ANYONE KNOW WHY THE ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND IS SHOWING A SHARE PRICE AROUND THE 6.59 MARK WHEN IT WAS 18.00 OR SO THE OTHER WEEK OR AM I GOING STRANGE?????????????

Afternoon all.

From my simple view of how the Banks operate, they have been packaging up 'liabilities' and selling them on to others as 'assets' and they have been caught out. But even worse than that, they have supposedly had 'security' of the property at one end and they have had 'insurance' of the Freddie and Fanny variety at the other end. And they still are 'bleating'.

OK, take the hit and move on, but please don't ask Joe Public for 'more cash' to do the same. Sounds like a bunch of wide boys to me.

For what it's worth, not all banks are struggling, just those that have no money of their own. :-)

Anyway, I found this little gem, which to me shows RBOS is on the right track.


'Royal Bank of Scotland and Riyad Bank confirmed for Ras Tanura'

'Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Saudi Arabias Riyad Bank have been confirmed by Saudi Aramco as the financial advisers on the $26bn Ras Tanura refinery and integrated petrochemical project.'

Now thats real Asset building.

Theres plenty of dosh about if you ask me , this was released earlier.

LONDON (Reuters) - German ball bearings manufacturer Schaeffler Group has secured a multibillion syndicated loan backing its hostile 11.5 billion euro ($18.27 billion) bid for German car parts giant Continental AG banking sources said on Monday.

The banks leading the fully underwritten loan are mandated lead arrangers Commerzbank, Dresdner, HVB, LBBW, Royal Bank of Scotland, which is acting as co-ordinator, and UBS, bankers close to the deal said.

rooms gone a bit quiet - no one got any opinions ahead of tomorrows results??

Guessing, but would expect their sub prime (etc) provisions to be greater than Barclays announced today.

only 10:35 50 million shares trade 27/23 in favour of buys - so does that tell uds that the results are maybe gonna be better than the doom and gloom forecast in the press? someone is buying???

Don't know. Got rid of all my rights in this rally and also traded the shares.

Can't help feeling the bank rally has ended and miners will be back in vogue but who knows.

Could be a good trading day IF the B of E don't change rates

well its now 12:04 no change to interest rates - no mad selling 71 million shares traded - 37/34million in favour of buys.... looks like another heavy volume day.
even my resistence levels on charts have been smashed of late - looks like we could get a nice rally?? then again tomorrow might change things?

Big loss reported but about half of what a consensus of 6 analyst average predictions were. I expect recovery to start from here, but it will be a slow job. Not that bothered as long as it is a steady recovery with no more surprises.

Loss not as bad as had been expected 691m against 1.2bn predicted, RBS opened slightly down after the results released, a good long opportunity if I was that way inclined. But I'm not!

It is amazing how Bp announces record profits and then hits a 12 month low whilst the banks release huge losses and go up, though mis-pricing gives good trading opportunities!

Yes there is not much sense in the markets at the moment, although BP dipped to a low mainly due to their prospects over the next 12 months (The Russia problem) whereas RBS are looking hopefully for a climb from here on in.

Do anylysts just think of a number when giving forecasts? yet again they are way of the mark with todays numbers.... no wonder there are so many trading oportunities in so many shares - just buy contrary to the anylasts predictions???
makes you wonder why shares are talked up/down and heavily traded to big dealers advantage;

Ah Analysts.

I regularly follow analyst tables just to see which way the market wind is blowing, more than for individual companies and I have notices that of late you often see the same company being recommended by different so called experts as a Buy/Sell/Hold, (1 of them will be right).
OK I'm sure they know more than I do and are better in their projections than I but it goes to show especially in the resent market climate than sticking a pin in a chart, crystal ball or tea leaf readings are just about as scientifically accurate.
As many of you know a few years ago (I think it was in the USA) they used several monkeys to chose shares at random.

Not to be outdone by monkeys, the smart people at Standard & Poors also track an equally-weighted version of the S&P500. Heres the rub. The equally-weighted S&P500 returned 12.00% annually over the last 10 years (ending February 1, 2006) but the regular S&P500 returned only 8.99% annually. So, the monkeys equally-weighted S&P500 outperformed the regular S&P500 by a whopping 3.01 percentage points annually.

Why did the monkeys do so well? By buying equal amounts of each stock they were effectively putting more money into small value stocks than the regular index. In recent years, and over the very long term, small value stocks have tended to outperform their larger more growth-oriented brethren.

So, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, if you own regular index funds, do you really want to be beaten by a bunch of monkeys? Perhaps its time to tell your regular index funds that youve opted for monkey management instead?

Now I wonder what would happen if Monkeys ran the country.
I thought they already did, I hear many of you reply.

personally prefer to do my own charting for stock picks - its relatively easy to draw a line between peaks and troughs and to decide where the price range will be for support and resistance ( even a monkey could do it )- surprisingly enough often days after i have looked at some particular stock an anylist comes out with a recommendation and price target - pretty much where I expected it to be ... how come they paid so much money for such a basically simple calculated guese.....

I think it's down to the average person not risking their own judgment or perhaps not having a clue about what the financial package they are either investing in (shares, bonds, commodities etc) or the loan type such as mortgages, or none secured loans.
It always surprises me how mortgages, loans and bank accounts giving the worse rates and those investment packages that are continually at the bottom of performance tables still have customers.
As an example re so called financial experts, several years ago I had a IFA contact me through my employer asking if I was looking to change my mortgage provider. As I was within 2 months of a fixed rate deal finishing I thought why not, just to see what he could come up with.
He was very efficient in manor and recommended a certain mortgage provider.
After surfing the net I came up with 2 providers who offered a better deal but renewed with my present provider who when contacted offered as good a deal just to keep me with them.
On informing the IFA he stated that he could only equal my best deal which was not via one of his earlier options (now if I was a cynic I would think it was because his commission was not so high re this company).
There are plenty of none savvy persons out there.
As to myself re investments, I don't look at things I don't understand, IE commodities, hedging as just 2 examples. OK I know the basics but not enough to chance my hard earned cash.
I am thinking of investing a few quid in a Monkey though.

another anomaly which causes me brain ache is when there are vastly more shares bought than sold but the price drops?? and conversley price rises on more sells than buys..... its a funny old game!!!!!! still I manage to do well myself and enjoy it.

But the price offered is often the reason why more sells than buys and visa versa, and the opposite trend of the sp.
It is often when prices are deal lead that give a hint of whats about to happen, excess overhang or shortage although of course it could just be market shenanigans.
But like you say it's a funny old game.

RBS is a bellweather share.

nortern rock paid 2000 pound commission to brokers for each 2 year fix mortagage

Nice quiet thread.