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FTBagain

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  1. Yep! The news just keeps getting worse. Even to Cheers after the IR cut were muted today!
  2. Check this out. The rate of the rise in bad debt provision is being noticed. It looks like even the BBC is turning bearish! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4749111.stm
  3. Quite! But if it helps my endowments to recover and grow, all well and good. I have been wondering who on earth has been buying into the Stock Market!
  4. So the pressure for a crash builds from yet another direction
  5. I noted a few like that in our area as well. Then the EA's giving them the boot and the chancer's walking as well I think we are getting down to the hard core who need to sell. I also noted that our market appears to behave counter intuatively in that prices rise when numbers rise! I guess rising numbers up for sell is a more accurate measure of activity at the moment!
  6. Yeh! I bought a flat about then. It was a new development. The builder had bought an old school site from the council, paid a fortune. The EA told me that the first batch of houses and flats were being sold cheap because the builder had being told to get some crash in or go broke! When EA's start talking in negative terms you know thens are getting bad!
  7. I looked into a ten year fixed rate with the Co-op. Not a bad deal just over 6% before the cut. Last time we had a big economic power rising in the east and hifg oil prices was back in the seventies. Go look at the data from back then. I recon inflation and interest rates have well and truely bottomed out. Both are heading up and it could be quite fast. I just hope the market falls fast enough to justify jumping befroe that 10 year deal disappears! If I can time it right I'll be quids in.
  8. Same here in Bath. Odd. But I tend to agree with theChuz, it seems the chances are backing out of the market. Check out the graph. Quite a number bounce in Bath, there ws even a slight increase in sale prices according to Hometrack. Only other place to see a rise last month was Norwich. Kinda upset me, but hey, there would always be set backs on this bumpy road.
  9. Nice find. Has a familiar ring to it. They seemeven less impressed with their Central Bank than we are with ours if that was possible. I loved this one. Klunk Klick every trip. (OOps showing me age!)
  10. China has already started its move on the dollar with the weeking of the link between the yuan and dollar. They no longer need to buy America's debt! That means the dollar will fall, and it already is. Not off a cliff yet, but it is sinking and faster than our very own pound, hence the pound is up against the dollar. Dosen't say much for the dollar if it is weeker than the pound right now, does it? If China starts to dump dollars in the near future, just watch the dollar drop. The fed will need to raise rates to protect their currancy. Probably kick of just after Greenspan retires, if he's lucky!
  11. Got talking about the HPC particularly because of the IR going down. During the discussion one of the girls in the office let slip that she really needed the rate to come down because her tracker / variable (which ever it is) rate mortgage was really begining to hurt. She bought about 18 months ago. I remember saying at the time (not too forcibly because everyone has to make their own decisions) that we were at the top of the market and it was not a good idea to buy at that stage in any market. Since she bought there have been a few IR rises. I suggested that she look into going on to a fixed rate, but she is locked into her variable / tracker. So much for good mortgage advise. :angry: I really hope she manages to get through what is coming because she is a nice person. She is also on an above average salery (a professional engineer) so if she is struggling it must be getting really bad out there for the average wage earner .
  12. I have been watching the dollar / pound exchange rate closely, hoping to see the pound fall against the dollar. Why? Oil. If the pound falls inflation will rise, but if the pound is strong any oil related inflation will be off set. So the last week or so has been a bit disappointing, but not unexpected. DrBubb pointed out in his threat earlier today "Stuck with a Fiat currency", So I figured if the Chinese were dumping Dollars then the dollar would be falling as well! It is That means the Fed will need to act to stave off importing oil inflation. Remember the US is about a year behind the UK in this cycle, so their consumer sending is somewhat stronger than it is over here. That provides a "pull" in terms of spending, and a "push", interms of rising costs, to inflation. Fed will know this, so they are likely to keep tightening at a "measured" pace. Which means of course that UK rates will have to start going up again sometime soon. China is the key to the whole thing. As Napoleon said, "Let China sleep, for when China awakes the whole world shall tremble." He was right. China is awaking as a global economic power and will very soon have the power to suck in the very life blood out of the Western economies in terms of investment and jobs.
  13. Oh hum! Markets found it about as interesting as we did. Stock market wnet up 4 points in 2 minutes, Pound lost against the dollar for about 2 minutes. Then BOTH markets decided 0.25% made not a jot of difference and normal service was resumed. A bit miffed that Bush is making an even bigger mess of the US than our lot are because the pound is recovering value.
  14. The flood is starting to overtake them. They are into damage limitation now. It is all down hill now.
  15. TheLittleGuy, Interesting point, but I agree with Jason, they probably go hand in hand. In any event I think the banks are already starting to tighten their rules. For the last couple of months the news papers and even the BBC web site have been full of stories of banks increasing their allowances for bad debt! Not good reading for the shareholders. Soon they will start take increasingly tough measures to get their money back! The process is already moving and it will be gathering pace over the winter. Some people are going to have a very unhappy Chrismas I fear, but next Christmas will be even worse.
  16. Just caught up with this thread so I am a bit late with this point, Sorry. I would really like to point out that the argument that interest rates do have not risen as much as they have in previous crashes is completely misleading. It overlooks a very important point. People measure what they can afford by how much they can afford to repay per month at the time of taking out the loan. This means that the last people on to the market at 3.5% probably stretched themselves too far. The rise in IR to 4.75% is a huge hike to them, or it will be when they come of their 2 year fix rate period. (Interestingly enough the repossesion rate in climbing which could indicate that the process is already starting.) Look at it this way to someone who is already stretched a rise from 3.5% to 4.75% is equivilant to about 10% to about 14%, that would begin hurt. For those who took out mortgages at about 4% a 0.25% rise is far more significant than it used to be when IR were at 10% say. In other words the market is highly sensitive to IR's/ Far more so than previously. The BoE knows this. That is why they are being so cautious. Oil is likely to keep rising, pushing up inflation. I suspect the BoE will be slow to react to inflation being driven by oil alone as they will be hoping that the single driver will fall back letting them offf the hook. I strongly suspect they will be disappointed given that China and India are sucking in oil like it is going out of fashion (which some say it is!). So when oil driven inflation takes hold the BoE will start driving up the IR's and the over sensitive housing market will be overwelmed. IR's only need to go to 7% or 8% and a lot of people's mortgages will have Doubled. There is your HPC big time. Seen the latest record for oil!!
  17. You're right, nauseating isn't it! Just had a tough day convincing Mrs FTBagain that now is not a good time to buy. So she is going to decorate the bathroom!! Oh well! might take the pressure of at least until the Nationwide et al start claiming that the autumn bouse has kicked in!! :angry: :angry:
  18. OnlyMe, You are absolutely right regarding the price of gass. The UK is utterly unprepared for gass shortages. The race for natural gass that occured in the 90's is about to back fire big time. The reason I highlighted oil, is simply because it is the one that is reported the most, and thanks to the car, it is also the one that most people notice everytime they fill up. It is a Sentiment Thing!
  19. I posted some of this under Jason's MPC thread but it was suggested it should be a seperate thread, so here goes. Oil prices are up massively over the last two years, but petrol prices over here have not risen anywhere like as much. True we pay a lot of tax but even so petrol prices should have gone up. They have not because the pound has been strong over the same period, all but cancelling out the rise in oil prices. If the pound falls now we will be exposed to the full price of oil and it could happen quite quickly. Since the pound started to fall recently and oil started to rise again I have noticed that the price at the pumps are going up quite quickly. If the MPC cut their rates too quickly I think we will see oil driven inflation, big time. As a simple survey what is the price of fuel doing in your area? I am in the Bristol / Bath area average prices are; Unleaded 87p, Diesel 90p, up 5p in a month.
  20. I am in the Bath Bristol area. Prices are (average) unleaded - 87p, Diesel 90p. I've noticed this around here, but I have not been looking either. I will look out for new boards for now on.
  21. If I was on the MPC I would vote for a hold (as I did here) because the data is still very mixed. However, I would like to see a cut! Why? Easy the narrower the gap between UK rates and US rates, the greater the downward pressure on the Pound. If the pound falls we import inflation. Import inflation rates go up. Rates go up HPC!! Oil is the key. Oil prices are up massively over the last two years, but petrol prices over here have not risen anywhere like as much. True we pay a lot of tax up even so petrol prices should have gone up. They have not because the pound has been strong over the same period, all but cancelling out the rise in oil prices. If the pound falls now we will be exposed to the full price of oil and it could happen quite quickly. I have noticed that petrol prices are at last starting to rise, 5p in the last three weeks or so.
  22. What is more Hometrack have cut their forcast for the year from 0% to -5%. I wonder who will be next to cut their forercast?
  23. I would suggest that IR will slowly climb over the next few years towards their long term average of abou 7%. There will be ups and downs on the way, for example, I think the rate could well go down on 4 August, but the Chinese are key. They have been propping up the US dollar by buying US bonds. That is not the way it usually works. Normally developed countries (eg the US) buy bonds from developing countries (China). Now that China appears to begining to free up its curracy I think you will see the money flow from the Dollar to the Yuan. The US will need to raise its base rates to protect the dollar, which in turn will force up the UK rates or we will see Sterling being sold in favour of the Dollar. Bates rates are going to move away from the current historical lows, making them history! When I buy I think the long fixed rate mortgage that I can find is going to be worth the search.
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