A gloomy outlook for this US tech giant

Twitter (NYSE:TWTR)

A surprise weekend away to steal the sunshine provided a humorous return to reality in Scotland. Driving from the somewhat ambitiously named "Oban Airport ('jet free')" back to our international headquarters (aka the house), a good idea was to leave us stranded.

As it's summer, the weather up here in Argyll was vile, each raindrop trying to prove it was fatter than its predecessor.

A castle, somewhat worn down to rubble due to the plethora of photo opportunities wearing the building down, on Loch Awe was followed by a potential right turn to Inveraray.

It's an absurdly pretty village in Argyll where it never rains, you can always get parked, and, more importantly, the road we'd chosen would avoid tourist motor homes and caravans. It winds up one side of a near mountain, then gives a fast giant slalom down to the pretty village.

Just a couple of fast bends away from the archway into the town, hazard lights illuminated our future. Once 10 minutes had elapsed, a decision was made to walk downhill to investigate the cause.

It transpired Twitter and YouTube had invoked a traffic jam.

The road was flooded with a stream having burst its banks. But the real issue was the bank of smartphones being trained on vehicles attempting to float their way through the muddy water, presumably along with a dash cam inside the Ford Focus creating an impressive bow wave as it punched its way onward.

There was a cheer once it exited the maelstrom and, somehow, no-one noticed it spluttering to a halt a few hundred yards along the road.

Next came the inevitable MPV, a Daihatsu, and this one seemed at least competent as it came slowly with a high-revving engine. As he drove past the camera audience, the driver's door opened to allow some water out.

Shortly thereafter, he was blocked by the immobilised Ford Focus - now discovering the highlands of Scotland are not the best place to get a phone signal when broken down.

A massive cheer announced a back-packers' mini-bus was attempting the flood, the terrified-looking driver almost making it before the vehicle came to a halt just a few feet away from safety.

The road was now thoroughly blocked in both directions, partially by a flood but realistically due to Twitter and YouTube pressures as the need for a good movie clip to immortalise a holiday had seemed over-ride common sense.

After around an hour, whatever had jammed up the drains cleared and within five minutes the flood was a memory, only spoiled by broken down vehicles on both sides of the memory jamming the road and trapping around a dozen cars including ourselves.

It was to prove a recipe of endless amusement for traffic police vehicles which eventually arrived to sort this incompetence. The return journey to our international headquarters was to take six rather than two hours.

How we laughed. However, a bemused family of Germans allowed me to renew my language skills in an attempt to describe cold fury to fellow trapped travellers.

It also begs the question as to why Twitter's share price looks like it intends a hopeful bottom around $12.33. If this level breaks, the absolute bottom calculates at $7.62. To utterly cancel this prospect, the share price needs to break above $20.

We think the bounce point shall prove to be $12.33 and a tuppenceworth glance at timeframe logic suggests sometime around the end of August. If $12.33 breaks, we'd be somewhat nervous about $7.62 as it could be much worse.

If there are to be any suggestions our gloomy outlook could prove incorrect, anything near term bettering $17.9 is supposed to bring $18.7. Only if £18.7 bettered shall we feel inclined to indulge a panic review of our $12.33 bottom thinking.

Finally, it's August. Who wants to read about share prices only? Or write about 'em!

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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