Nice header Chocolat,thanks for the effort.
Well,no trading for a few days,last trade was SHORT ANL last Tuesday which was happily stopped out for what I thought at the time was a nasty loss of -12.Very nervous about holding shorts overnight now.Even more nervous about longing anything at all.Might just take a summer break.
Good luck all.Hope a few of you got a few quid out of ANL.

Bad luck on ANL fulhamken - I can't really agree with this level of weakness. 10% below the bid price (may well be less if BSCH fall but I'd still see a premium), no counter-bid premium at all which seems very premature at this stage. The way the market is at the moment it seems like a safer option than most...

WICKET - LARA OUT

ken , missed it :-(( have to wait for replay

edit : beautiful spin

kY -can't understand ANL either - where is the floor here 545 ? what will the 12.30 meeting do for it ? cash/share worth 600 depending on santanders share price really - but will someone else bid ?? any views ?

Blair bowling? ;-))))

Morning all (just). Spacie will be pleased to know that I fully utilised the Concorde method for this morning's FX foray. Wicked!
:)

Short PLM

FTC might actually go this time. Bloody hope so coz I'm very, very, very short and bored waiting.

fulhamken - as per the ANL counter-bid, got to weigh up what evidence we have. The UK banks want to go down the domestic merger route because of substantial cost savings and we know they've been lobbying the government about this. Citigroup made an informal approach to Abbey a couple of months ago and I think we know what LLOY and RBS publicly stated positions are on this. There are lots of other 'ifs' and 'buts', but on the balance of probabilities I remain long.

edit: and somewhere lost in this, I believe ANL's results this morning came in above expectations...

another edit: but I'd have been happier if I could have bought it lower :-) Well, will look at buying more below 540 if we get there and if I'm around. Then it turns from a punt into a more serious position! Still, it would help if the Spanish Stock Exchange would resume trading in BSCH. What kind of market are they running over there?

more edit: ...and long again at 540. Now it gets interesting.

Interesting that a spike of 15 up and straight down again just appeared on cmc's /$ forex chart but it never registered on IG's price! I know that their various prices reflect the betting on their site alone, but it's a wee bit suspicious - it would have shaken out some shorters with tight stops. Luckily I had not got a position.

Anybody calculated the ANL points impact on the FTSE? Just wondered where it would be with a flat ANL....

Santander BSCH is back on and trading at 7.73/74 - a drop from 8 on Friday. Now the arbitrage game begins.

anl perky again, counterbid?

afternoon folks...just back from Barca.....top weekend however went to cafe Bagdad which is a rather dodgy club. Tried to humiliate the stag by getting him up on stage but guess who had swapped seats with him and was dragged up on stage by a close relative of Nadia from Big Brother...i feel used :-)

LOL dragged up by RAMBOY whatever next treble!

Rough ANL arbitrage as I'm busy but... 603-31 special dividend gives 572/800 pre-close = 603 bid therefore shareprice element is at .715 - BSCH 774 gives: (BSCH*0.715)+31=584.41

tkx kyoto

TP....i was man handled...not a pleasant experience however the rest of the boys seemed to think it was hiliarious!