As the film The Perfect Storm rolls out across Britain the stock market is building its own meteorological momentum.
The market equivalent of the freak weather conditions that built up over the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, detailed in the film, have been developing for the past 18 months.
They have been referred to as an "arrow head" or "funnel" and reflect a period of declining peaks and rising troughs until equities reach a level of cyclonic status.
One analyst refers to a "coil" pattern where the spring becomes ever tighter. Chart analyst Mr Nick Glydon of Robert Fleming calls it a "triangle pattern", but whatever the terminology the longer the development the more savage the break-out is predicted to be.
Mr Glydon says that, in broad terms, the last time conditions brewed this way was in the early 1970s, before the oil crisis that led to soaring inflation and economic upheaval.
This time the prospect is brighter but very few analysts are prepared to jump yet.
And the chart picture has been skewed by the massive weighting in Vodafone AirTouch, the UK's biggest company. For example, Footsie was off 16.4 at 6,335.7 yesterday as US GDP data came in much stronger than expected.
On the other hand, two-thirds of the top 100 companies were up on the day and with the Vodafone impact removed the index could be said to be up about 14 points.
Yesterday's trading was a classic reflection of the overall picture. The latest bid - Granada Media for United News & Media's television interests - was not liked; technology, media and telecoms stocks refused to return to favour; banks languished in spite of decent figures from Lloyds TSB; and the market wallowed, rising in the morning and sliding back later on the US data.
Volume, which had been above two billion earlier in the year, remained down at 1.5 billion and the intraday range was less than 60 compared to a norm of more than 100.
More clues to the break-out could come next week with the latest Bank of England decision on rates and key US employment figures on Friday.
