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.

Being an athiest is a religion. That is why, for example, so many scientists who are athiests attack those who don't believe in evolution. It is amazing how ofter they talk about "believing" in evolution. So don't fool yourself, if you are an athiest you have a religion. The queation is: "Is athiesm the one true religion or are you in for a nasty shock after you die" Did Jesus rise from the dead or did he not?


On a more 'serious' note, I think that we all could have designed women better! My personal suggestion to God would have been the provision of a remote control to give us men the ability to turn off the sound, switch shopping mode to sex mode etc.

Asked how high gas and oil prices could be affected by a harsh winter, Mark Owen-Lloyd, the E.ON's senior executive and lead power and carbon trader, quipped: "It will make more money for us."

Hmmm?

Some of us will remember reading back in July this year, how Walter Bargate, 84, received a final demand for 6,500 from energy company E.ON.

Poor old Walter was wrongly billed this 6500. The old chap, who has cataracts and clawed hands, could not get his newly installed pre-payment electricity meter to work and, having suffered two nights in a cold, dark house without power, tried to end his life two days after it was installed.

He was found in a coma at his home in Stockport, Greater Manchester, in February last year. Apparently, the pensioner had downed 100 pills and half a bottle of brandy in an attempt to kill himself over an exorbitant - and incorrect - electricity bill from E.ON

So......

I do sincerely believe the following:

1. Mark Owen Lloyd is quite definitely going to lose his job. Why? Well, he has committed a 'Ratner'. He has exhibited complete and utter insensitivity towards his company's customers.

2. E.ON are quite definitely going to lose lots and lots more customers. The flow will also turn into a torrent. This little problem is going to become absolutely massive. They might even have to change the company's name.

ExecLine,

Read the same re Owen-Lloyd, and agree with you. Sanctimonious B*****d.
EDIT....(Owen-Lloyd, not you, thought I better clarify)
It is just the same as the oil companies who although stating the have no choice in passing rising cost to the ever suffering customer make still more zillions every time so called passing the cost on go up.
The worse offender though must be the Government re the Tax/Vat on all fuel bills, gas, electric and oil/derived fuels.
If it gets much worse we could do with a French type revolution.
Time to man the barricades perhaps.
Of with their heads.

Yes. Let's man the barricades!

Because of high fuel costs, bags I help man some barricades not too far from home. And not too early in the morning, either. Oh, and please check the weather forecasts. Stuff standing around in the rain.

"5cm per second, while applying 2g of pressure per square cm is optimal"

Try Googling that. You should find it to be ultimately quite pleasurable. :-)

I appreciate that most of us are looking at a very sad portfolio of late so I have out of the kindness of my heart decided to be benevolent in my fortune of a business opportunity.
On 23rd of Sept I go on holiday to Egypt.
Whilst I am there would anyone be interested in an investment I intend to look into whilst in Egypt.
The last time I was there I met an local businessman who had purchased one of those Giza Pyramids for a song. He showed me all the relevant property deeds, with the original planning permission documents, which obviously due to their age were difficult to read. He is looking for investors to form a consortium to buy another Pyramid and is promising a mark up of at least 1,000% within 5 years due to tourism increases as tourists look at none Euro based countries for holidays. Obviously as shareholders you will have a percentage of all tourist fees.
If interested I can supply bank details for deposits. These deposits will be placed in an Egyptian Bank of course but only because I can promise any profits will be safe from tax.
No this is not a con, and its not pyramid selling.
Sorry could not resist. Case of holiday fever.

Probably as good a bet as some penny share offerings I have been offered latterly.

Don`t forget the factor 25 at least.
Have a great holiday, and I hope you don`t get stranded when your holiday company goes bust.
Cheers.

Thanks Porky,

When I first read, "Don't forget the factor 25" I immediately thought it was a new form of investment trading tool.
Going with TUI so if they go bust, don't think it will be worth coming back as the market as a whole would be down the pan.
Strange that XL seized trading due to financial problems and yet our illustrious Government which is both financially and morally bankrupt still continues to trade and borrow.

The week that was.

Monday ..... raining hard, portfolio down, market system crashed.
Tues .... still raining, portfolio still down.
Wed ..... Ditto.
Thurs ..... Well you guess!
Friday ..... raining even harder, portfolio down even further, (wish the market system had cashed).
I think my money went down that big black hole that the scientists said would not materialize.
I blame that Large Hadron Collider thingy.
Someone else must be to blame after all lets face it in todays world it cant be my fault due to my investment strategy, can it?

Would greatly appreciate opinions on peoples experience of Hemscott company forecasts, and any companies that give analysts expectations of results.
Thanks.

Hi Patisear,

Don't know much about Hemscott but I treat all analyst with caution as they are not much better than most with educated guesses.
Over the last year I have taken special note of analysts company recommendations.
Several times on looking at the daily forecasts for individual companies I have seen recommendations by 3 separate analysts, IE Buy/Sell/Hold. Obviously 1 will turn out to be right.

Although slightly different, but relevant on Ist February 1996 an experiment was started using Monkeys to Pick Stocks, obviously by random process, the monkeys were trained to throw darts at a dartboard. The numbers/scores related to certain stocks. The same amount of cash was then put into each share chosen by the monkeys.
The monkeys did rather well.

Not to be outdone by monkeys, the smart people at Standard & Poors also track an equally-weighted version of the S&P500. Heres the rub. The equally-weighted S&P500 returned 12.00% annually over the last 10 years (ending February 1, 2006) but the regular S&P500 returned only 8.99% annually. So, the monkeys equally-weighted S&P500 outperformed the regular S&P500 by a whopping 3.01 percentage points annually.

Why did the monkeys do so well? By buying equal amounts of each stock they were effectively putting more money into small value stocks than the regular index. In recent years, and over the very long term, small value stocks have tended to outperform their larger more growth-oriented brethren.

The above is supposed to be true, but if not it does show that random investing if you put equal mounts in each share chosen will over 50% of he time beat a standard average.

Had the actual web site re this experiment but lost it. On Google I can only find articles relevent to it now.

These were indeed highly trained monkeys.
Just 2 years previously, they had typed the entire works of Shakespeare, in a similar experiment.
Much of their investment knowledge came from years of shrewd use of the royalties from PG Tips adverts, and the performing rights money from re-runs of old Tarzan films.
There was, though, the inevitable fall out. Some of the monkeys were overspending their gains on bananas and one night stands with orangutangs, and were drinking very heavily. The Bonobo chimps were particularly in debt to a gorilla called king dong, who was pimping under-age primates from Thailand.
In an attempt to clear the debts, they offered to make porn for David Attenborough, masquerading as mating documentaries for UK Gold.
The more puritan monkeys refused and changed their investing methods to buy only ethical stocks, and donating any profits to Stings rainforest fund.
When ethical stocks took a downturn, they lost the lot and many can now be seen making a few quid by posing for photographs with tourists or crying gently over an old DVD of Gorillas in the Mist.
Sad but true.
There again, Hemscott have fared little better recently.

Then when they aged and their brains became weak, they became members of the Labour Cabinet.

greekman/hewittalan6

I don't believe a single word.

Patisear,

What don't you believe, the monkeys picking stocks or making up the members of the cabinet.

If you search through Google re this it does bring up interesting info.
Similar has been done using people to pick shares at random that have been more successful that paid analyst, stock pickers.

Cynic!

I have just sold all my Park Lane hotels and intend to invest all the proceeds along with all my free cash in the Egyptian pyramid scheme. I am, however, having a problem with my bank; they tell me that it is not possible to transfer Monoply money electronically.

By the way all the destitute monkeys have all now found employment - at my local council offices.

Government to ban short selling on bank shares for limited period.
Excellent article on short selling.

I especially like this analogy.
Hedge fund managers (a hedge fund is a private investment fund offering the possibility of huge returns) control an estimated 2 trillion and their clout is so great that if they gang up against a company they perceive to be weak, there is little anyone can do to stop them bringing the company down.

In the same way that a donkey will become the favourite for a horse race if enough people bet on it, a company's share price will be driven down if shorters sell enough of its stock, regardless of how healthy the company may be.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/09/19/cchedgefunds119.xml

Yes made me smile.
Just sold out of my RBS shares at a gain of 40% on the day but well down from the buy of 6. Talk about bad timing (the buy).
The whole banking sector appears to be euphoriatic (probably no such word but I like it) even with the specter of further turmoil and write downs.
How the heck can a share on what is not yet known details (the new financial system being touted), rise by 40%.
Talk about market madness.

On a different Note.
Heard that David Jason (Dell Boy) was seen parking his Reliant Robin in the Government Ministers Car Park at the House of Commons yesterday.
Could he be the next announced position of government spin adviser, or minister for business.
Can see it now....
Dell Boy, as said.
Rodney as Chancellor.
Trigger as Foreign Secretary.
Uncle Albert as Forces Minister with special responsibility for The Navy.
Boycie Transport Minister.

My 5 says Dell Boy has bribed the forces that be and the Lloyds TSB/HBOS merger will not go ahead.

And the reason they will give to all of us punters is "Competition Grounds".