I haven't been this badly caught out since the earliest days of the Credit Crisis though, so clearly I've dropped the ball somewhere of late. I like being a bit ahead of the curve and I think what went wrong this time was Obama's sudden decision to announce a bank retribution plan overnight. It's one thing watching what China and Greece are up to and taking a view, but quite another when a politician does something reckless in the name of a cheap political gain. I should have seen that coming after the shock in Massachusetts, but I was too consumed in my liberal rage to think through the consequences :-)

Still, if you're doing the same as everyone else in this game you're one of the 90% of traders who loses money. 'Vive la diffence' - or 'it's OK to be a muppet sometimes'. I think.

TT- I've made surprisingly little on recent short-term shorts in the last couple of weeks so I can relate to that! I think Nomura might have been making some negative comments on LLOY this morning so it's good if it has shaken those off. My system here says that the recent analyst price target average is 80 so currently trading at a 35% discount to that. Mind you, HMV trading at -42% so what does it know? :-)

Probably a lot more than me!
I agree with you about politicians and their big mouths looking for a juicy, and irrelevant, soundbite for the media. Still, we have to put up with them and very occasionally they help the prices rise!
The US had a bad week last week and we are now into a new Month. Perhaps we shall see a bit of a recovery from here? I haven't checked out this week's economic figures so don't have a clue if there is anything significant due out. The weekend papers were talking about banks announcing results soon so you can expect a lot of media and political hype if they make money or pay bonuses, But isn't that what businesses do? And that should be what the politicians want as if the banks get stronger they can sell their "investments" at a profit and tell everyone how sensible it was to invest in them in the first place. Oh how fickle a politician is especially with an election looming.

The banks seem to be damned if they do and damned if they don't at the moment. Still, I'm no fan of the slash-and-burn capitalism the bonus culture creates and I think that's part of the problem. Credit Suisse were talking BARC running a massive capital deficit and maybe needing to raise 23bn(!) to meet new tier-one requirements last week - its a problem shared by other banks and yet most are pressing on regardless with distributing short-term profits to the select few at the top while leaving the capital requirement questions until a later day. It's exactly this type of thinking that got the banks into this mess and I understand why the politicians are privately infuriated by their behaviour.

I'm not convinced this tier-one business has completely gone away and last week wondered if we were a simple change in sentiment away from a second banking crisis. The immediate panic has passed again so let's hope nothing else goes wrong. I think I did quite well out of the Credit Crisis in the end, but I don't need to live through all that again!

Midday Market Overview

LSE Retail Bonds Microsite

72NS XS0097283096 BR.TEL.5T%BDS28 GBP 90.74 0.00 +0.00 Chart
33GL XS0052067583 BR.TEL.8FE% GBP 118.23 0.00 +0.00 Chart
42PU XS0123682758 BRIT.TEL.NTS16 GBP 118.65 0.00 +0.00 Chart
CV11 GB0002215225 CONV.9% 11 GBP 111.59 0.00 +0.00 Chart
47VU XS0163019143 ENTER INNS 2018 GBP 88.85 0.00 +0.00 Chart
34MD XS0381559979 GE CAP.UK 18 GBP 110.93 0.00 +0.00 Chart
AG99 XS0140516864 GLAXOSMSC 5.25% GBP 99.90 0.00 +0.00 Chart
68IH US617446HS12 MORGAN ST.5.375 GBP 105.54 0.00 +0.00 Chart
BD56 XS0094073672 NAT.GRID 5.875% GBP 104.34 0.00 +0.00 Chart
RB51 GB00B3N3WC23 ROY.BK.SC.20 GBP 99.63 0.00 +0.00 Chart
31CL XS0159013068 TESCO5.50% NT19

A tentative test of Barclays and Selftrade suggests that neither are supporting the trading of retail bonds at the moment.

End-of-day Market Overview