RBS (RBS)


RBS shows the way the way that while making a call on banking shares may be great if you can get it right, the price action tends to turn on a dime – usually newsflow inspired, and that really one is forced to be a day trader. As far as the position now in the way of yesterday's spike in the shares is concerned one would be looking for a retest of recent range highs around the 38p, especially while there is no end of day close below the blue 50 day moving average / December price channel floor. Ideally, on this round though, we would take out 38p and head directly to the black 200 day moving average at just under 41p.

BP (BP.)


Although yesterday witnessed an overshoot below the floor of a rising trend channel in place since September on the daily chart of BP, the accompanying key reversal to the upside did suggest that in the normal course of events we have seen the floor on the recent retracement of the shares. The fact that there has been a gap down for the stock today reverses the technicals at least in terms of saying that while below the top of the gap down at 581p on an end of day close stop loss basis the risk is for a test of support as low as November's 562p intraday low. But only sustained price action under the 4 month support implies a major top is in place at BP.

M&S (MKS)


It was rather difficult not to write about Marc Bolland's GBP15m golden hello as reporting in the financial press today, especially as it appears that financial journalists do not mind obscenely large payments to executives as long as they are not bankers. The charting position of M&S actually seems to be quite golden as well in the sense that the shares are at the floor of a rising trend channel in place since July and level with the black 200 day moving average at 346p. The implication is that while there is no weekly close below 346p the upside for the shares should be towards 400p over the next couple of months.