Not sure if this thread will catch on, because no-one here seems to have much to say about individual british banks, but thought i would add this header to see if we could discuss dividend yields, exposure to sup-prime, good ones, bad ones, take-over targets, when the crisis will end? do you think they have learnt their lesson? I, for one, as a property developer have seen first hand how much stricter they have become with lending habits, struggling to get decent rates for re-mortgaging, basically they appear scared to lend to anyone.

Fed had to allow Lehmans to fail, this is how a capitilist system should work. Will be a very volatile few weeks, but I wonder if we will look back and see this week as a low point but also a turning point in this economic cycle.

Can see Bradford and Bingley getting snapped up by another foriegn bank at these levels, and I bet all Alliance and Leicester holders wish they'd got there fingers out ant got the Santander offer sorted. Some good news will surface before the days out. But not be before the big institutions fill their boots at our expense :-(

mitzy - just seen hbos why they taking such a battering in relation to the others - looks a bit overdone to me.

Yes nord Hbos down 17% today I reckon they could fall another 25% due to the Lehman crisis.

am in LLOY. have a little spare cash and wondering whether to top up or pick one of the other banks. or should i wait a day or two and see if they keep falling. they will all go back eventually. i am only investing small amounts monthly so ave down isnt a problem but trying to get most for my small investment.
anyone care to share their tuppence worth.
Alex

Banks what a day bought HBOS at 180 wish I had bought more now at 213

I,ve been in and out of BB. all day - nearly doubled my holding for same amount of money, still got a few days of this I should think, just keep increasing by selling off half when it blips up and buy a shed full more when it drops back down - Will have a field day when it turns.

always the time to buy, when you and everyone around you is crapping them selves... headlines are that the earth is going to implode... lol

Some people will have made a lot of money today !!! I feel sorry for Joe Soap who will get home tonight and check is nest egg to see its plummeted while he's been working all day and not been able to do a thing about it. God knows what we did before computers :-)

This is better than horse racing !

anyone care to speculate which way the banks will go tomorrow?

I sold my lloy and hbos to protect a very small profit[more by luck than judgement] My intent was to hold for long term but got a bit concerned by the seriously fluctuating markets.

I still like lloy and also barc as I think they have managed to pick up some bargains but not sure when to get back in. ie do I wait until the dust has settled and pay a bigger SP or gamble now and hope I choose the right bank?

anyone care to chuck their tuppence worth in? [opinions only]

Alex

I'm not being funny but "gamble now and hope". If thats part of your thinking have you considered premium bonds?

To have a reasonable chance at this game can I suggest you firstly work out a strategy that doesn't have "gamble and hope" in it. That way you will have a better chance of being successful.

Probably a contentious view but I think in the long-term the HBOS purchase by Lloyds will be considered one of the deals of the century.....

uk will be bankrupt soon

Agree with you queen1.


scotinvestor- I expect your mate Hornby is in for a good pay off. He seemed to be smiling all over his face when the was shaking hands with Lloyds ceo Daniels at the press conference.

hornby is getting about 2 million quid in shares!!!

disgusting, obscene and sickening.........this may sound bad but i hope he gets terminal cancer soon in life and dies in agony.

oh......and whats going to happen to bank of scotland currency?
and whats going to happen to pensions?
i'm sure lloyds wont give a stuff but this has to be sorted out.

i said all year that hornby knows NOTHING about banking.....hbos have taken on a dimwit.....just cos he went to harvard doesnt make him brainy........at end of day, its a yorkshire building society with dimwits on board that have collapse a very profitable bank with more than 300 years of honest, old fashioned banking.........actually it was based on a COMMUNIST set-up with employees paid on what bank thought u could survive on......but u couldnt, lol......thats how the old bank made money.....that and talking to customers which sadly doesnt happen with these damn computers taking over.

i better stop or i'll be advocating stalin to take over soon

hornby better look out for the scottish mafia

Hmm...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1058825/Share-sharks-190m-profits-HBOS-trading-minutes-BEFORE-BBC-announced-Lloyds-TSB-rescue.html

Interesting article which explains it better:

"Those who argue for unrestricted short-selling ignore the fact that the system is loaded in favour of the bears. If an individual invests 1,000, or an institution 1m, in the shares of a troubled company because they think in the long term it will recover, they have deployed their capital, and all they can do is wait. There is no more to invest; their resources are finite.
If a short-seller comes on the scene, his resources are in effect infinite because he first borrows the shares he then sells. Given that the revenue from the sale is more than the borrowing cost of the shares, he has no net capital constraint and can continue indefinitely - so much so that in one celebrated case a few years ago, one person shorted 250% of a company's equity, though he did get into trouble for it.

If the target is a bank, the dice are even more loaded. As the selling drives the share price down, two things happen.

First, the rating agencies announce a review of the credit rating, or worse a downgrade. This will force the bank to sell assets to shore up its capital position, and will set alarm bells ringing. At the same time, other banks will get nervous about dealing with it as a counterparty and either curb their business or charge more, thereby weakening the target bank still further.

Short-selling becomes self-fulfilling because the tumbling share price erodes confidence in the bank, and that weakens so it is worth less - until the ultimate cataclysm when people start queuing in the street to withdraw their money, at which point it is doomed and the authorities have to nationalise it.

However, in doing this it is politically impossible for them to bail out the shareholders. So they take the bank over for nothing - or get it rescued at a much-reduced price - thereby wiping out the long-term investors who are the bedrock of the system, handing massive rewards to the short-sellers who have done the damage and leaving the taxpayer to finance the clean-up.

On the way, they have destroyed a business that did not need to be destroyed. So yes. It is time short-selling of banks was banned. "

aye goldfinger........uk is full of corruption these days just like dodgy countries around the world but maybe to a diluted version.