848 days ago
As you sweat in your place of work trying to earn an honest crust, think of the banksters who list so many crap AIM and Standard Listed stocks for you to lose money on. What are they doing today? It seems that at least one has now decided what sort of champagne to swill and as he rests at his luxury Cornish second home, Mr Andrew Monk of VSA Resoiurces has time on his hands and tweets of his arduous day ahead.
881 days ago
After his senior role at disgraced broker, Daniel Stewart – enabling China frauds including Naibu – Paul Shackleton should have been banned from financial services. Instead, he is now earning a six-figure wedge at Peel Hunt. But the morally bankrupt bankster is getting a bit forgetful.
884 days ago
For millions of our fellow citizens, the tough choices every day are whether to feed the kids or to pay the fuel bill. Or whether to make do with shoes with holes in them or trousers with holes in them. But for some, like banksters from London with second homes ( pricing out local young folks) in Cornwall, there are other tough choices. If folks in the City wonder why they are so despised, perhaps the tweet below reminding us all of bankster “tough choices” might be a clue. Welcome to a great advert for a windfall tax on investment banksters.
1502 days ago
Coming to you from Shipston, I discuss Andy Hornby and why he is a posterboy for the unacceptable face of capitalism at the Restaurant Group (RTN) and also the news from Cineworld (CINE) – told y’all! As the shares are set for a Monday crash, I discuss the systemic failure of the media to understand the issue at hand and especially the guilt of the Sunday Times in losing folks’ money.
1527 days ago
700,000 folks have lost their jobs since the start of lockdown. And as furlough unwinds and as Boris plunges us, for no reason, into another lockdown there will be many more having to sign on. Among those folks who have kept their jobs many have seen pay ciuts. Just two sectors have seen pay rises: the public sector including the BBC (natch, as they are all frigging heroes) and banking and finance. Showing an honourable candour, Andrew Monk the boss of VSA Capital admits as much below.
1582 days ago
AFC Energy (AFC) is the debate of the day and I start with a few thoughts on the problems of valuation. I end with another zeitgeist theme – the self-entitlement of the public sector and where that leaves we wealth creators. In my case, it is thanking God that retirement is not that far away!. In between, I ponder whether we will have a full blown banking crisis to dethrone folks like Alison Rose, the virtue signalling poltroon running NatWest, and other top banksters.
2034 days ago
RBS (RBS) has announced that after five and a half years of earning a basic salary of a million quid a year plus numerous bonuses, LTIPs etc, Ross McEwan has resigned from his role as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Executive Director. We are told that bankster fat cat Ross is on a 12 month notice period.
2639 days ago
I am no particular admirer of my Oxford contemporary, the pompous MP for somewhere in Somerset, Jacob Rees Mogg. But my fellow residents of the Hellenic Republic should at once establish a committee to erect statues of the pin stripe suited buffoon in every town square in our great land. The heroes of 1821 should stand shoulder to shoulder with the man who has arrived at a solution to our economic misery and enslavement by the fucking Germans, sorry I meant the EU, and banksters. Jacob Rees Mogg is the new Byron.
3055 days ago
There is much commentary in the USA about the revulsion that so many folks feel for the three intertwined pillars of the status quo of the establishment: the political class, the big businessmen who fund/buy that class and the media pundits who take the political/business spin without question. I would perhaps add a fourth pillar, the banksters, but perhaps they are rolled into business fat cats. The massive distrust and resentment of these people seems to be evident across the West. That Americans may well vote for Donald Trump who is, shall we say, not exactly the new Abraham Lincoln, is a sign of this, Brexit was another as is the rise of the frightful Marine Le Pen in France.
And so we come to the coronation of Theresa May
3056 days ago
Having trotted out a load of left wing tosh about how she planed to trainwreck the private sector in order to bring the nation together, Theresa May has today moved forward with her project to rebrand conservatism. No longer will it be the Nasty Party. It is now just an increasingly "silly party"
3057 days ago
Jeepers this is confusing: listening and watching Theresa May yesterday I was told that she has just become leader of the Conservative Party and will be our next Tory Prime Minister. So why was she sounding like a socialist but also a peddler of bogus religion? If this is the best the Tories can offer then, to quote a real Tory Margaret Thatcher, There IS No Alternative. TINA says it is time to quit and emigrate.
It is not that Mrs May is already speaking weasel words on Brexit. She states Brexit means Brexit but then waffles on about how we may have to accept certain things to get free trade. Mrs May we voted for full on Brexit, not Brexit light.
It was not the quasi evangelical clap trap
3059 days ago
Before every big election there are always a few luvvies who threaten to emigrate if the reactionary forces of nationalism and eveil capitalism (which have made them so stinking rich) are seen to triumph. That is to say we the plebs are told vote Labour/Remain or the luvvies are off. Paul O'Grady, aka drag Queen Lily Savage. notably said he'd flee the UK and his luxury London apartment and Kent farmhouse if the wicked Tories won in 2015.
O'Grady has, of course, refused to leave. What is his problem?
3073 days ago
Oh dear. Hilary Benn was sacked by Comrade Corbyn for plotting against him last night. Now shadow Health Secretary Heidi Alexander ( who?) has quit. It seems more shadow ministers will follow and they all want Corbyn out - what don't these folks get about democracy?
Loyal members across the land, and a few folk like me who just wanted to show fraternal solidarity with Jezza, elected the bearded loon last year. Okay Labour backed the losing ticket in the referendum but those wanting to oust Comrade Corbyn were the real Euro loons who forced the Eurosceptic leader to jump onto a sinking ship.
It is the ousters who were enthusiastic supporters of the evil Blairite regime that really
3073 days ago
There are three bearcasts today on Independence day. The first looks at how the little people, the have nots told the elite where to stick it. This could start a trend across the EU for we plebs in the UK have more in common with the plebs of France or Holland than with our own elite of media, business, political, artistic, academic and bankster interests. The same is true across the channel. I discuss why the mood is so angry and after 41 years this is family business finished and I celebrate.
3160 days ago
Down at Canary Wharf it seems that some City boy banksters are happy to pay £925 a pop for the UK's most expensive kebab. The Hazev turkish restaurant tries to justify the price by sating that its donner is made from the finest Japanese Wagyu beef, fresh morel mushrooms and 25-year-old Italian vinegar. Whatever. Is it really worth 190 times what you'd pay for a kebab on the back streets of Poplar just a mile up the road? I doubt it.
So who is buying?
3342 days ago
This is the video of the debate between myself and the Evil bankster ( a nice guy actually) on the Motion The National Living Wage Screws the Poor. I spoke for the motion and modesty prevents me from revealing the result...you will have to watch until the end.
3496 days ago
This is a stonker of an AIM casino disaster – a story of greed, stupidity, investors being misled and, as it’s the AIM casino, of private investors taking an almighty rogering. Meet Arria NLG.
Arria NLG (NLG) is a tech company set up by a former bankster Stuart Rogers. Almost entirely without revenues, the company was none the less able to raise c$40 million from institutional investors in the two years leading up to its IPO on December 5 2013. The last of those fundraisings was at £1 a share so when it listed this company had a market cap of £102 million.
No revenues to speak of but amazing technology and a (tiny but let’s not talk about the numbers) contract with Shell and the deadwood press lapped it up. The Financial Times had the IPO as its front page story and the shares
3519 days ago
We all knew it was going to happen but today Rand Paul has announced that he is running for President. The Senator is the son of the great Ron Paul (pictured) and being a bit more of a politician than his Dad makes his libertarianism slightly compromised but he is still streets ahead of the field. In his first campaign email he promises that when he wins he will pledge:
Term limits to get rid of the career politicians.
Require Congress to read legislation before they actually vote on it—read the bills!
Audit the Fed—we deserve to know what's happening with our money.
Pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution—no more adding trillions in debt—time to pay it down.
Boldly overhaul the tax code—no more loopholes for the biggest corporations with the best lobbyists—give workers a tax cut.
The last point is great. Libertarians
4342 days ago
Robert Sutherland Smith started his City career the year before I was born. He is, I think, 157 years old. He and I have worked together for almost eight years. at t1ps He is my friend and he is a very funny and intelligent chap. He is now branching out to celenrate his 158th by doing some freelance writing over at TradingResearchPoint on FTSE 350 Income stocks. He is a great one for focussing on yield. He is also going to do a monthly column for me on this blog on the subject that really interests him, life on Hampstead Heath. I am sure we all look forward to “Pond Life.” RSS kicks off with his take on Barclays Bank and those wicked banksters.
Because the yield is too low for a bank (in historic terms), Barclays Bank (BARC)shares are clearly viewed by the market as a ‘momentum’ stock; the elementary investment principle being, that because the shares are going up, buy some more? So good so far as it goes; but an increasingly insufficient justification as a share price rises, further discounting whatever it is the future holds. As the late, great lamented philosopher, Sam Goldwyn, taught us! ’Never make forecasts – particularly about the future!’ Had he had been alive to run the Federal Reserve Bank in the in the 1990s and not a picture studio, we might have avoided a lot of trouble.
The possibilities for banks and the banking model generally, have been given a boost with the latest results and share price performance of the Bank of America. Having been in a dreadful condition, BoA has just proved itself the best performing US bank in terms of an annual share price rise – up116% over one year
4454 days ago
I have banked with Barclays all my life as has my dad and as did his dad. I worked there for a while. And so it is pretty hard for me to contemplate moving – I am not a hard customer to retain, there is a lot of inertia. So when the new CEO of Barclays, Alan Jenkins, writes to his staff saying that they should think about their customer’s feelings, I dismiss it as PR blather. Of course it is nothing more than that from the man who replaces bankster Bob Diamond. Barclays treats its customers like shit, just like all the other banks – as I am finding to my cost right now. I am thinking I may move not because the staff do not think about my feelings but because they are useless.
4488 days ago
This is not a reference to the Banksters. They will take another Greek haircut in due course when Hellas eventually defaults. Today it was my turn for a Greek haircut. This is an odd neighbourhood of Athens. We have a corner store (not actually on the corner but 3 doors down) manned by a nice Lady from Bangladesh. Needless to say she is open all hours, the Greek stores are not. Perhaps racist triple jumpers from the Nazi Golden Dawn party would care to explain why this lady’s presence is so bad for the Greek economy?
Next door is the hairdresser. She insisted on me taking an action shot. Well she gesticulated. Thank heavens she only spoke a few words of English. And so after “Olympics…London.. smile” to which I replied “all too awful” which she did not understand I enjoyed a haircut in silence.
4512 days ago
Health Officials never tire of telling us how to run our lives and seeking ways of flushing taxpayer’s cash down the toilet. Rarely does it have any effect other than to add the flab that is Central Government and all its works. Today’s claim (plucked from thin air and with absolutely no evidence to support it whatsoever) is that the imposition of VAT on 5 a side soccer will make Britain fatter. You doubt that health officials are daft enough to make such a claim? It is in the Daily Telegraph so it must be true. I quote:
4522 days ago
A few folks seem to think that my Barclays bearishness is wrong and that this stock is as cheap as chips. Presumably that would be chips from the Casino that is Barclays Capital. We shall see what happens to the share price on a one year view. But to counter the points of the stock market optimists, I offer up a few more thoughts.
The bull thesis is that Barclays trades on a PE of 7, yields 3.75% and has a net asset value of £3.50 per share upwards and that it should thus be bought because all the hoo-hah about rate fixing, Bankster Bob Diamond etc means that the stock is oversold relative to fundamentals. I know this to be the view of the bear raider Evil Knievil and others who are not daft but I disagree.
4524 days ago
I was going to run with something about Liam Fox thinking about coming out. That is to say about his comments this week about Britain coming out of the EU – I would not you to think I was suggesting anything else. But I just could not get my words out in a straight and open manner.
And so we turn to the man of the week: Bankster Bob Diamond (ex Barclays) for this week’s tastless caption contest. Tweet your suggestions (the more tasteless the better as long as they are remotely funny) to @tomwinnifrith – deadline is 4 PM Monday and the winner gets one of our special Piss off Argentina mugs.
For what it is worth my entry is: “ Yes I did say that Barclays was number 1 for fixed rates.” I am sure that you can do better. Competition, as ever, only open to those following me on twitter
4527 days ago
Yesterday after some bloke no-one has ever heard of quit as Barclays chairman I wrote:
Barclays is no doubt paying some bright PR firm megabucks to “manage this crisis.” So the company started with the idea that Diamond would forego his bonus this year. Now we have the bloke whose name I have already forgotten walking the plank even though he had no idea what was going on. And this afternoon we are being fed the line that the regulators knew about what was happening and thought it was a good idea. This is all aimed to distract us from calling for the head of Bob Diamond.
