499 days ago
Asset manager Lawrence Lepard of Equity Management Associates is another cheery fellow, viewing the world economy as a construct where the rivets holding it together are continuing to snap. He says that we have had a number of bank failures in a matter of weeks, part of a larger pattern going back years and we are seeing large commercial mortgage failures and companies walking away. Lawrence believes more pain is yet to come in the banking sector, with one to two trillion in write downs. He says that the Fed is likely to intervene once again, and something is likely to break soon.
743 days ago
Author and political risk analyst Larry McDonald says that he is concerned about the impacts of rate hikes in Japan and around the world. Central banks are very nervous because they can’t assess the damage inflicted by their policies for many months.
1192 days ago
If I run a company surely I get to decide where I operate as long as I am operating legally? Surely that is how capitalism works? You do not get the State telling a retailer, hotelier or restaurant chain owner that it must keep a given outlet open even if it is losing money so why the hell is the FCA trying to do just that with banks?
1238 days ago
Chris Irons, host of the Quoth The Raven, is an outspoken and entertaining fellow who is pretty much bang on the money most of the time. His core thesis is that modern financial systems are essentially nefarious schemes that benefit politicians and the wealthy.
1586 days ago
I am snowed under with work for MineProphets tomorrow and I have now bought a second new stock on the basis of videos I have taped. I shall reveal both stocks tomorrow at the show and you can grab your ticket for just £2.99 (worth it for these tips alone) HERE. Elsewhere in the show I discuss Asiamet (ARS), Boohoo (BOO), R4E (R4E) and wicked old, not so ethical Malcolm Stacey and HSBC (HSBA) and Standard Chartered (STAN) as well as the British banks.
1615 days ago
I have an announcement. Please keep July 18 free. All is explained in this podcast. Then I discuss the fraud Wirecard and the cult of the “star fund manager.” It seems that only 20% of shops will pay their rent on June 30th? Are the 20% mad? Why would anyone pay. I look at what this all means for the three parties at play: retailers, landords and banks.
1695 days ago
Some of you fell for my April Fool - wow! thanks for the messages of congratulation! In yesterday’s bearcast I argued that banks had to abandon paying dividends pro tem. Now under pressure they have agreed to do so. I now give you five little or big case studies showing why a banking crisis is inevitable. Then I look at Nostra Terra Oil & Gas (NTOG), Bluebird Merchant Ventures (BMV), where I am a very excited and supportive shareholder but think the chairman must be fired after today’s news, Bidstack (BIDS), Plutus Powergen (PPG) and the associated POS companies and Westminster Group (WSG) where repellent slug and ex Tory MP Tony Baldry of 3DM infamy shows again why he is the unacceptable face of capitalism.
1704 days ago
I start with a few personal thoughts on phoning my elderly relatives in the era of Coronavirus. Then I look at Versarien (VRS), Open Orphan (ORPH), Tasty (TAST), Burford (BUR) and Carson Block of Muddy Waters and N Brown (BWNG) which prompts me to ask when the taxpayer will have to bail out the banks?
1901 days ago
Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) has today issued a shocking statement “Debt facility”. It shows that its banks ae now getting nervous and pulling all the strings. Boy, Neil Woodford must be glad that he has already sold most of his shares. The news also has grim implications for the Equity Income Fund.
3181 days ago
Omce again Trinity Exploration (TRIN) has persuaded the banks not to bull the plug on its borrowings until March 11, at least. But that is not the real story accoriding to broker SP Angel and the meaning of its comment today should be clear to all. At 3.125p SELL.
3426 days ago
As I wander up to the most excellent Anthrapology café one last time for a leave Athens on a boat tonight to continue my odyssey, I stroll past three of four banks and they are open. Well sort of.
Pensioners are allowed in but to withdraw only 100 Euro. You can make a deposit if you wish but no-one is that daft. For those not yet in retirement it is the ATMs again and if anything the queues are longer than they were on Saturday and Sunday.
And why not? At the very worst you take out 60 Euro, stuff it under the mattress and in a few weeks convert it into nice new Drachmas and make a quick turn. At best you avoid losing 60 Euro when the bank goes bust or if the State confiscates your wealth via a bank bail-in. And so the ATM lines grow longer and will stay that way all day until the machines, or Greece, just runs out of cash, whichever is sooner
3539 days ago
Nominally I have a premium account with Barclays Wealth International in the Isle of Man. Given how most of its customers are multi-millionaire tax dodgers my tiny account (balance on Monday 90p because Darren forgot to pay me in full last month) must be a bit of an anomaly but still I am meant to get a premium service. If that is the case God help the rest of you with a “standard service”
After 30 minutes on the phone on Monday I had established why the ATM was refusing to give me cash. I said thank you and did not actually need to use the card again until Friday lunchtime when knowing that I had at least £600 (thanks to Darren paying and reclaiming an annual fee taken without my wish by Amazon) I offered to buy a bloke lunch. I was declined.
Kindly he paid but I shall repay him £68.40 at a later date. I insist.
On returning home I called Courtney my account manager in the IoM.
“Why are you calling me
3959 days ago
With the European Central Bank (ECB) the comedy never stops. You and I know that a material number of European banks and financial institutions are bust. Even a total Euro loon like Michael Heseltine does not, I suspect, stash any of his millions with Greek, Spanish, or Italian banks these days. But the ECB wants us all to think differently and with its 2014 stress tests is going to prove it. Oh yes.
Let me first take you back to October 23rd of last year when the ECB tried to reassure those of us who have our doubts about some of the banks in the PIIGS nations by saying that it in 2014 it would use “stricter” rules than before when testing the balance sheets of the Eurozone banks. There was a firm pledge to insist that all banks could show a capital ratio of 8%. How very prudent Mr Draghi.
Now wind forward to this week and the ECB is now saying (according to Bloomberg) that the Capital Requirement when it runs the balance sheets through a recession stress test will be 6%, i.e. the same as in 2013. Stricter? Er... perhaps not after all. But it means that the ECB will be able to show that nearly every bank is solvent even in a recession scenario and so we can all sleep safely in our beds. Stop worrying little people everything is okay.
And it gets better.
4175 days ago
This article appeared on Shareprophets yesterday and rather reinforces a lot of what I have written. As such I flag it up here.
The Government pretends that it is forcing banks to lend to the UK’s small businesses (SMEs). It is a lie. The money the Government has pushed to the banks is being used to inflate a housing bubble not to help SME’s grow, creating real sustainable jobs. A new study has confirmed just how, and by how much, the banksters are screwing UK small businesses.
4178 days ago
Jonathon Straight is CEO of AIM listed Straight PLC (STT). He is a reader of this blog, a good man and the owner of the most amazing moustache. He wrote about how the banks and the big 4 accountancy firms have done their utmost to roger his firm on his personal blog a week or so ago. That post has now disappeared. Odd that. His tale is shocking and shows that all the Government huff and puff about forcing the banksters to lend to small businesses (SMEs) is sheer poppycock. Jonathon writes:
I haven’t posted anything to this site for almost a year. The truth is I haven’t felt much like writing. I have been dealing with a problem for the past 18 months or so which has taken all of my time and energy. At times I have not believed what I have been seeing or hearing. It feels like a bad dream that I have just woken up from. The way that our bankers and their advisors have behaved has left me dumbfounded.
None of us in business has any protection from this coterie and it is high time that effective regulation was applied and that the cosy relationship between the big four audit firms and the big banks was properly dealt with.
4327 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 celebrate 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 today looks at HSBC.
see reports that US Mega bank JP Morgan has this week been taken to task by regulators for its lax internal controls. For those of us who remember when banks used to be in institutions that lent money and were considered safe and dull this serves as yet another reminder that those banks with a real advantage in the new regulatory world are those with a culture for what used to be called ‘probity’; the principal stock in trade of London’s ‘joint stock’ clearing banks for much of the last century.Barclays, under its new management, in a neo-Darwinian instinct for adaptation to the new conditions
4344 days ago
This Government, like all Governments, wants to rig the housing market. It calculates – correctly – that it garners short term electoral gain by pushing up house prices even if this involves wholesale pissing away of taxpayer’s cash and ultimately also directly and negatively impacts on the standard of living. One day this almighty con must stop. UK house prices are too high and Call Me Dave might reckon that he can buck the market that he can beat nature, but like King Canute he, or some other Prime Minister will ultimately fail in a spectacular fashion. This is a great con trick played by the political classes on you with your money. We all lose in the end.
Oh okay, before anyone quibbles about UK house prices being too high:
4377 days ago
The Daily Mail has its knickers in a twist about how young hard working couples cannot afford to get on the housing ladder without help from middle aged hard working parents ( er…Daily Mail readers). The Council for Mortgage Lenders says action is needed. And the Conservative Party panders to this anger saying the situation “is not right”. There is a hint ( to appease Daily Mail readers) from some shit for brains housing minister, Grant Prisk, that the Government will take steps to address the “problem”. They are all wrong – they promote a ponzi scheme because it is popular to do so.
That young folks cannot “get on the housing ladder” is undeniable. That is because a) the banks will not lend unless you have a hefty deposit and b) prices ( in terms of price to income ratios) are by historic standards and in absolute terms too high.
Given that prices are too high it is exceptionally prudent of the banks to require steep deposits and having done their conkers on more or less everything they touched it is in no one’s interest (least of all the taxpayer who actually owns most of the banks) to force or bully them into making reckless loans in this area too.
So the only way to address this problem is for house prices to fall.
4530 days ago
The banksters at Barclays have today been found guilty of what is, in effect, market abuse. They deliberately worked systematically to manipulate the LIBOR rate and so screwed millions of customers out of millions of pounds. This is just dreadful and Barclays shareholders will now pick up a bill of £290 million to clear up the mess. The scumbag who runs Barclays, Bob Diamond, and a few senior colleagues have agreed to forego their bonuses this year as part of the mea culpa. But that is not enough. Diamond should go.
4533 days ago
On Thursday night Moody’s, the credit ratings agency, downgraded its stance on many of the world’s biggest banks, including RBS, HSBC and Barclays. Cue headlines. Shock horror. But what does this all mean? Not quite as much as you might think.
The track record of the credit rating agencies is pretty piss poor. They thought Greece, Spain and Ireland were all safe enough bets until only a few weeks before the merde started hitting the fan. The average kebab salesman on the streets of Athens knew his country was a basket case before that was reflected in the ratings of the agencies. And so a warning that things have got tougher for the banks is hardly a great shock. Bad debts are increasing, economic growth is pedestrian at best, Europe is in crisis so this is not rocket science. What next? The Pope is a catholic/Call Me Dave is a clueless wimp/ Ireland are not going to win Euro 2012 – just take your pick
4537 days ago
If you had asked me to put a face to the name Jimmy Carr two days ago I would have failed miserably. But now, at last I know, what that annoyingly smug man who is always on the telly is called. I have learned something new and completely not worth learning. I have also learned that Mr Carr tells jokes about bankers avoiding paying tax whilst at the same time uses clever accountants to avoid paying tax himself. I have also learned that Mr Gary Barlow (hitherto regarded as some sort of saint in celeb land) plays the same game.
As far as I know Mr Barlow has never offered his views on ones fiscal duties and so he is no hypocrite. For Mr Carr I think that the case on hypocrisy is pretty much a slam dunk. But so what? I find it amazing that someone as annoying and not that funny earns as much as he appears to do but given my belief in market forces who am I to argue?
4538 days ago
The 11 O’Clock news on Radio 4 announced in disapproving tones that largely state owned RBS was axing 600 jobs. The facts are as follows ( as reported by the biased BBC). 1. Due to RDR changes 600 jobs in the RBS IFA operation will be culled. 2. The bank is largely state owned. 3. 350 jobs are being created elsewhere. 4. Unite (the union) says the cuts are draconian and appalling.
