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.

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".

Can't manage on your Old Age Pension?

Then become a killer and rapist.

If you need it, and don't already get it for Free on the NHS, you can get the necessary Viagra now 'on tick' to help you become a rapist and then pay for it later out of your profits.

Or maybe, don't do the rape thing, just do the killing?

Whatever. Just do one or the other, if you can't do both. Just do what you think is best.

Check it out HERE

If your caught shorting in many financial institutions from today the penalty is as yet not known, but just make sure you put any paperwork referring to your dealings after today in the right colored bin as if not you will really be in trouble.
Blue bin for re-cycling.
Brown bin for **** waste etc.
With so many being 'Caught Short today' I will be looking to buy shares in Andrex.
Sorry couldn't resist.

My mate, William Stickers, is now terrified.
After years of going into town and seeing signs saying "Bill Stickers will be prosecuted", he finally got a job at Northern Rock. When dismissed he went on to work for HBOS.
He also suffers dwarfism and thinks the FSA are out to get him personally, as a banking short.
This is before he lights a fag, drops his match, and gets into his car. All of which are likely to see him arrested.
He is the antithesis of everything society wants at the moment, and is considering changing his name and lifestyle to Gary Glitter, as he thinks he may receive better treatment from the state.

Your mate must also feel persecuted every time they used to shout, 'Shoot at will' in the old films.

No wonder we are looked at as such an easy target.

HMS Shambles, all aboard.

http://www.people.co.uk/news/news/tm_headline=hms-shambles-all-aboard&method=full&objectid=20746148&siteid=93463-name_page.html

So our illustrious leader is set to increase government borrowing yet again.
If GB Ltd was a company I wonder what rating an agency such as Standard an Poors would put on the company.

If you look at the following,

AAA : the best quality borrowers, reliable and stable
AA : quality borrowers, a bit higher risk than AAA
A : economic situation can affect finance
BBB : medium class borrowers, which are satisfactory at the moment
BB : more prone to changes in the economy
B : financial situation varies noticeably
CCC : currently vulnerable and dependent on favorable economic conditions to meet its commitments
CC : highly vulnerable, very speculative bonds
C : highly vulnerable, perhaps in bankruptcy or in arrears but still continuing to pay out on obligations
CI : past due on interest
R : under regulatory supervision due to its financial situation
SD : has selectively defaulted on some obligations
D : has defaulted on obligations and S&P believes that it will generally default on most or all obligations
NR : not rated

Did not take this government long to go from at least a single A to pushing SD, after all they are on rating R as the EU still have the UK on regulatory (in theory anyway) watch re the borrowings percentage of GDP.
GB if a company is Bankrupt, morally as well as financially.

It is about time the CEO (Brown), Treasurer (Darling) and the rest of the board were voted out. If only.

Tongue in cheek comments perhaps but I did say If GB was a Ltd company.

Good Luck to 49yr old Yves Rossy, or 'Fusionman' as he is known, in his single jet-propelled wing channel crossing later today.

He leaves Calais in a small plane, jumps out at 2,500m, and hits 'Start' on the 4-burner kerosene fuelled jet turbines on the 2.5m long, (this weighs 55kg when loaded with fuel) wing attached to his body.

His speed gets up to around 125 mph and 12 mins later he is due to arrive at Dover at circa 1pm.

Upon arrival in the right vicinity, sorta kinda, Yves turns off his jets and turns on his parachute.

Sounds like an utter doddle to me. Anyone could do it.

He's canceled for today - apparently its too misty in Dover. But he's going to try again tomorrow. You can watch it live at http://jetmanlive.com