any one got a feelling in their water how far LLoyds will go looking to to buy but just dont know when they are low enough

tell me about it i have some share's that i wont live long enough to even get my money back, under the mattress isnt the best place to hide money, i had a bit left over after a good run, and then the market went mad, and i had to work away for a year so i put it in p bonds for 10 months had three half not bad wins in the first 6 months then draged it out . felt quite good about that

got in and got out very nice thank you

A good set of results bearing in mind the current situation:

Lloyds TSB reported a 6 pct increase in its full-year profit, with strong growth in its core UK retail banking business offsetting a downturn at the wholesale banking division as the credit crunch took its toll. Lloyds said its underlying pretax profit came in at 3.91 bln stg, up from 3.71 bln stg the previous year, and slightly ahead of the 3.89 bln stg pencilled in by analysts, according to a consensus forecast supplied by the company.

The improvement partly reflected strong growth at the core UK retail bank, which attracted 1 mln new account holders, consolidating its position as the UK's biggest current account provider, and boosting profit by 17 pct to 1.80 bln stg. That outweighed a downturn at the wholesale and international division, where profits fell 12 pct on the year to 1.44 bln stg largely as a result of a 280 mln stg asset write-down in the wake of the credit crunch.

The 280 mln stg charge for 2007 as a whole compares with the previously-disclosed 200 mln stg write-down for the first ten months of the year.

Lloyds lacks a strong presence in investment banking, and is therefore less exposed to the credit crunch than rivals Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, which have so far reported write-downs of 1.6 and 1.2 bln stg respectively.

The results also included information on a 5% increase in the final dividend to 24.7 pence, taking the total payout for the year to 35.9 pence, also up 5%.

Lloyds said it also benefited from tight cost controls, with operating expenses rising just 1 pct to 5.491 bln stg, while total income rose 5 pct to 11.206 bln stg.

Lloyds added that it remains confident of its future prospects, despite signs of a global economic slowdown and recent financial market turmoil. 'Despite these challenges, we are well positioned to deliver further growth and to take advantage of the opportunities that the current environment offers,' the group said in a statement.

Even at 462 I make the yield 7.7% why worry about Rock?

Lloyds TSB is too cheap now...413p...it is a strong BUY.

Tell the shorters, banks are a one way street at the moment.

It is an excellent chance to top up at 413p.

I'm looking for sub 400 but it is day after day at the moment .... very hard to watch

Lloyds TSB is the bank to buy.

LLOY has already rise to 418p now.
BARC is the next excellent buy at 418p. It's too cheap now.

Read the article in Daily Express on 5/3/2008 on LLOY and BARC.

Tipton, I told you to buy yesterday, did u take my advice?

Had to buy some at 396p, yield 9% ! could not resist.

I am going to hang on for a day or two i just think they may go down a bit looking around 370
anyway got a buy in for 370 so we will wait and see

I brought some in February @ 395, have a target of 355 for next purchase, wasn't sure if I would have a chance a few days back. But looking likely now if we have another sell off.

Interesting to see new mortgage deals (with airmiles) advertised by Lloyds on TV tonight.

Yes I saw the advert, I guess it's a novelty and shouldn't cost them too much.

I wonder if we may have a new trading range for lloy soon, between 350 to 400, if this is to be the case I would like to buy @ 355 and then short the same amount from 400 after. If sp keeps rising to 445 I could close my short for a loss, but cover the loss by selling the shares I brought at 355.

If price hit 400 then fell back towards 355 then I would take my profit from my short, and wait for the same situation again, or set another buying price further down.

My thinking is that I want to buy lloy and others over the long term, so I might as well try the above plan, the most I could lose is the dealing costs.

That sounds like a pretty sound strategy spitfire43 assuming nothing pushes the shares violently north or south at the wrong moment.

Not sure about that spitfire.

Sounds intelligent but ...

If sp goes higher than 400p then one trade covers another and if sp drops back to 350 likewise, where your short gain is matched by you losing your long profit.

Hence what is the point? Why not just take your profit at 400p and wait to get back in again if sp drops to 350p.

Answers on a postcard to ...

I know where you are coming from dd, but if I had placed the above when I brought at 395 in February I could have shorted twice with a top price of 480 and my purchase protecting the short position. Because I'm in the process of building a stake in lloy, and expecting weakness in the sector for the next 12 month's or longer, the main risk would be if the sp headed north without much of a pullback and I missed the opportunity to buy longterm, and had to sell the share to cover the short.

But IF........... the plan worked, I could have my cake and eat it.

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - UK bank Lloyds TSB Group Plc. said it has signed up to a three-year agreement under which it will offer new mortgages to selected Northern Rock customers nearing the end of their fixed-rate deals.

Under the agreement, eligible Northern Rock customers will be offered a Lloyds loan and those who accept will be exempt from the lender's standard application fee.

Lloyds will apply its usual lending criteria, which include a maximum loan-to-value ratio of 80 percent, a spokesman for the bank said. Lloyds will also pay a commission fee to Northern Rock for each successful mortgage application.

Northern Rock, which has announced plans to shed one-third of its 6,000-strong workforce under a government-sponsored turnaround plan, said the agreement would safeguard about 100 jobs.

'We expect the new service to require around 100 existing staff who may otherwise have been at risk of redundancy,' the bank said.

Lloyds, the United Kingdom's fourth-biggest bank by market value, said the agreement would 'accelerate new business growth in a low risk manner while assisting Northern Rock towards its goal of reducing the size of its balance sheet'.

Northern Rock, once the UK's eighth-biggest bank, was nationalised earlier this year after the global credit crunch forced it to seek emergency funding from the Bank of England.

Northern Rock aims to repay a 25 billion pound Bank of England loan and reduce its portfolio of mortgage loans by half by 2011.

Lloyds shares were down 0.3 percent at 389-1/4 pence by 9:55 a.m., while the FTSE 100 share index was up 0.3 percent at 5989.2 points.

Gus comment: Looks like LLoyds will be able to cherry pick some of the more lower risk loans. I expect an adjustment to values will be made to take into account the weaker housing market when making assessments. Presumably NRK will be stuck with the no performing/riskier loans at the end of the day.