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.

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.

British hedge funds to sue over short-sale ban: reports

By Michael Kitchen, MarketWatch
Last update: 2:38 p.m. EDT Sept. 21, 2008

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/british-hedge-funds-sue-over/story.aspx?guid=%7B5DE1279C%2DFA8F%2D4CA0%2DB0E4%2D65A45E5C7D4C%7D&dist=hplatest

lol........lets hope all the hedge funds go bust.....that would be hilarious

Nope dont think so.

Whos going to pick up the tab if they win there court cases..... yep the tax payer as per usual.

Most investers would have opened short positions if they thought they could make money, that's the name of the game to make money. A lot that is being said about it is sourer grapes. But the big players have been bending or breaking the rules/law.

Random thoughts;

The goose that lays the golden egg has been killed off.

The issue for me isn't shorting per se, it is the huge amount of leverage available to those who wish to short, and (I am sure I had this conversation with Cynic sometime ago) the increased availability of short positions through spread betting and cfd's etc.

Yep, the name of the game is to make money, but the tool for doing so, (the financial markets) were created and devised for the benefit of the whole economy and the corporations wishing to grow. They were never devised to make instant profits for the few.

The hedge funds will fail in their legal argument. The FSA has statutory obligation to protect and promote financial markets and make sure they are orderly. They have no obligation to protect the interests of market counterparty users of the markets, only retail purchasors.

The same leverage is available to those wishing to go long too hewittalan so it works both ways.

Indeed it does, Dil, but the difference is that leveraging an investment brings great benefit to a company, as its value rises exponentially, but leveraged shorting damages it beyond that which is true.
In truth, the chaos, meltdown and posiible slump all come down to a desire by everyone to live or generate profit, beyond their own means.
There are those who lambast banks for lending too high multiples, or to too risky propositions yet are happy enough to trade on margins etc.
One and the same, really.
When (if) this is all over, we may see a bull run of ridiculous proportions, on stocks and/or property, and this will be down to leveraging and will see many more get their fingers burned. Perhaps controlling the leveraging is as important as controlling the shorting.

Wouldnt mind but less than 3% of HBOS market cap was being shorted when the ban came into place. Not only that but banks have been shorting the ass off of each other over the last few months. How ironic.

There becoming a protected specis on incentive pay and selling to gullible types just to line there own pockets.

OK for Barclays traders and other bank traders to short eg, housing stocks but not vise versa. This ban will backfire badly.

Wheres the regulation from within?????????, hardly a jot mentioned from the banks over the last week or so.

Maybe the can get no win no fee deal from their legal teams

Ive seen it all now.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/investing-and-markets/article.html?in_article_id=452405&in_page_id=3

Beggars belief.

Goldfinger, d'you know what - it no longer surprises me when I read things like that! Sign of the times eh?!