0850 GMT (Dow Jones) MADRID--Societe Generale cuts Santander (STD) to sell from buy. Report was released prior to formal announcement of bid for Abbey National (ANBB). Brokerage expects bid at 583p, which "would destroy EUR2.7B in value." SG judges the deal "as positive for Santander from a strategic perspective (but) we expect the market to overreact on news given Santander's track record to overpay." Cuts Santander's FV to EUR9 from EUR9.7. Stock suspended at EUR8. (DRB)

A few more thoughts on ANL now I have another moment - part of the bid is likely to be in shares so Santander's share price becomes crucial, and it's likely to decline. I'm hoping that this doesn't mean a circa 550 bid based on Santander's price on announcement day Friday, because then the bid will most likely work out as being sub-550. Although, if it's 550 rather than the 650 Santander's shareholders probably fear, it's possible that the price will start to rise.

If the bid does end up being sub-550 by virtue of Santander's falling price, will it be too tempting for other banks to pass over?

ROCkET UNDER anl ????L

Yeah - what was that all about? I'm cut off from most of my news sources here so I'm probably going to get caught out here...

edit: ah... news out

*ABBEY NATIONAL SHAREHOLDERS TO GET 1 SCH SHARE PLUS 31P/SHARE CASH

offer of shares and cash not gone down well

*ABBEY NATIONAL SAYS BID FROM SCH VALUES GROUP AT 609P/SHARE, 8.9 BLN STG

*ABBEY NATIONAL SAYS BID FROM SCH VALUES GROUP AT 609P/SHARE, 8.9 BLN STG

Don't know - I think I can live with it. Long a few more at 547... not overcommitting myself though.

No Martini happy with my sell on friday , BPRG AL ;-)

i missed the effin spike can u believe it !!

fulhamken - yes, so did I, but to be fair, I'm not sure if I'd have caught it even if I wasn't doing some job stuff at the time.

I'm very comfortable with my average 548 position (famous last words!), and I intend to hold until I get a good exit price. Unless the overall market (edit: or Santander obviously) tanks... then I'll have to re-evaluate.

BPRG in that critical area, Boyse, where it went ballistic.

Added a few AQP.

http://moneyam.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/20040726100000PA7B2.html

have been thinking about yukos. putin is no doubt a very shrewd guy. to show his authority, we know what he has done to yukos. imo he will take charge of yukos's assets thru other companies and........
if i were him i would be heavily long oil futs. when the news does come out re yukos closure, god knows what price oil will be at.
considering this scenario is plausible - avoid long posn in airline, shipping and chem.

pushing it on Al

Nudging above my 85EMA, Boyse. Very nice! ;-)

sandeep, I dont know the percentage of world oil thats from Russia but I dont think its huge, you might be right but I doubt if the russion production is enough to badly affect the world price. Saudi is still the biggest by far and still has the largest stocks as well.

Spaceman - as far as I'm aware Russia has potentially the biggest oil reserves in the world. Problem is they simply cannot get their act together.

Oil traders have been blaming the Yukos thing for the current high prices.

Tra-la-la!