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Europe Markets Brief
Europe Falls After Fed
Brian Gorman, 12.17.09, 04:50 AM EST
Leading shares slide after Fed reiterates end of liquidity meausures, but banks trade higher.
Barclays PLC
12/18/2009 12:32PM ET
* $17.13
* -$0.48
* -2.73%
* At A Glance
* Chart
* News
* People
Full BCS Chart at
HSBC Holdings PLC
12/18/2009 12:31PM ET
* $55.02
* -$0.33
* -0.60%
LONDON -- European shares fell back from a one-month closing high in early trade on Thursday, after
the U.S. Federal Reserve reiterated that its special liquidity measures would expire early
next year.
At 8:08 a.m. GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 Index of top European shares was down 0.5% at 1,026.01 points, having hit a one-month closing high on Wednesday.
Article Controls
The European benchmark is still up more than 58% from its lifetime low of Mar. 9, with several major economies having emerged from recession.
The heavyweight banking sector took most points off the index. BNP Paribas ( BNPQY - news - people ), Banco Santander, Barclays ( BCS - news - people ) and HSBC ( HBC - news - people ) fell between 1.2% and 2.4%.
U.S. markets gave up earlier gains and closed little changed on Wednesday after the Fed voiced growing optimism on the economy as job losses slow, but repeated a vow to keep interest rates unusually low for "an extended period."
Underscoring improving conditions for banks, the Fed said it would stand by plans to shutter most of its emergency lending facilities on Feb. 1, showing growing confidence that credit markets could stand on their own.
Real-Time Quotes
12/18/2009 12:32PM ET
intraday: BNPQY
BNP PARIBAS SPONS AD (BNPQY)
*
* $38.65
* -$0.54
* -1.38%
* At A Glance
* Chart
* News
* People
intraday: BCS
Barclays PLC (BCS)
*
* $17.13
* -$0.48
* -2.73%
intraday: HBC
HSBC Holdings PLC (HBC)
*
* $55.02
* -$0.33
* -0.60%
Later, investors' attention turned to weekly jobless claims data in the U.S., due at 1:30 p.m. GMT, and the leading indicators index at 3:00 p.m. GMT.
"Markets are still trying to find a trend and establish whether the improvement in the economy is due to stimulus packages," said Justin Urquhart Stewart, investment director at Seven Investment Management.
Are large investors leaving Barclays to guarantee profit now or are they worried that Lehman is going to get their money back from them plus interest? From Yahoo finance:
Kuwait sells Citigroup stake for $4.1 billion
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091206/ap_on_bi_ge/ml_kuwait_citigroup
"Abu Dhabi's International Petroleum Investment Co. made a $2.5 billion profit in June by selling part of a stake it held in London-based Barclays. Then last moth, Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, the British bank's top shareholder, unloaded a stake worth about $2.25 billion.
Barclays turned to investors from Abu Dhabi and Qatar last November for a total injection of up to 7.3 billion pounds ($12 billion) to shore up its balance sheet rather than take on the British government as a major shareholder."
Lehman seeks $10bn clawback in Barclays suit
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/40eac97a-d30f-11de-af63-00144feabdc0.html?referrer_id=yahoofinance&ft_ref=yahoo1&segid=03058&nclick_check=1
why drop ? 'cause..
March 30, 2009
Barclays falls after refusal to join asset scheme
Elizabeth Judge and Leo Lewis
Shares in Barclays opened down nearly 9 per cent this morning amid speculation that Britain's third-biggest bank has ruled out joining the Government's insurance scheme for risky assets.
Stock in the group — which has fiercely resisted Government attempts to take a stake in its business — was down 8.75 per cent or 15.2p to 158.6p, as reports emerged that it would announce tomorrow that it had rejected state cover for toxic loans.
The move follows an announcement by the group on Friday that it had passed a "stress test" by the Financial Services Authority. The City watchdog gave the bank's balance sheet a clean bill of health following a week long test aimed at ensuring there were no major holes in its finances.
That announcement sent Barclays shares up 24 per cent — its biggest gain in two months.
Related Links
* Barclays rises after passing finance stress test
* Barclays comes out fighting against Treasury
* Hundreds of billions to bail out banks again
The Government has set a deadline of tomorrow for applications from banks to join its Asset Protection Scheme which insures against losses from toxic loans. The scheme is aimed at kickstarting lending by helping banks to clean up their balance sheets.
Simon Maughan, an analyst at MF Global Securities, said Barclays would be "right to reject the insurance program because it is expensive".
Lloyds paid £15.6 billion for Government guarantees on £260 billion of investments while RBS paid £6.5 billion for its access to the scheme. Both banks used preference shares as payment.
A spokesman for Barclays declined to comment.
The fall in Barclays stock was mirrored by drops in other leading banks. Lloyds opened down 9.46 per cent or 7.2p at 68.9p while HSBC shed 3.91per cent or 15.75p to 386.75p.
The falling prices, which saw the FTSE-100 index open down 81.50 points, at 3817.26p, formed part of a global rout fuelled by an indication from Timothy Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, that further bailouts could be on the agenda.
In a television appearance yesterday he said: "It's very important for people to understand that, you know, it took us a long time to get into this mess. It's going to take us a while to get out of this."
"The great risk for us is we do too little, not that we do too much."
The bailout fund for collapsed banks had $135 billion left, he said — but might yet need more.
Confidence was also hit by the increasingly precarious situation of General Motors, the US car giant.
An abrupt collapse of sentiment in Japan saw the Nikkei 225 benchmark plunge 4.5 per cent. The drop was stoked by a series of poor readings on the health of the Japanese economy with a further significant monthly drop in industrial production — a 9.4 per cent seasonally adjusted fall and a 56.2 per cent drop in February's domestic vehicle production, the most pronounced decline since records began in 1967.
BCS is less riskier than most it seems
Bank and Broker Default Risk 5 comments
by: Bespoke Investment Group March 09, 2009 | about stocks: AXP / BAC / BBVA / BCS / C / CRZBY.PK / CS / DB / GS / HBC / ING / IXG / JPM / MS / RBS / SCGLY.PK / STD / UBS / WFC
Bespoke Investment Group
At Bespoke Premium, we created an index that measures default risk for the global financial sector based on CDS prices for a number of banks and brokers. We highlight this index on a regular basis so members can keep a close eye on the numbers, which are very important to follow in the current market environment.
Below we highlight a table of the current CDS prices for a number of global banks and brokers along with the recent change in their stock prices. The CDS prices represent the cost per year to insure $10,000 worth of debt for five years (or 10,000 euros for European firms). As shown, default risk for Citi (C) and Bank of America (BAC) are up by far the most year to date at +200%. Not surprisingly, their stock prices are also down the most. American Express (AXP) and Wells Fargo (WFC) have had the 3rd and 4th biggest spikes in default risk at around 140%. However, AXP is down much less than Citi, BAC, and WFC this year.
On the positive side (if you can call it that), Deutsche Bank (DB), Goldman Sachs (GS), and Morgan Stanley (MS) have seen the smallest rise in default risk in 2009, with Morgan Stanley rising the least at 14.57%. Morgan Stanley is also the only company on the list whose stock price is up this year (7.11%).
Bank of England cut IR again. Buy Bank assets by 220 billion. Yet banks down!
$4.17.. Banks lower in England and Ireland etc despite BoE lowering IR and buying assets..
UK banks on grill too: whistleblower made regulator quit!
U.K. regulator quits after whistleblower's allegations
12:18p ET February 11, 2009 (MarketWatch)
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- James Crosby, deputy chairman of the U.K.'s main financial regulator, resigned Wednesday following allegations he had fired a whistleblower and ignored warnings about excessive risk in his previous role as chief executive of the lender HBOS.
The news came as senior executives at several major U.K. banks were grilled over their response to the U.K. banking crisis, which included an admission from the new Royal Bank of Scotland chief that his bank needs to significantly improve its risk management.
In a statement Crosby said he was "totally confident that there is no substance to any of the allegations" made by former HBOS head of regulatory risk Paul Moore, but that resigning from the Financial Services Authority was "the right course of action."
Moore said Tuesday in a submission to a parliamentary committee that he was fired in 2005 after raising his concerns about HBOS' strategy and saying the bank was "a serious risk to financial stability."
HBOS has since been bailed out by the government and acquired by Lloyds Banking Group after wholesale lending markets froze, leaving the bank without access to enough funding.
Moore made his submission to the Treasury Committee, which is investigating the crisis in the U.K. banking market. He added that the executive appointed to run the risk function had no direct experience with risk management.
"Being an internal risk and compliance manager at the time felt a bit like being a man in a rowing boat trying to slow down an oil tanker," Moore said in a memo to the committee.
The former chairman of HBOS, Dennis Stevenson, responded by saying that an independent investigation into the allegations had already taken place and found there was no substance to them.
In his statement, Crosby said Moore was removed as part of a wider restructuring of the risk function at the bank.
The FSA, which oversees banking and securities regulation in the U.K., said in a brief statement Wednesday that allegations made by Moore were investigated by the audit firm KPMG, which concluded changes made by HBOS were appropriate.
The regulator added that it will write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling providing more details of the probe. As well as his role at the FSA, Crosby has acted as an adviser to the government over how to handle the credit crisis.
RBS under scrutiny
After quizzing the former heads of HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland on Tuesday, the Treasury Committee on Wednesday turned its attention to the current heads of several banks.
Stephen Hester, RBS' recently appointed CEO said the bank's risk management systems need a lot of work in terms of reducing both the size of the risk it was willing to take on and the concentration of that risk.
Hester said the acquisition of ABN Amro effectively doubled up the risk in what was already a leveraged business model, though he added this was something that was clear at the time to shareholders and that the problems at the bank at the time "were there for all to see."
Hester also said he is taking legal advice on whether the bank is required to pay bonuses that had been guaranteed to staff before the government injected around 20 billion pounds of cash into it.
"I do not want to recommend a single penny of bonuses more than is in the interests of shareholders," Hester told the committee.
Eric Daniels, CEO of Lloyds, said he had already taken legal advice on bonuses that had been guaranteed to HBOS staff before the takeover and that the bank would have to pay those bonuses.
Daniels also said that his bank would not have needed government cash if it hadn't agreed to buy HBOS, though he added the deal was still in the best interests of Lloyds shareholders. Daniels said he always thought the acquisition of HBOS would be "painful" in the short term and that the economic situation has turned out worse than expected at the time.
The combined Lloyds Banking Group has received around 17 billion pounds in government support, with the government now holding a roughly 43% stake in the group.
All the bankers present, which also included Barclays CEO John Varley, Paul Thurston, U.K. managing director of HSBC ; and Antonio Horta-Osorio, chief executive of Abbey Bank, now a division of Spain's Banco Santander , said they had increased lending levels to U.K. customers in 2008.
HSBC's Thurston however, added that the increases were likely not enough to balance the withdrawal of credit for U.K. customers as foreign banks scaled back their lending.
Barclays' Varley also noted that he would have preferred the U.K. Financial Services Authority's ban on short-selling to have continued, saying that in such volatile markets, even the perception that hedge funds may be shorting a stock could feed instability.
especially since BCS is in the UK
this thing may fly after hours if the stimulus package is announced before 8pm. Howver, I am still trying to figure out how the stimulus package will bode well for BCS...
Bullish.....
http://www.mffais.com/bcs.html
can someone post the significant buy/sell blocks fm todays action?
UK BANKS and currency in CANTOS piece..
Sterling bottoms but banks remain risky
Hello there and welcome to this week’s instalment of Charts of the Week on Cantos. My name is Clive Lambert. I’m a Director of Futurestechs. My firm provides analysis to traders in the futures, foreign exchange and stock trading arenas.
Today I’m going to look at a few of the hot topics that are front and centre in our minds at the moment in these markets and look at a few candlestick charts, which is one of my particular favourites, relating to those hot topics.
Sterling is big in the news at the moment with what’s happening with sterling and as you can see there, the question I’ve asked is is it back from the brink? We’ll look at sterling, we’ll look at the cable chart on a monthly basis and a daily candlestick chart to try and answer that question as well as looking at the euro against sterling which has obviously flipped the other way round and we’ll look at the daily candlestick chart for that to see if there are some clues there as to where it's going next and what’s going on there.
The other hot topic still – this was throughout 2008 and still is now is the banking sector. To illustrate my technical viewpoint and probably the viewpoint of most technicians with respect to this sector I’ve chosen Barclays. I could have chosen any stock really, but there you go, Barclays is the one we’ve chosen to look at - the weekly chart and then go to the daily candlestick chart. Then we’ll bring it altogether by looking at the charts for HSBC, RBS and Lloyds as well.
So let’s get cracking. The chart there is cable, the monthly chart and what I wanted to illustrate with this chart was the importance of the 136 to 140 area of support.
This chart goes back to 1980, something like that. Between ’80 and ’85 we had a big sell off there right down to 105. Now we rallied from there pretty sharply and by 1988 we were around the 190 area. What you can see, and what I’ve tried to illustrate with these blue arrows on our chart is the number of times that during this period we got down to this area right where we are now 136, 140, or right where we’ve just bounced from last week. Those blue arrows illustrate very clearly, I think (and I like to think!) the importance of that area of support and below that we have our Danger Zone! because if we were to break below that area of support we could very quickly go and have a look at this 105 level which is obviously something that people in this country may want to avert.
So, that’s our monthly chart. It's almost a precipitous drop that we’ve got on the far right hand side of that chart, the selling we’ve seen in the last few months, but we’ve been here before with these precipitous drops and look at this one here where we sold off very sharply there and then steadied the boat when we got to that key area that I’m talking about.
If we now get inside the price action inside that monthly chart let’s zoom in and look at a daily chart. This is something you can do really nicely with candlestick charts, is to look at the finer detail, if you like. I’ve even highlighted this area here in this box here to try and show us the candlestick reversal patterns that we’ve just seen on this currency pair.
These candlesticks here, there’s one, two, three in a row with a smaller body and a long lower shadow. You can see that there on all of those three daily candlesticks and those candlesticks are called 'hammers'. The idea is that we’re hammering out a bottom.
The long lower shadow is what we call the long lines at the bottom. They’re proving that the market bounced very swiftly on those days and closed back near the highs. We’ve also got here this green candlestick here which has a real body that surrounds the real body of the candlestick before. Those two candlesticks together are called a 'bullish engulfing pattern' and again is a very strong reversal pattern.
So, when we got down to those key levels suddenly we started seeing these important candlestick reversal patterns, but let’s wait and see is the way I always like to treat these. Let’s ask the market to prove that we’re seeing a reversal. That’s what we got subsequently. We posted three or four decent up days. You can start to believe the story now that we are rallying higher. One of the important levels was 143.50 which was this old low here. We got through it on Friday, I think that was.
So it’s starting to tick the boxes that we found the bottom and that we’re moving higher and getting these resistance levels out of the way. It’s constructive stuff. We’ve got a line here, a downtrend, resistance line. That comes in at 147. That’s our next big test, if you like, to see whether the buyers can push us through there and take us on the next leg higher which I would ask for the market to go to 154, which is the last lower high on our chart.
So, 143.50 has been achieved. Nice one bulls. Nice confirmation of our reversal. 147, that’s your next job, 154 is your next job and just finally 164 is the other level I’ve highlighted on our chart, which is a Fibonacci retracement level that we’d be looking for if we can get through 154. The way I advise my clients always is just to take that step by step approach and if we can get through here then we’ll look for here, then we’ll look for here. The way I analyse the market is very short-term, so there’s no need to be trying to make big predictions in six months, a year into the future or whatever. So that’s the set up there for that chart and an interesting exercise to get into the price action there.
Against the euro, it’s quite well documented now that we almost got to that parity level. Here we have a daily candlestick chart.
We have the rally that started in October/November when we were sort of around this 78, 80 level and then suddenly, bang, off we went. That topped out at 9803. That was towards the end of 2008 and then we saw a sharp sell off here. That sharp sell off, we rallied from it to here and then sold off again and that low about five days later was exactly on the low there. So the short-term traders, very short-term traders had a potential double bottom on their charts which gave them a buy signal when we went through that high right there. So that gave us some short-term buying which faded out at the 61.8 per cent retracement and then we saw candlesticks with these long shadows again and that prompted a reversal.
When a market fails at its 61.8 per cent retracement early on on what could be the start of a move, I take this to be very significant. The next significant thing that happened was we broke below this important support level that had given us the low twice at the start of January. What we now have on that chart is lower highs and lower lows and we have a closing break of that price. That is, again, very significant and actually I’m calling it a major sell signal. We’ve come back a bit today into the 90s, but gains look like a selling opportunity now. This thing looks like we’re going to go to 83, 80 all in the name of a retracement for the moment, which is a long-term Fibonacci level. So that’s my call for sterling for the coming weeks and very much all change, really, on that chart.
I've talked about the currency. As I said, there seems to be two hot topics going on at the moment and bank stocks are the story that just will not go away.
Lots and lots of press coverage about shares being up 80 per cent and that kind of thing. It’s all a bit misleading when you realise exactly where they’ve come from and that kind of thing. But I would look back the answers I’ve given those questions I’ve been asked about banking stocks and I do appear to be rather flippant and callous in my replies about "why would you buy something that’s going down and just leave it alone, find something else to buy" and things like that. But the point is I am advising traders and traders are asking me whether these things are worth buying and in technical analysis terms it’s very easy for me when you’re looking at a chart that it is actually just heading down in one direction. No technical analyst would tell you that’s worth buying I hope.
Let’s go back on our slides now and the point I’m making here is I’ve head a lot of people talk about this as a long-term punt. Those two phrases don’t go together - 'long-term' and 'punt'. I’m sorry, I’m not happy with that.
There’s higher potential reward to doing this, but there’s also a very high risk and the point is with that the reward is only potential. The risk is very real and if you are a trader, then it’s a very difficult trade to put on. It’s almost a binary trade. I’ve put "thanks Paul" there. Someone, a good friend of mine is Paul Chesterton at CMC and I heard him use that phrase - a 'binary trade' for this. It’s either, are the banks going to be nationalised, or are they going to recover? So it’s a risky trade and you should ask yourself that question before you put it on.
As technical analysts, as we’ve seen already with the currency charts, we’re looking for confirmation before we buy something. Look for a level above that needs to be broken before we can say "yes okay, now this thing's going up". Things like old lows, gaps, old levels are very good like that and let’s move on and look at Barclays on that basis.
That’s that weekly chart we’ve already had a look. Clear downtrend, very little sign of that changing. Let’s move on.
This is a daily chart, again I’ve sort of highlighted that small area at the end there in this box up here to show us the candlesticks.
There’s one of those hammer candlesticks with that small real body and the long lower shadow and then two days later we came back and hit the same low around 47p. We got a small short-term buy signal when we broke the high between those two, but we’ve already sort of realised the potential of that and when I was looking at this chart here and I saw this low here at 117.20, I thought to myself that’s the level we need to get through before we’ve even got a glimmer of hope on this particular stock and that is the level that it failed at last week.
So there’s still hurdles to be overcome from a technical point of view before there is even a glimmer of hope for these stocks and for the moment it is still a very high risk trade. I didn’t pick on Barclays in particular. This is what I’ve been saying plenty of times on these things in recent months. There’s HSBC doing the same thing. 594. 597 was a failure at an old low.
Lloyds, can’t even get up to this £1.15 - very important former support level. £1 seems to be causing it trouble at the moment. This is RBS that found support at 40p. You can see that was the trigger for this massive, massive selling. That’s, from a technical point of view, back a few weeks ago, that’s trying to recover now, but 40p is a long way away.
But finally, there’s a chart for Standard Chartered, or Standard Bank... I’m not sure what to call it these days. That is actually holding its previous low from back in November. It has held it beautifully down at 658 and we’re now travelling higher. If anything, that’s the one that looks okay out of the stocks we’ve looked at today.
So just to bring everything together, sterling appears to have got out of jail for the moment. The banking sector has still got a bit to do. It’s a very high risk strategy to buy stocks here whatever your timeframe unless we start to take out some of these resistance levels. So thank you very much for listening. I hope it has been useful. I hope the candlestick side of things has enlightened you a little bit and I just thought I would quickly mention that my book on candlestick has just been released and you can look that up in my Candlestick Charts and hopefully that will add a bit more for you. Thank you very much.
Credit rating lowered by the Moody ; more credit loses write downs claimed.
up today because QUATAR prime minister said they could pump in money if needed!
Filling the gap.Should be Up day Fri.
Billionaire paulson shorting RBS BCS FLoyd to death! He made 3 billion dollars in short bets. During his short with RBS the stox lost almost 100 percent of its value!
MFr
I agree. I can see BCS making a big move soon.
The street can be very stupid sometimes! This stock is a no-brainer for sure.Wait till earnings come out.Zoom Zoom Up.This stock will keep going up till earnings then Zoom Up Monday 2-9-09.Going to be a nice ride.By the way plenty of people lurking here.BCS was the biggest gainer on the New York Exchange yesterday.
Thanks, It was not really that I was looking for a bottom. It was more along the lines that BCS under $5 was a screaming deal to me. At $4 it was no brainer and when the stock went under $3 that was just stupid.
I am all over it. I bought a nice chunk when it hit $4 and then bought some more when it dipped back to $3. I think this one goes back to $10. The bank already stated their losses are not going to be as bad as the street thought. They are going to have profit after taxes and they need no new financing. I think BCS even at todays price it a huge bargain.
wow, no one on ihub seems interested in BCS. I thought I would see much more discussion.
It was all f... Billionair paulson shorting RBS and BCS, and Floyd to death! He made 3 billion dolars in shorting.. He hasnt covered his azz in BCS yet it seems.
Matt; Bravo! u identified the bottom. Very difficult task with fallen knives!
Barclays shares surge in higher London; FTSE 100 up 1.5%Font size: A | A | A7:54 AM ET 1/26/09 | Marketwatch
RELATED QUOTES
9:00 PM ET 1/23/09
Symbol Last % Chg
BCS 3.07 0.00%
HBC 35.65 0.00%
LYG 2.77 0.00%
BP 40.78 0.00%
Real time quote.
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Barclays shares shot up in London on Monday, taking back a portion of losses made by the lender since the start of the year, with the gains helping the top London share index to advance more than 1.5%.
Barclays (BCS) shares rose 56.8% to 80 pence in London.
The lender's chairman and CEO said in a letter to shareholders that the bank has around 36 billion pounds ($49 billion) of committed equity capital and reserves and is not seeking any further capital subscription.
The bank also said that it will bring the release of its annual results forward to Feb. 9 and reiterated an earlier announcement that it will report a pretax profit "well ahead" of the 5.3 billion pound consensus forecast. Its Tier 1 capital ratio stands at around 9.5%. See full story.
It's been a rough few weeks for the banking sector as investors worried that deteriorating trading conditions will lead to more asset writedowns and full government nationalizations.
Here look at the CMF and the Accum/dist goin up as the stock has gone down.
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=BCS&p=D&b=5&g=0&id=p53794302222
link? i am tempted too. But british banking system in worst shaped than US system.. staying at home.. try to convince me! Irish banks IRE AIB reversed, RBS doing very poorly..
GL
Look at the chart as well. The stock has been getting killed but the Accum/dist and the CMF have been Green big time. Someone has been loading the boat here IMO at these low prices.
I have been buying here. Everyone is counting this out. They already stated they did not need money from the gov. They also stated that they were going to beat the numbers the street was looking for. If this one does come out with good numbers and shows everyone that its not doing as bad as everyone would have you believe. You can bet a huge short squeeze is coming. Would not doubt to see this one back to 7-8$ easy. I just dont think that barclays is going under by any means.
BLEEDING MO! Middle easterners want discounted shares if govt money is accepted.. Strange IRE and AIB et stopped sliding down and reversed but BCS didnt! Where is the bottom?
First BCS said no government money,, now towards closing in the UK it changed its rhetoric restated that it will participate in govt program.. The stox will drop mo tomorrow it seems..
BCS pressured.. drops further today..
Barclays remains under pressure
By Michael Hunter
Published: January 21 2009 08:40 | Last updated: January 21 2009 16:56
Barclays fell another 9 per cent on Wednesday afternoon as fears about the health of the banking sector following the government’s latest bail-out persisted.
The UK’s second largest bank, which has more than halved in a week, closed 6.8p lower at 66.1p. Earlier in the session the bank’s shares had fallen as low as 47.4p, a fall of 35 per cent, amid speculation it could bring forward its annual results statement. The bank, which turned down the opportunity to participate in the government’s bank rescue earlier this week, is due to release full-year results on February 17.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
UK faces mounting pressure to reassure markets - Jan-21
FSA briefs auditors on banks - Jan-21
Comment: Why we need strong commercial banks - Jan-21
Lombard: Mutuals are still a safer haven - Jan-22
BoE’s Tucker defends bank bail-out - Jan-21
Lex: UK banks - Jan-21
Worries about the banks’ potential exposure to further significant writedowns and the creeping threat of nationalisation have put the sector under pressure all week, but other banking stocks managed an afternoon rally on Wednesday.
Lloyds Banking Group, the recently enlarged group following its takeover of mortgage lender HBOS, rose 0.7 per cent at 45.1p. Earlier it hit a low of 33p.
Royal Bank of Scotland, which plummeted earlier this week after saying it would report a record loss of £28bn, rose 21.4 per cent to 12½p. HSBC, which is also expected to report further writedowns and cut its dividend, rose 6.3 per cent to 515½p, while Standard Chartered climbed 11.1 per cent to 766p.
In an article in Wednesday’s Financial Times John McFall, chairman of the Commons treasury committee, and Jon Moulton, the private equity veteran, both called for RBS and the newly enlarged Lloyds Banking Group to be fully nationalised.
”If it [full nationalisation] is to happen, the sooner the better. Let us get it over with - nationalise the pair of them,” wrote Mr McFall and Mr Moulton.
Overall, the FTSE 100 lost 0.8 per cent, or 32 points, to 4,059.88, while the FTSE 250 rose 0.3 per cent to 6159.5.
Sterling’s slide continued. The pound fell as low as $1.3695 against the dollar, its lowest since mid-2001 and sank to a record low against the yen of Y119.47.
“We see little reason why sterling should reverse its downward trend during 2009 given the concerns over the state of the UK financial sector and economy are likely to persist,“ said Jonathan Jackson, head of equities at Killik & Co.
Investors were scrutinizing minutes from the Bank of England’s December interest rate setting meeting, at which all but one member of its monetary policy committee voted to cut interest rates by 50 basis points to a record low of 1.5 per cent. David Blanchflower advocated a 100 basis point reduction.
Overnight, Mervyn King, the Bank’s governor, said that the official efforts to restore health to the banking system “are not designed to protect the banks as such. They are designed to protect the economy from the banks.”
Mr King also said the Bank would take “uncoventional measures” to limit the severity of the recession, including plans to buy corporate bonds in large quantities.
There was further grim economic data, which showed unemployment continued to soar in the final months of last year. The number of jobless climbed to 1.92m in the three months to the end of November - the highest level since 1997.
“The bad news on the labour market is absolutely relentless now as the deepening recession, slumping business confidence and persistent very tight credit conditions exact a heavy toll,” said Howard Archer at IHS Global Insight.
$5.71 day's low.. Barclay said nothing known about decline in share. Meanwhile Anglo irish bank nationalized and UBS sold commodities unit to Barclay!
Thank you and Good Luck to you as well Friend.....
Glad you like the Ibox .... nothing much.... just a nice basic spread..... I did just have to update the NEW 52 week low though......
TTYS,
JT
GL! and nice iBox...
I am buying shares and call options at these levels happily.....
Good Day and Good Luck Frenchee,
JT
Barclays, builders higher in downbeat London
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Shares in Barclays and several home builders were higher although London stocks were weaker overall on Monday, as worries that these firms will undertake a heavily-discounted rights issue faded, at least for the time being.
Barclays' statement followed a report in the Sunday Times (of London) that the bank plans to raise 4 billion pounds ($7.8 billion) from sovereign wealth funds in the next couple of weeks.
But Barclays won't resort to an emergency rights issue, and any sale of shares would be at a premium to Friday's closing price of 318 pence, according to the report.
Home builders were also performing well for similar reasons as Barclays.
FTSE 100 component Persimmon (UK:PSN: news, chart, profile) added 4.1%, while shares of Barratt Developments (UK:BDEV: news, chart, profile) rallied 11.9% and Taylor Wimpey (UK:TW: news, chart, profile) moved up fully 8.9% outside the top index.
The Sunday Telegraph reported that UBS bankers have drawn up plans for a potential share placing by major shareholders in companies such as Taylor Wimpey and Barratt Developments.
Last week, shares in the sector slumped amid speculation that companies will have to undertake heavily discounted rights issues to repair their balance sheets if they are forced to write down land assets.
FTSE 100 declines
Overall, the FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX: news, chart, profile) eased 0.3% at 5,785.10. Other European shares also turned lower as light sweet crude oil futures hit another record, pressuring airlines such as British Airways (UK:BAY: news, chart, profile) , which was recently down 5.5%.
Food stocks also fell after UBS downgraded several high profile firms in the sector. See Europe Markets. See futures movers.
Of those food companies trading in London, shares in Unilever (UK:ULVR)............
......... while shares in Cadbury (UK:CBRY: news, chart, profile) fell 2.7% after UBS cut its rating on the two companies to sell from neutral.
The broker said that the European food sector's premium valuation makes it vulnerable to disappointment. It sees particular worries over growth in volumes from emerging markets as well as developed markets' margins.
Outside the top index, shares in SkyePharma (UK:SKP: news, chart, profile) surged 36.7% after U.S. regulators approved GlaxoSmithKline...........
( full article at www.marketwatch.com )
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BCS - Barclays PLC
Barclays Plc
1 Churchill Place
England E14 5HP
United Kingdom
http://www.barclays.co.uk
http://www.barclays.com/
Primary Trading Venue --> NYSE
Company Officers
CEO --> John Varley
President --> Robert E. Diamond Jr.
Naguib Kheraj, Group Fin. Dir. --> IR Contact, IR
Phone: +44 (0)20-7116-1000
A global financial services provider engaged in retail and commercial banking, credit cards, investment banking, wealth management and investment management services. The Company operates through eight business segments: UK Banking, Barclaycard, International Retail and Commercial Banking, Barclays Capital, Barclays Global Investors (BGI), Barclays Wealth, Barclays Wealth-Closed Life Assurance Business, and and other operations.
Barclays PLC provides financial services worldwide. It offers retail and commercial banking, credit cards, investment banking, wealth management, and investment management services. The company provides current accounts, deposit accounts, savings accounts, investments, mortgages, installment finance, loans, and general insurance, as well as advice, information and support, and asset financing and leasing solutions. It also operates a credit card and consumer loans business, which also processes card payments for retailers and merchants, as well as issues credit and charge cards to corporate customers and the United Kingdom government. The company's investment banking services include fixed income, foreign exchange, commodities, emerging markets, money markets, sales, trading and research, prime services, and equity products; and primary and secondary activities for loans and bonds, hybrid capital products, asset-based finance, commercial mortgage-backed securities, credit derivatives, structured capital markets, and large asset leasing, as well as private equity. Its investment management products and services consist of structured investment strategies, such as indexing, global asset allocation, and risk controlled active products; and related investment services, including securities lending, cash management, and portfolio transition services. The company also offers assets and products in the exchange traded funds business. In addition, Barclays provides wealth management services, such as private banking, asset management, stock broking, offshore banking, wealth structuring, and financial planning services. Further, its wealth-closed life assurance activities comprise closed life assurance businesses. The company, formerly known as Barclay & Company Limited, was founded in 1690. It changed its name to Barclays Bank Limited in 1917 and to Barclays PLC in 1985. The company is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.
In addition, the company operates 2,902 branches worldwide.
52 wk. High 62.68
52 wk. Low 21.74
Dividend 2.5682
Yield 7.527
Earnings/Share 6.80
P/E Ratio 5.0176
Outstanding Shares: 1.64 Bil.
Institution Holdings: 2.20% (as of 1/1/08)
Total Held: 36.22 Mil Institutions: 278
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2 YR Daily
(looking for assistant mod's) ; ) (Thank You)
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