Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Hays,

Nowadays, at least the relationship with the unions is relatively open, where as the tory party has become more tribal, elitist and takes place on a square in a dark room.(with or without their trousers on.)

Post 11584,

I think it is a possibly cynical attempt to do that.

But, I think Murdock's press revenues will be down, as associations with him, or his entourage will stink to many.

Mind the tories always had pegs on their noses.

(Otherwise, I was told, "it would be difficult for them to bear their own company".)

I don't think he has a hope in hell of getting control of SKYB in the next 5years, if at all.

Just wondering whether his American Empire will be pruned.

When I looked up sunonsunday.com it was registered in 2007 to someone in Italy and was a music website.

Ah. I think you mean sunonsunday.co.uk. That was registered by News International 5th July this year.

He didn't say which year :-)

The web site doesn't have a host yet though.

By the way, why did you pick the nickname, "Haystack"?

I'm thinking you might be a 'Boris lookalike' or similar? Correct?

Murdoch and Junior are to be sued personally for their handling of the phone-hacking debacle, it emerged on Thursday night as the familys woes intensified on both sides of the Atlantic. They will have to answer claims personally that they neglected their fiduciary duty, rather than have News Corp defend the case as a corporate entity.

Interesting if that kicks off.

That sort of a case is a dead loss. You will never make it stick that the people at the very top of a company should know what is going on at the level we are talking about. That just looks like lawyers wasting everyone's time.

ExecLine
It was the name of a Unix machine that I used to run. You have to name Unix computers when you install the operating system. The front part was part of my name and a 'stack' is another name for computer memory.

Agree over here, but what about the states?

Hays,


Just out of interest, how many of this coalition government are old Etonian Lodge members and how may are members of other lodges?

What is the reference to 'lodge' meant to indicate?

.

I know what a lodge is, but not sure of Fred's reference as many Labour MPs are members of the Freemasons. One lodge was set up specifically for them and entry was only for Labour Party MPs. It was the New Welcome Lodge (it is open to other MPs now). It is credited with influencing the 1935 Parliamentary leadership elections of the Labour Party or 'fixing' it depending on who's account you accept. There has been a long association between the Labour Party and the Freemasons. You have to remeber that the Freemasons were set up by masons guilds which were almost a type of union. These days the unions and their secret deals with Labour are more secret Freemasons than the Freemasons themselves.

Hays,

Not the answer to the question asked.

I was asking about Cons. and the Brotherhood.

If you believe the Masons are an open society, I think it would be reasonable to enquire further into their activities.

What surprised me when I enquired into their set up and actions I was surprised one at the information I was able to gather, but also the reluctance by many to give some of that information.

( That was some years ago, but at the time I couldn't understand some voting patterns of a committee, until I "informed" about association of many of the committee members.)


Wouldn't suggest that many members of Labour party were Masons, or that some of the lodges were based on the mythology of the guilds, but lodges are are/were rampant through, various areas of judiciary, police, Universities, other public institutions.

The name or game which is "never spoken".

There is a lodge for Old Etonians, look it up.

(Ps. I was asked the Masons a long time ago, and refused to on the grounds I didn't like secret societies.)

Blackballed eh Fred? Aint life a bitch! :O)

Louise Armitstead and Richard Blackden, 0:25, Saturday 16 July 2011

Rupert Murdoch's empire suffered another blow tonight with the resignation of Les Hinton, the trusted lieutenant who ran Dow Jones (DJI: ^DJI - news) , the owner of the Wall Street Journal .

The resignation of Mr Hinton marks the departure of one of Mr Murdoch's oldest allies and most respected executives.

Mr Hinton was chairman of News International, News Corp's UK newspaper division, during a decade that covered the allegations of phone-hacking at the News of the World .

"That I was ignorant of what apparently happened is irrelevant and in the circumstances I feel it is proper for me to resign from News Corp," the 67 year-old said.

Mr Hinton has run Dow Jones since Mr Murdoch's controversial acquisition of the company in late 2007. The Bancroft family, which previously owned it, says it would not have agreed the sale had it known about the phone-hacking.

Mr Hinton's resignation, which is likely to cause considerable turmoil at the Wall Street Journal , came hours after Tom Mockridge was appointed chief executive of News International.

The boss of Sky Italia replaced Rebekah Brooks, who also resigned yesterday amid intense pressure from the phone-hacking scandal.

Top shareholders in News Corp most of which are big American institutions were said to have played a "significant role" in the timing of Ms Brooks' resignation, according to insiders.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the Saudi billionaire who is the second-biggest shareholder in News Corp, indicated that he believed Ms Brooks should resign.

Since the scandal erupted two weeks ago, the share price of News Corp, the US parent company of News International, has dropped by 14pc.

The shares closed up 1.3pc at $15.64 tonight on Wall Street. Shares in BSkyB (LSE: BSY.L - news) , in which News Corp holds a 39pc stake, have also plunged.

Pressure is mounting on James Murdoch, a director of News Corp and chairman of BSkyB. He is also a director responsible for corporate governance at GlaxoSmithKline (Other OTC: GLAXF.PK - news) . Yesterday GSK said Mr Murdoch would continue to serve as a non-executive director.

Newsletter - Issue 27, July 2011

Gold at Record High - You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet!


So we have seen a new record high for gold. You aint seen nothing yet. In a few months time $1590 the peak seen this week will be a distant memory. We expect $1700 to be topped this year and $2,000 in 2012. Others are far more bullish than that.

So what has caused the recent jump in the gold price. In the US ,the Federal Reserve gave a leg up with talk that some members are potentially in favour of additional monetary policy accommodation if economic growth and unemployment fail to improve. The latest US Jobs statistics were the worst since the 1930s. Meanwhile Congress and Obama are still in deadlock over whether the US Government goes bust on August 2nd. Of course the current $14.3 trillion debt ceiling will be lifted but it will do so via shoddy compromise and everyone will know that it is a shoddy compromise. US Government finances are bazookered!

Meanwhile over in Europe, the EU debt crisis worsened as credit rating agency Moodys sent yet another Eurozone member to the Junkyard. Ireland followed both Greece and Portugal to non investment grade status shortly before the close of the US markets on Tuesday. Where is next? Italy? Spain? This crisis is not over and will only end when the Euro as it now stands is scrapped.

The Irish downgrade is one thing, the majority of astute investors realise that as the country is insolvent and all but frozen out of the debt market, a second EU bailout will be needed at some point. However, Italian debt whisperings should be seen as a developing problem likely to rattle global markets further as debt contagion will now inevitably be likely to engulf the country, followed by Spain. It will be interesting to see the results of the stress tests on the 91 EU banks which are set to be published after the close of the EU markets today. Taking this into account the big three rating agencies are still reeling from the bad press received following the fall out of the 2007/8 crisis, and their rating AAA rating of toxic debt, so it is more than likely that all three will take a harder stance this time around. We have just seen S&P follow Moodys by putting the US on credit downgrade watch.

Certainty is currently short lived and it is likely that some of the focus on Europe will transiently dissipate when the earnings season across the Atlantic gets fully underway. We saw on Thursday how Bernankes comments to the Senate let some air out of the stimulus balloon. But the elephant in the room (which is not going away) is the developing US debt crisis. If the debt limit is not raised by 2nd August the Worlds largest economy will quite simply default on its debt. This will send the global markets into madness, lending will dry up and we will almost certainly enter a period of complete uncertainty in regard to the future. In reality this will not happen as the debt ceiling has already been raised circa 90 times since inception, and once a year since the beginning of the century. What should, and inevitably will, be realised is that, like the indebted EU nations, the US has a structural issue. Put simply it spends far more than it earns. 40 cents of every Dollar spent is borrowed.

This is not to mention that in June unemployment ticked back up to 9.2% but in reality more than 15% of the country is unemployed. US jobless claims did in fact surprise on the upside this Thursday but put in the context of the continued lack of robust hiring (the majority of hires have been on the low income side which will generate lower revenues for the Government) an additional 18,000 jobs goes no way to remedying the issue. Over the past year in the US, private employers have added 1.7 million to their bank role. However the net result of 659,000 cuts in government jobs (roughly half of those were temporary Census workers) means total U.S. payrolls were up by only 1 million over the last year. This leaves the country with 7 million fewer jobs than when the recession started in late 2007. This subpar job growth will continue to restrain domestic consumer spending, preventing the US economy from gaining any real traction. A jump in US inventories again on Thursday, coupled with declining sales indicates this clearly.

Less than one month after the end of the last bond buying programme there is already whisperings and hope for a third bout of stimulus. Although Bernanke has stated that there is no immediate plan to widen the Fed balance sheet further we suggest that this is an act of containment. The Fed knows too well that any uttering of QE3 will see the next sugar rush ensue. In reality in one form or another we can expect the US to step in to hold up its economy and subsequently equity markets.

Despite the price of Gold having consistently held above $1,500 throughout the past two months mining equities have struggled. Markets are short sighted and despite an uncertain environment and a developing global debt crisis, as we have detailed previously, the valuation gap between Gold itself and the rating of equities has continued to widen dramatically. We have subsequently seen the valuations of a number of our holdings marked down by forced/panicked sellers with buyers relatively nonexistent, sitting on the side lines. According to Barclays Capital, July is set to be the worst month in regard to trading volumes so far this year, with year on year volumes down 23% (arguably even more across the small cap market)! This has simply compounded the issue over the last two months but we have very recently enjoyed an uplift in the prices of the majority of our holdings. Over just the last three trading sessions we have seen our NAV tick up by 3.4% (Source: Financial Express). The key point however is that the value in this sector is now, in our view, quite stunning. You do not get to buy gold producers on less than two times cashflows. You can now.

Erste Group recommends that in a typical scenario five to ten percent of a portfolio should be allocated to Gold with scope for further diversification into mining equities, citing currency devaluation and negative real interest rates as the main drivers for pushing Gold higher. We would argue that even on the upper side of this range a portfolio would be underweight Gold/mining equities given the wider risks to investors currently. Admittedly the argument that Gold does not provide an income stream is valid but we believe that in this inflationary environment the modest yields offered by even the big FTSE payers are not adequate. Strong capital growth is far more attractive and this is what we aim to provide.

Despite having ticked up over the last few days the team at T1ps Investment Management (IoM) remains of the view that, having absorbed a lot of downward pressure over the last two months, the portfolio is significantly undervalued. We have purchased more of what we already own, notably Ariana Resources, and just yesterday Senior Tom Winnifrith took taken advantage of the low valuations and made a further investment into the Fund at a personal level. We are confident that we are invested in the right places and that the outlook for our underlying investee companies remains bright.

Ross Jones

aldwick - I recieved the same e-mail, can see the advantage in researching the stocks they have bought for theire fund and purchasing them individually,or through spreadbets or CFD'S etc, as a trader why would I pay an initial charge of 5.25% (minimum lump sum investment 500) and a annual management fee of 1.5%?

I can feel a song coming on, Im singing in the rain just singing in the rain. Is it raining
any where else at present in the uk or are you in the sun. Perhaps it will come to the south east.lol