jonpo

IRS will rise...slowly

no equity.. she bought it with a 100% Interest only mortgage ..there was no equity when I married her apart from the "equities" i already had...

in Realterms though... often when you adjust for inflation and population growth a house is still just worth a house..

... I don't have a Job at the moment that Im sinking 40-50 hours a week into.. I just decided to check this place out again to see what it is about these days see what is going down .. or up as the case may also be.. . You have to live somewhere... and so you are essentially faced with a binary decision do you buy or rent.. now that depends more than anything on your own circumstances... but most of the people I know ...my mum and dad my sister the rest of my aunts and uncles and even my grandparents and the majority of my friends tend to live in homes that they have bought at some stage... in fact a full 64% of people in the UK are "home-o"s too so its not as uncommon as you might think. so if you think im "talking my book" its not because im being a troll.. Its just that I hold a pretty mainstream/common position. sure its risky owning a home..but its also risky not owning one.. as has been pointed out you pays your money and takes your risks. Likewise you kind of have to bank somewhere (unless your totally off grid). but the reason i find them interesting is that a bank is a unique type of business in that you can choose to invest in either the equity or the debt (via depositing/loaning the bank your money or by buying the shares). I have not claimed to have married any money or inherited any.... If you read my posts carefully I explained how I was someone who was previously very bearish on the housing market and a committed renter up until the crisis hit in 2008. Ironically as I explained my wife and I were very lucky and made a lot of money not really out of house price inflation but out of a planning gain which was total luck and not probably not replicable for anyone (although if anyone wants to have a go I'm happy to explain how to go about it). however Ive also made a similar amount of less luck based profits from Investing and taking critical risks in listed public shares. I use only my own research and empirical observation of facts to make up my mind which i then use to take risks.. If i'm right I make money.. If I'm wrong I loose money. If the facts change I change my mind... I profess no special knowledge, Please tolerate my opinions if they are in error. I assure you that reason is left free to combat them. I have no motive here beyond entertainment, education and hopefully the epicurean enjoyment of intelligent informed debate. What Motive(s) do the rest of you have?

I think this is a fair comment... What your saying is that a mostly taxpayer owned bank must still compete in the same labour market as it's more successful and profitable peers. Hypothetically... If a recruitment agent pushed me a stack of job specs RBS/ Deutche / BoAML all sounding more or less similar ... Which one do I get him to arrange and interview with first? I'd actually want MORE money to go and work for RBS...(as a zombie taxpayer owned black hole in which morale is probably very low ) than any other bank. Adverse selection.

Yeah for a while there they were really pushing the dixons model wern't they ( overpriced insurance on stuff you don't need)... I suspect they will find some new 'innovation' going forward... But from an investment perspective a huge problem is illusory profits.. And that can go for retail, commercial and investment banking.

This is actually a very interesting question...financials are still in a very difficult place in my opinion.. There is still a load of regulatory risks and provisions still to be accounted for...the eventual settlement of the fx rigging could be substantial. Then there is swaps. Maybe commodities.. And for each of these there is going to be a metric ton of Extra regulation increasing costs and decreasing profits...hsbc is probably the only proper bank in the uk making consistent decent profits and paying good dividend quarterly.. Stan chart.. These really do Need to raise capital.. Boardroom in turmoil .. Uninvestable...Rbs .... Still fubared.. Avoid... Hester has done nothing useful.. Talented people probably left.. Still plugging the hole .. No profit no divLloyd's .. Only useful really useful if you want exposure to the uk housing market! E.g I doubt many people on here want that! .. Profit but no div yet.. Maybe next year.. Hence I'm out..Barclays.. Too much ficc.. Still trying to work out who they are as a bank... Not enough capital... Probably my second choice in uk behind hsbc in uk banking but I wouldn't... Not compelling as an investment IMHO. Santander.. Not sure on this one would have to do more research.. They do a rights issue/ div every quarter.. Makes me suspicious French banks... Obviously avoid they are French... Deutche bank.. Too exposed to ficc (which is an area not making money at the moment...) And this probably goes for Goldman Morgan Stanley etc.. Goldman are still making money from the recent surge in equity underwriting.. But weakness in ficc will be a headwind. Citi .. The rbs of the us.. Avoid again. JPMorgan despite the whole whale thing.. They still have solid liquidity and capital the are very much too big to fail... Could be worse.. I would consider researching it more to see if it warranted an investment .. Chinese banks ..avoid. Swiss banks ..UBS .. Credit sweat. Could be worthwhile taking a look at these due to them being stronger in equities than ficc... So slim pickings.. Wouldn't want to own many of these at the moment..

Are you guys stalking me or something ? Confidence is a fickle thing.. one day you have it and the next it can disappear rapidly in a pestowire post ... the decline in the lehman share price went on for a while as you know... if you've been busily reviewing all of my posts from 2008! and if you read the book " to big to fail" there were many behind the scenes negotiations that went on before the death blow occured. ultimately sounds like Fuld was just too greedy. As to why they dont go to zero I remember the day of the northern rock bank run a passer by who also witnessed the run said that it was probably a good time to buy northern rock shares! and indeed there was some "sophisticated" hedge fund guy who did just that.. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/profiles/5225312/Jon-Wood-cornerstone-of-the-fight-over-Northern-Rock.html As dabhand says no one has perfect information. people speculate and the facts can and do change rapidly.. as we witnessed with the RBS bailout.. the Buffet bailouts.. and that business with TARP where the politicians were like shall we pass it or not... thats why even if you think a bank will go to the wall its hard to short it somethimes because facts can change. In some of those circumstances the shares represent an option value on a politician/central banker giving the bank a nice big cheque in return for some shares for instance.

not really RBS shareprice fell to 10p before they failed HBOS fell to a fraction of its former value too A+L B+B Northern rock.. all imploded on the share market before no one would lend them any further money. Bear stearns fell to below $2.. Lehman brothers fell to nothing too http://jasondacruz.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/372cce02-8364-11dd-907e-000077b07658.gif My point is that precipitous share price declines ALWAYS precede a bank failure because the share price represents a live realtime measure of confidence ( of other banks expecially ) in the bank. No share price = no confidence. also as long as the share price is still decent the Bank has its own currency from which it can raise capital if it needs... one only needs to look at when Goldman raised capital from Buffet.. and when Citi raised money from Buffet and when everyone raised capital from rights issues.. note particularly the transformational effect of the CRDI.MI rights issue. your also forgetting that HSBC raised a crap load of capital from a mamoth rights issue in 09 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/716bc256-21ea-11de-8380-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2rawIcFuT Id also point out the significance of the CDS credit spread in ascertaing market confidence in a bank.. goldmans' credit spread blew out to 2700 in the peak ofthe crisis. but of course your all probably very aware that banks make losses when the credit spread widens and profits when it tightens... Anyway I prefer to look at facts when asscertaining the strength of a bank and so i'd recomend examining the audited accounts for yourselves rather than all that internet hersey.. http://www.investegate.co.uk/article.aspx?id=201311040815010644S I would particularly draw your attention to : Cash and balances at central banks $ 170 billion and also the world leading 14% tier 1 ratio. anyway as a recent HSBC shareholder I slept soundly at night knowing I owned one of the safest and most succesful banks in the world.. whose purchase of household international was but a blip on the record of the bank that everyone moves their deposits into in a financial crisis.. (and who then loan that money back to the banks it was taken from)

However back in the REAL world it is still a FACT that HSBC is today still worth 1.55 TRILLION hk dollars... If any of that scaremongering paranoid ******** your calling research had any kind of credibility don't you think they worth an awful lot less? Anyway I personally know a guy that runs HSBC out in HK.. He has known for years that Chinese banking system is a house built on sand. And so for all you people hoping to see the end of the world sometime soon... Sorry... Life goes on..

You hope.

No not really everyone knew Lehman was leveraged up the wazoo.. Like northern rock etc.. On the contrary every one knowing that the system is supported by QE should be as confident as me and possibly more so the people will keep the ship on course.... there is no circumstance in which hsbc would be allowed to get even close to the edge without the rules being changed again and again and again until the correct answer is given... You know this to be true..

I feel an urge to roflol when I see you funny threads dude... You can't read this of course .... But you are tres funny..

You talking total twaddle mate.. Hsba is the Pacific Ocean of liquidity....

This is hilarious guys that you have now managed to have nearly 5 pages of discussion on the possibility that HSBC probably one of the safest banks in the world with around 180 billion in cash on the balance sheet and a tier 1 ratio of >13 pct could possibly be having problems.. Get real guys. Too funny.

Well watch out next time your in Buenos Aires ! http://landingpadba.com/ba-basics-counterfeit-money/

Because as well as a literate population they are also home to some of the worlds most accomplished currency forgers?

That was top of my list too... Apparently the Northampton massive require DETACHED houses. Apparently I'm just a stupid horrid London troll for not realising that everyone in Northampton is stupidly loud and screams through the walls every night.

Hmm well while it's true that if have simple stuff you can outsource it... The problem is that Indian IT workers have very little natural initiative and poor natural communication skills also India has a 10% inflation rate... So the 'arb' if not closed already it is closing pretty rapidly. The Eastern Europeans are the new arb trade... But there are horror stories out there.. I knew one guy in charge of 200 Chinese IT people who was of the opinion that they should all be fired.. If you want people to move deck chairs on the titanic they can do it all day everyday... But if you want someone to build relationships.. Think outside The box and be creative etc.. There is a lot of productivity that can carved out by a skilled terminal jockey. Simply put the ratio between the number of computers and computer science grads means there is still plenty of work to go round. And that's kind of the reason I got into it... Just eat ..for example.. 90 times earnings FFS...

Because its Northampton! there are precisely 3 flats in that price range and one of em looks like its a crime scene out of the Wire I picked the semis and townhouses because they are solid high quality houses from back in days when people knew how to build houses.. I doubt you would get much noise through the walls unless you had some very loud neighbors and even then you got to be on pretty bad terms with them if you cant just tell them to turn the noise down a bit. yeah for the same price you can get a detached house if questionable build quality.. but I'd rather have a central location and an older house

Yes when I was younger there was a big house price bubble and it ended messily... you remember right ? when you are young and undrpaid houses tend to look expensive. When you look back though.. not so much. I wouldn't describe any of my profits as HPI based... besides the wife regards all those profits as hers. The lady that bought the house got a bargain and she knows it. I'm currently making a living from crude oil. but yes I did find my computer science degree was very useful and would certainly recommend it.

Oh because EVERYONE lives in a 5/6 bed detached HOUSE do they ? Id much rather live in a nice little flat than some of those disgusting detached boxes of bricks that pass for homes in that part of the world.

I'm kind of surprised in a way that its so skewed to north London...

Whoa 500 bags will get you a jolly nice place around there... http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-43501982.html?backListLink=%2Fproperty-for-sale%2Fmap.html%3FlocationIdentifier%3DREGION%255E1014%26minPrice%3D350000%26maxPrice%3D500000%26radius%3D1.0%23_includeSSTC%3Don%26auction%3Dfalse%26locationIdentifier%3DREGION%255E1014%26maxPrice%3D500000%26minPrice%3D300000%26previousSearchLocation%3DNorthampton%26radius%3D1.0%26searchLocation%3DNorthampton%26searchType%3DSALE%26useLocationIdentifier%3Dfalse%26box%3D-0.95596%2C-0.83992%2C52.19765%2C52.29792%26popupPropertyId%3D43501982&fromMap=true I like this one because its near to the pub. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-39020917.html?premiumA=true This Georgian vicarage is a quaint little thing. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-43432832.html This would be a solid choice too i think ... And you could always go in at 490 on this double fronted.. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-41420032.html?premiumA=true The thing is there is no need to spend that much.... I think this is a gem... 265K for a full on 4 level Victorian townhouse in Wellingborough http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-41917345.html?backListLink=%2Fproperty-for-sale%2Fmap.html%3FlocationIdentifier%3DREGION%255E1014%26minPrice%3D300000%26maxPrice%3D550000%26viewType%3DGRID%26radius%3D5.0%23_includeSSTC%3Don%26auction%3Dfalse%26locationIdentifier%3DREGION%255E1014%26maxPrice%3D550000%26minPrice%3D230000%26previousSearchLocation%3DNorthampton%26radius%3D5.0%26searchLocation%3DNorthampton%26searchType%3DSALE%26useLocationIdentifier%3Dfalse%26viewType%3DGRID%26box%3D-0.72148%2C-0.66345%2C52.27387%2C52.32395%26popupPropertyId%3D41917345&fromMap=true of course It would cost you about 10 times that amount in a nice part of London other than that.. the main problem seems to be that Northampton has crappy housing stock... thats why I would stick with period..

Higher Education is not a waste of money. Had a great time drinking much cheap alcohol Made great friends for life most of which im still in contact with. I Learned some interesting stuff that enabled me to break into a solid career earning a top quartile wage. I know a lot of people made a KILLING on their education... sure these are smart people who work hard but even so in many cases we are talking the trade of a lifetime. As long as you performing a decent investment appraisal of any course In terms of what it gives you and what it costs. I cannot see how you can really loose.