Joey Buttafueco Jr

Agreed

Indeed. There is lots of BS on here, people claiming to be expert traders yet exhibiting terrible bias that makes me wonder if they are telling porkies.

Wol, whereabouts do you live - i don't recall you posting on here before? I have a few comments for the houses you have posted.

I don't think someone would buy CDS protection on UK from RBS if that is what you are saying.

You should be able to get a quote in EUR as well.

Good point re. gold standard. I think we can agree that while it is not impossible, it is extremely unlikely.

I'm not sure if the UK failed to pay on the non sterling liabilities whether it would be classed as a default.

Agreed - see my link - happened in 1932, but I'm not sure what currency loans were denominated in.

Exactly - they keep printing I wrote about the downgrade a year back when it was being talked about then http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,780a34e6-6974-4570-b9c7-450bc5c64661.aspx Spain (5Y) is currently ~104bps, UK 76bps

"if there is no risk of default, why is such risk insurance bought and traded as far as the UK, a sovereign govt. with own currency?" Let me get some views from a few people and post back tomorrow

In theory it can't happen

That is what I think will happen - it will require a lot for the agencies to mark us down.

Can you give your reasoning please

Why don't you arrange an HPC London derivatives drinks and we can debate this at length?

PLEASE STOP MENTIONING AIG WHEN WE ARE TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

I vote MX5 to get used to RWD

Fair point. The other day I had a hangover and now I'm thinking of suing the brewer in question

"I agree...how then, is it possible, like bankers have done, to pass the risk on by selling chunks on? anyone later in the chain MUST charge less than the risk premium, otherwise, passing it on makes no sense." My point was in reference to the particular article. It makes no sense. Are you sure you are not getting confused with CDOs here - the market for CDS is reasonably liquid (in most names), so you would buy/sell protection at the market rate "according to past posts, all this balances out...AIG proves it doesnt, and cannot." Eh? We are talking about something completely different - we've done that one to death "and as for the lawyers...why does it need a lawyer to discern what IS insurance and what is not?....the golden rule in court is one of reasonableness...what would the man on the detroit omnibus think had occured?" Because I personally don't know enough about the legal side of it. I'm happy to listen to someone that has both (relevant) derivative and legal experience

"who would insure a company thats LIKELY to go bust?" Who would sello CDS protection on a company that is likely to go bust for a premium that doesn't reflect that risk? "it IS insurance" This is opinion, not fact. Unless you are a derivatives lawyer and haven't told us, you cheeky bugger! "The idea of CDS was to make a borrower more highly rated for a given investor, say a pension fund...the fund may have a policy to lend only to AAA rated borrowers....to protect, rightly, its pensioners." Who told you that? Are you confusing with CDO?

"This isn't about short selling so much as CDS. " Why differentiate "I take an interest in a companies debt, i then insure myself for 5 times that debt for the event of that company failing. Company gets into a bit of an issue that could normally be renegotiated, but I decide to bring the company down so I can collect on my bets." And what about all the other players in the market? back to my point again. Are you supposed to stop a company going under even though it deserves to? "Its AIG all over again" It is completely different. "I take an interest in a companies debt, i then insure myself for 5 times that debt for the event of that company failing. " Why bother taking an interest in the first place and not just buy CDS protection?

This seems like pee pee. Are we supposed to ban shoert selling because we are not allowed to acknowledge that a company is FUBAR?

Would agree on Boxster if budget is 11k. It was just that Mr Hovis hinted that he could spend a bit more......

have they still got a dealer network for servicing?

I am not sure why it is a terrible ownership proposition as it is properly engineered, unlike the Boxster (RMS etc). I've had mine for three years and nothing has gone wrong. Honda sold me a 3 year warranty for £1k - compare this with 1k+ pa for the Boxster. Not sure where you got the impression of huge insurance from Market is quite bouyant at the moment - cars are going abroad due to exchange rate. I guess it depends on how much Mr Hovis wants to spend.

Mr Hovis, Buy an NSX rather than Boxster if you have the budget