at info@trendsandtargets.com. Spam filters set to maximum so only legit emails get through…
Section One – Outlook Updated Today. Click here for Section Two – Outlook Remains Valid shares
Click Epic to jump to share: LSE:BT.A British Telecom** **LSE:DGE Diageo** **LSE:EXPN Experian** **LSE:HIK Hikma** **LSE:HSBA HSBC** **LSE:RR. Rolls Royce** **
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Updated charts published on : British Telecom, Diageo, Experian, Hikma, HSBC, Rolls Royce,
LSE:BT.A British Telecom. Close Mid-Price: 149.55 Percentage Change: + 0.98% Day High: 149.85 Day Low: 147.85
Continued trades against BT.A with a mid-price ABOVE 149.85 should improv ……..
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View Previous British Telecom & Big Picture ***
LSE:DGE Diageo. Close Mid-Price: 2549 Percentage Change: + 0.89% Day High: 2560 Day Low: 2522
Further movement against Diageo ABOVE 2560 should improve acceleration to ……..
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View Previous Diageo & Big Picture ***
LSE:EXPN Experian Close Mid-Price: 3861 Percentage Change: -0.34% Day High: 3898 Day Low: 3782
Further movement against Experian ABOVE 3898 should improve acceleration ……..
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View Previous Experian & Big Picture ***
LSE:HIK Hikma Close Mid-Price: 1861 Percentage Change: -0.64% Day High: 1880 Day Low: 1861
Target met. Weakness on Hikma below 1861 will invariably lead to 1837p wi ……..
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View Previous Hikma & Big Picture ***
LSE:HSBA HSBC. Close Mid-Price: 672.2 Percentage Change: + 0.22% Day High: 683.4 Day Low: 671
All HSBC needs are mid-price trades ABOVE 683.4 to improve acceleration t ……..
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View Previous HSBC & Big Picture ***
LSE:RR. Rolls Royce Close Mid-Price: 526.6 Percentage Change: -0.68% Day High: 534 Day Low: 520.4
Target met. Further movement against Rolls Royce ABOVE 534 should improve ……..
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View Previous Rolls Royce & Big Picture ***