ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND GROUP PLC is within a rising trend. Continued positive development within the trend channel is indicated. The stock has broken up through the resistance at pence 50.00. A further rise to 100p (1) is predicted in the medium term. The stock is assessed as technically positive for the medium long term.

Good luck -

Bonus storm as losses hit 7bn at Royal Bank of Scotland


ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND is about to announce losses of more than 7 billion for 2009 but will still hand out enormous bonuses to its investment bankers.

State-controlled RBS is in the final throes of negotiations with the Treasury over its bonus scheme. The talks are expected to conclude within 10 days, ahead of the publication of the banks full-year results.

The Treasury is expected to approve a total bonus pool of about 1.3 billion despite the expected losses. The move will spark a fresh furore over payments at banks that were bailed out by the taxpayer.

RBS is 84%-owned by the state thanks to huge injections of government funds. It is also being supported by a government-backed insurance scheme, which has helped to restore market confidence in the bank.

Analysts think RBSs losses will total 7 billion after a 14 billion hit on bad debts. Huge losses have been suffered on loans to businesses, on property deals and on complex derivatives. Once exceptional items are taken into account, these should be cut to 5 billion.

The only part of the bank expected to do well is its controversial investment-banking arm, which is on track to make billions of pounds in profits.

The profits are one of the key factors that will allow the bank eventually to be returned to the private sector, say analysts.

The return of bonuses across the City in recent months Goldman Sachs, the American investment bank, handed its chief executive Lloyd Blankfein $9m (5.8m) on Friday has heaped pressure on RBS to make big payouts to its investment bankers to stop them being poached by rivals.

RBS has lost more than 1,000 of its top performers to rivals in the past year. It has also sacked hundreds more associated with the worst of the record losses of 28 billion the bank racked up in 2008.

Stephen Hester, chief executive, has said he will pay investment bankers the minimum we can get away with. Hesters own pay package is under review by shareholders trying to tighten incentive targets that could have seen him earn up to 10m over five years.

A number of banks, including Barclays Capital, UBS and Morgan Stanley, have raised salaries by as much as 100% for some staff in exchange for reduced bonuses.

Hester has told UKFI, the body that handles the governments investment in banks, it should stop comparing the level of bonuses RBS pays out with rivals. He wants it to compare total pay levels instead.

RBS is expected to pay about 30% of its investment-banking revenues to staff, compared with 36% at Goldman Sachs and 50% at many other banks.

Back to 50ma

what do you mean back to 50ma

The red line is the 50 day moving average.

i think skinny means up to the 50dma as it has already dropped below

do you think its heading upwards

It is heading somewhere.

Time will tell!

A sell tip on uk-analyst I received via email: www.uk-analyst.com

maybe maybe not ..... i sold a slab yesterday at a decent profit and am contemplating my navel about the balance, which is also well in the money

same here, not the fall i thought there would be today. still made good money.

i have now sold the whole lot and at a good profit ...... figures are out tomorrow, so there may be quite a lot of "selling on news", but having said that, no doubt sp will zip away, just to be contrary

i like that prediction cynic......hope so.....

cynic-why should the sp fall on what is most likely to be a positive set of results with a bullish statement about paying back the loan quicker than expected. can only see this going higher tomorrow.

Followed by LLOY on friday.........difficult to predict, but could be a very bullish couple of days for banks (says he hopefully in anticipation of a double whammy for LLOY), though not expecting anything near the earlier results from BARC.

yuff - see bdev!

looks like we got it wrong again cynic.....38p at mo

i bought some back late yesterday afternoon, cynic admitted rather sheepishly.

even if i hadn't, i would still have put good money in the bank, and am now wondering whether to do the same again or to hang on to the shares - 40 is 200 dma

Market expected losses of 5B but it was only(!) 3.5B but as cynic said everything is contrary in this market so wouldn't be surprised to see the sp down at end of the day!

Hopefully not ..

'The impairment rate seems to have peaked'-----having a laugh aren't they? Whilst that may be the case atm due to very low interest/mortgage rates, do they honestly believe the impairment rate is going to fall as interest rates rise and, the tax take increases, then there's the small matter of servicing credit card debt.
2517

decided that 350 on 5000 was a good return o'night, so sold at 38.51 .... following US jobless numbers, might well have been a good move, but shall probably buy back in due course, though it doesn't look as if it will be today