FTSE for Friday: too scared to break above 9,000?
Independent analyst Alistair Strang has been unimpressed by recent blue-chip movements. Here are his latest forecasts for the UK's leading index.
30th May 2025 07:55
by Alistair Strang from Trends and Targets
As another week goes by with the FTSE 100 doing very little of interest, our inclination remains to examine reasons the market may not be exhibiting movement of any strength. Our conspiracy theory for the current lethargy remains being a suspicion the market is afraid that if things start to go up, a runaway series of gains could see the UK’s index accelerate upward by an astounding 7.7% to somewhere around 9,386 points.
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The entire concept is obviously daft, or would be if not for the number of occasions we’ve seen the market panic when the grown-ups realise they’ve let a share price drift below a major trigger level. It’s never a surprise seeing a share experience an unscheduled surge upward very soon after a serious drop trigger is enabled.
In the case of the FTSE 100, the index wandered above a serious gain trigger at the start of May, spending the intervening month wandering around. We’ve also been keeping a weather eye on the French CAC 40 index, which experienced a foul week, the index managing to close in a “lower low” position which doesn’t bode well for the start of June.
Returning to the FTSE 100, if “they” opt to open the gates and let the market run free, it’s now the case we should anticipate movement above 8,824 points as triggering market growth to an initial 8,900 points with our secondary, if exceeded, calculating at an eventual 8,990 points.
This secondary target level would be important, signalling a new Higher High and placing the index on a route which should eventually find its way to 9,386 points. If triggered, the tightest stop looks like 8,716 points.
However, if our suspicion of the markets casting around to discover an excuse to avoid a sharp 7.7% rise proves correct, weakness now below 8,700 points feels very capable of providing reversals down to an initial 8,645 points with our secondary, if broken, at 8,585 points.
Have a good weekend.
Source: Trends and Targets. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.
Alistair Strang has led high-profile and "top secret" software projects since the late 1970s and won the original John Logie Baird Award for inventors and innovators. After the financial crash, he wanted to know "how it worked" with a view to mimicking existing trading formulas and predicting what was coming next. His results speak for themselves as he continually refines the methodology.
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