........especially for those putting their faith in unknown companies of unknown value and unknown management in far-off unknown lands;


Times Online . April 18, 2007

Betex shares suspended after two senior staff arrested

Chinese lottery firm suspends sales of its software nationwide following police action
Robert Lindsay

Shares in Betex, the Aim-listed Chinese lottery scratchcard and gaming software operator founded by former banker Peter Greenhill, were suspended this afternoon after two of its senior staff were arrested by Chinese police and a third appeared to be on the run.

In a statement, Mr Greenhill said the company had suspended sales of the software product across China: "The Company has received information that two of the senior staff at its Beijing operation have been detained and that a further senior staff member is being sought by the Chinese police authorities in the province of Jilin."

He said the company was working with its legal advisers to try to obtain more information and was assisting the authorities wherever possible.

Betex said it believed the alleged illegal activity "relates to conduct by these individuals and does not call into question the legality of the Company's software product, or the conduct of the Company."

It added: "Owing to the uncertainty surrounding the situation, and the significance of these operations to the financial performance of the Company, the Company has requested a temporary suspension of trading in its shares on AIM pending clarification of the situation."

Betex's business is almost entirely dependent on the Chinese market. Its shares have collapsed from a high of 80p shortly after flotation a year ago, hit by fears over a clampdown on online gambling. They were suspended at 32.5p.

At the end of last year it unveiled a plan to begin selling lottery scratchcards in partnership with lottery authorities in Hebei province.

Scratchcards in China were a huge hit before being withdrawn during the 1990s after concerns over fraud.

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Be warned - for this will not be the last such company to disappear down the pan with your hard-earned loot!

'Rocket scientist' behind Barclays' complicated debt deals quits and disappears as his boss tries to shrug off City fears of a damaging credit crunch...
Read full article here


Bank of China shares fall on sub-prime concern
Read full article here


``The BOE is either going to stay on hold or raise rates, but it's definitely not going to cut,''
Read full article here


FTSE 100   to plunge another 10%   as year-long bear market looms
Read full article here


Record numbers face debt meltdown
Read full article here


Markets fear there is more to come
Read full article here


"...it would be naive to think the worst is behind us."
Read full article here


Hedge funds braced for more pain
Read full article here


History says bear market may have begun.
Read full article here



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The last time the FTSE100 reached the heady heights of 2006 was in 2000.
The chart below shows what happened then. It took the best part of 3 years before it finally hit rock bottom.
From this, you may well deduce that this months downturn could well be the beginnings of something that will last a while yet.
My own feeling is that the FTSE100 won't begin to recover again until it has first breached 4800 - sometime next year.

Recession risk looms large for US
Read full article here

why don't we rename this thread as the "Doom Mongering" thread, in RED!

e t should rename him/her self the Grim Reeper.

It's sensationalist rubbish & overdone, imo. The odd red headline attracts the casual reader. Loads of red headlines means they're all the same & the effect is lost. Attention seeking rubbish. (imo).

US could be heading for recession - Last Updated: 12:05am BST 28/08/2007


Ex-Treasury Secretary Summers warns of risks 'greater than any since aftermath of 9/11', reports Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers warned that the United States may be heading into recession as the biggest victim to date of the sub-prime mortgage debacle was humiliatingly sold for a token sum in Germany.

Traders are braced for another week of turmoil after the near breakdown of America's $2,200bn (1,100bn) market for commercial paper.

"It would be far too premature to judge this crisis over," Mr Summers said. "I would say the risks of recession are now greater than they've been any time since the period in the aftermath of 9/11."

In Germany, it emerged that the state-bank SachsenLB may have accumulated $80bn of exposure to risky assets through a set of Irish funds kept off balance sheet.

The regional government of Saxony agreed yesterday to sell the East German bank - the biggest victim so far of the worldwide credit rout - for a token 300m (204m) to the Landesbank Baden-Wttemberg in Stuttgart (LBBW), ending a three-week saga that has revealed the extent of German involvement in the some of the most treacherous areas of US sub-prime debt.

Georg Milbrandt, prime minister of Saxony, said the sale of state-owned lender was the only viable option.

"Given the market turbulence and the pressures on the bank, it could not have gone on without a partner. We want to get our ship off the high waves and into a safe port," he said.

Sachsen LB, founded in 1992 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, was rescued two weeks ago in a state orchestrated bail-out. A consortium of banks agreed to provide a 17.3bn credit lifeline, but only on the understanding that it agreed to be sold to a stronger player.

It allegedly used no fewer than five Irish 'conduits' (off-balance sheet vehicles) to invest in collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) and other high-risk instruments, according to German newspaper Sdeutsche Zeitung.

The biggest losses stemmed from structured investment vehicles (SIVs) which involve using short-term credit to buy longer-term assets, creating a mismatch in maturities.

The rescue deal comes as investors waited to learn whether the US Federal Reserve would succeed in stabilising the US commercial paper market, the latest - and biggest -domino to fall in the spreading contagion from sub-prime debt. Investors have suddenly lost trust in this form of debt, fearing it may be tainted by exposure to CDOs.

Stock markets rallied strongly late last week on the belief that the Federal Reserve would start to cut its key lending rate in September, and that the European Central Bank would refrain from further tightening. Goldman Sachs said any hint the banks may prove more hawkish could quickly dampen investor spirits again, warning it was too early to give "all clear" on equities.

Federal Reserve data shows that the outstanding stock of US commercial paper has fallen by $255bn over the last three weeks, a sign that borrowers have been unable to roll over huge amounts of debt. The fall is comparable to the sudden shrinkage that occurred at the onset of the dotcom bust, and may have the effect of draining liquidity.

I don't think this will help sentiment tomorrow!!

"I have authorised our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities," he (George Bush) said.

The BBC's Justin Webb, in Washington, says this looks like a conscious effort by the White House to elevate the tension between Washington and Teheran to a new level.

Such an effort might be designed to avoid the need for armed conflict or might equally be an effort to bring that conflict about, our correspondent says.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6967502.stm

Maybe Bush will divert attention to Iraq from the credit crunch...LOL.

Regarding yesterdays fall. No chart ever goes in a straight line and the FTSE100 had a similar fall in May 2006. Look what happened over the next year.

It has been quite an interesting week on the market - anyone any views on where it may go this week??

It has been quite an interesting week on the market - anyone any views on where it may go this week??

Don't say you weren't warned!!!!!


The last time the FTSE100 reached the heady heights of 2006 was in 2000.
The chart below shows what happened then. It took the best part of 3 years before it finally hit rock bottom.
From this, you may well deduce that this months downturn could well be the beginnings of something that will last a while yet.
My own feeling is that the FTSE100 won't begin to recover again until it has first breached 4800 - sometime next year.

"...few dawns have proved as false at that of January 3, 2001.
That was the last occasion on which the Federal Reserve cut US interest rates by half a point.
Wall Streets response was euphoric: the Dow Jones industrial average surged 300 points, or 2.8 per cent.
But only two months later it had lost nearly 1,600 points, or 14.2 per cent.
Over the same period, the FTSE 100 fell exactly in line."

Read full article here

Your all fun and games e t, you must be great fun to live with.

Sorry jimmy but it doesn't get any better I'm afraid.


Wolseley, the FTSE 100 builders' merchant, has warned that there are no signs of an improvement in the US housing market.

Read full article here