Today they have fallen 22% to a new low of 223p ..are they another Marconi..?



The chart looks like one long suicide note.

what an extraordinary day ...... sp in backwardation yet again or perhaps suspension for last 10/15 mins of trading and now showing as a close of 142.9

stroreysj - I've traded on and off for years and never seen anything as mental, ever !! Even after 9/11 it wasn't like this. Looks like them floorboards are coming up again, but which currency shall we hide ???

im fast becoming immune to this whole thing. So what if it swings 300 points against you it is usually going to come back at least twice during the day. Hold your nerve and your usually smiling at the end of the day. Bottle it when the screen turns blood red and you will be chasing losses all day. IMO

100p tops in my opinion.

Im in at 138 wont sleep tonight Will just dream about my new car if goes up to 180 Wednesday. My Thai wife will kill me if I lose her savings. ( Well she did say please invest my money)

Clubman - it is Wednesday!

lol...

Thank's I meant to say Thursday. See what all this has done to me I don't even know what day it is. At least now I can now go to the toilet. That bucket under my desk was stinking.

clubman may at least be able to buy a new tie (groan, groan!)

much longer article now on cnnfn.com ..... "Big UK lenders talk merger"

HBOS valued at 15bn. Therefore 2.80 per share according to BBC Ceefax news.

Been out all day, but got text from IG saying HBOS low at 88p, wow what a rollercoaster and have to admit i dont think its fair that these hedge funds can bring down huge institutions/societies

evening news independant online says lloyds will not pay more than 2.00 per share, have a look now. This is the latest news.

i would certainly be very happy with 280 .... even 200 would give me a very modest profit

i certainly think the deal will go through, but though Lloyds appear to have the stronger hand, they will also be well aware that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to evade the monopolies commission

hsbc have said they would not want to pay anything for hbos is they took them on.

On the 6 o'clock news Robert Peston said there we be a announcement tomorrow about share price he thinks it will be around 2.80 mark.
There was a shares issue not that long ago @2.75 so i don't think it will be to far off that.
Still i cannot understand,normally when a company is in takeover talks the share price goes up.Lets hope tomorrow brings us all a bit of LUCK.

Unluckyboy.

Lloyds being generally "ultra conservative" probably won't want to pay top dollar for HBOS. They'll be inheriting lots of things they never would've done themselves. Whilst they do have a once in a life time opportunity, they also have a strong hand. The government don't want to bail them out, and if they walk away then HBOS will surely fall to the speculators. I suspect they'll try and rush something out before the markets open tomorrow. If Lloyds don't get a good deal, which keeps their balance sheet strong, they might risk an attack by speculators down the line.

In my opinion.

Strawbs.

The creation of Lloyds HBOS
Robert Peston 17 Sep 08, 04:46 PM Here are a few more details about this extraordinary takeover.

1) The price of Lloyds TSB's takeover of HBOS will be around 280p-ish in shares, valuing HBOS at around 15bn. And the terms will be announced tomorrow, probably at 7am.

2) The government will use the "national interest" clause in the law that created the independent competition authorities to over-ride concerns about the huge market share that the enlarged Lloyds TSB will have. But it may have to use secondary legislation (which wouldn't involve any kind of debate in Parliament) to flesh out this clause, to the effect that the national interest would be served by the imperative of maintaining the stability of the financial system.

3) The reason the government is facilitating the takeover is that depositors and lenders to HBOS were beginning to withdraw their cash from HBOS, following all that downward pressure on HBOS's share price. There were growing concerns in the HBOS boardroom that a climate of fear was being created about its future, that could have led to a funding crisis - or a Northern-Rock style run, on steroids.

4) The enlarged group will be subject to competition law. If it exploits its massive market share in an anti-competitive way, the Office of Fair Trading will come down on it like a ton of bricks. But ministers took the view that consumers interests, in this case, were better served by protecting their deposits, rather than worrying about whether the market share of a beefed-up Lloyds was too great.

5) One part of the UK where there will be significant anger about this deal will be Scotland, because HBOS's totemic head office is in Scotland (though since the credit crunch began, HBOS's chief executive - Andy Hornby - has been spending most of his time in London). There will be a perception that the deal will relocate an important financial powerhouse to London. And that's probably true, in a practical sense, since Lloyds' chief executive Eric Daniels spends most of his time at his office in the City. But here's the curious irony: in a formal sense, Lloyds TSB's registered head office is in Glasgow (though that's not where any of the action takes place).

6) Eric Daniels will remain chief executive of the enlarged group. The future of Andy Hornby is unclear

2.32 a share

In LLOY shares no cash.

On the 10 o'clock news now. Is this an all share offer? So what happens if the "spivs" and "speculators" now tank the Lloyds share price?

Strawbs.