Royal Bank of Scotland shares near breakout territory

Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE:RBS)

We relish our monthly visit to the Royal Bank of Scotland with similar delight to visiting a blind dentist. Though, to be honest, it's easy to harbour suspicion most dentists are visually impaired frustrated bricklayers. "So, how are the markets? Open a bit wider please," is still a sentence which rankles.

We've been mapping RBS against a downtrend which dates back to 2008 and, despite a couple of recent movements intraday which appeared to better the trend, exquisite care was employed to ensure the share closed each session below the blue line on the chart (see below).

This sort of behaviour tends to confirm - thankfully - we've been mapping the correct trend and allows us to mention closure above 286p should now suggest the start of a somewhat grudging climb toward 308p, initially, with secondary, if bettered, coming along at a longer term 362p.

However, we've ample reason to question why "they" are avoiding the price closing above the long-term downtrend. The immediate situation warns of weakness below 275p leading to 270p initially, perhaps 264p if broken.

Our fear, should 264p make a guest appearance, is of continued slippage, perhaps toward 251p and a challenge of the 'red' uptrend. It's quite strange in some respects as the flurry of traffic above the 'blue' downtrend tends to hint quite strongly that RBS share price actually wants to go up.

Of course, this will prove quite a surprise to Alistair at Trends and Targets who, despite his financial interest in RBS, has tended to lose all interest.

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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