zip106

Just wait until someone finds out about the Islamic bankers....

GlesgaKiss

You know what's missing that messes the whole thing up? That knowledge that failure will result in you ending up poor. That's what the banks need, and all that's required is to bring an end to bailouts and preferential treatment. Everyone should be under the same rules on a level playing field. Unfortunately modern day capitalism is something quite different.

The funny thing about the 99% (or the tossers claiming to be 'the 99%') is that they aren't really operating on principle like they claim. It's basically their - our - fault that the bailouts happened in the first place. If the politicians hadn't been worried about the public's reaction when the sh*t did hit the fan, they wouldn't have been bothered about bailing anyone out!

How anti-bailout would these people be when faced with a collapse of whole fiat system and desperately asking the government to 'do something'? We're all too used to the easy life of the last couple of decades take something like that on the chin.

That's why I can't understand why the bankers are vilified the way they are: because surely anyone with half a brain can see that they aren't the ones responsible for this mess? They're benefiting from it, and of course they might have been 'lobbying' for it, but the people who made it all happen were the politicians and the people with control of taxpayers' cash. No amount of lobbying should result in a transfer of wealth like the one that has taken place. They can lobby all they like, but the people ultimately responsible for giving in to them are the ones at fault.

And of course the public wanted it all. Who wants to lose everything they've got?

GlesgaKiss

More regulation is not the answer. They have been regulated very heavily and still completely failed. What's missing is the market's regulation, as I've said in my last post. And of course people don't want that either because they don't want to lose anything. Well you can't have it both ways.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Give me a B

Give me an A

Give me a R...

...indeed - not exactly a secret.

I am having dinner with one of those very execs on Wednesday - I'll make sure they pay

Trout

iTrader: (1)

They will be takaful-ing the **** then

Trout

iTrader: (1)

I fear it is you that is not interested. My point is that there is a huge amount of regulation and at least some of that - especially US tax - are part of the cause of where we are today.

If regulation is so ineffective then it's amazing how much it drives market behaviour.

GlesgaKiss

Trout - What's your view of the fact that the economic health of the nation is now a job for which we hold the government responsible. It hasn't always been like this, certainly not in the US? The traditional role of the US government (from the reading I've been doing) was to provide a framework in which capitalism could effectively 'take place'. The Fed has been around for a long time now, but it's responsibility now seems to have been stepped up to a whole new level. In recent years our economies have become increasingly centrally planned, and it seems to be down to the fact that policy makers have made mistakes they need to constantly correct. Things were surely more stable 50 or 60 years ago? Oh, and budgets balanced did they not?

Trout

iTrader: (1)

That is why I made my comment earlier about the level of 'socialist intervention'.

The US has always secretly harboured interventionist leanings when it suits them - protectionism, Federal intervention, 2008, etc.

They like to keep the big industries happy and the big industries close. For those thinking that the banks pick Governments they are way off the mark.

The governments that count are picked by Big Oil, Big Industry, Big Tobacco, Big Arms. They are the real forces of Government; especially in the US. Banks are a sideshow by comparison.

Just think Halliburton

Maz

iTrader: (34)

Wash your mouth out now!

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Simply by typing that in I am probably under surveillance!

Galifrey

iTrader: (3)

It isn't a secret, but they are trying to play it down and boasting to customers they were the only bank that didn't take cash from the UK govt as they were financially very strong, I mean how dishonest can they get? Anyway, ask him what bonus Bob Diamond will get if the share price reaches a certain level.

There is no point moaning about the bailouts, the banks were bailed out because it was OUR money they held, our bank accounts, our pension funds, the ones that were heavily bailed out now stand to make the govt (hence us) a nice tidy profit when the share price recovers, although not all will of course.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Sorry mate - your post makes you seem unbelievably naive - especially for someone who works in banking.

You are posting this like it is big secret conspiracy - it's not - it hasn't been since they stuck two fingers up at UKFI - it hasn't been since they sold their soul to the Qatari investment fund.

As for getting a profit based on hitting share price targets - show me a CEO who doesn't.

Show me a FTSE/Fortune 100 company where those bonuses are not in millions or tens of millions.

tony de wonderful

No it's not a stretch, opportunity cost is quiet real in economics. In trading for one to gain, someone else must lose....that is what it is a 'trade'....an 'exchange'.

The profit a seller makes is also based on their previous trade (what they bought the stock for), but for any given exchange it is a zero sum game.

Funded pension would make money because they make money from dividends, and a rising market. That is a consequence of owning stock not trading it per se.

Put it this way; lock up 10 traders in a room, with 10 bbls of oil, and some given currency. Let them trade oil for 1 year together. How many bbls of oil at the end, how much currency?

tony de wonderful

The state isn't socialist in essence Trout, the state just is. It has no innate idealism or nature beyond exercising force relationships as per Machiavelli.

Socialism is about gov policy to redistribute wealth to the working classes and poor.

Gov policy to benefit business (at the expense of other interests) would more be a corporatist state.

Galifrey

iTrader: (3)

Well done taking one post in isolation in a discussion and completely missing the point.

Yes its all companies, so it's all good then isn't it

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Apart from the changing the story after the fact - why not?

Barclays generated a realised return of over a billion pounds for Qatar, in a year - a 25% return.

I would be all too happy to reward the team that gave me that return. Even a £50m bonus for the execs is modest compared to the return.

Galifrey

iTrader: (3)

Yeah it's amazing what profit you can make when you chuck billions in at the bottom of the market, took real skill from the execs to pull that one off. Has the share price even recovered to it's previous levels? No, not even close, made all "our" share options worthless.

With a bit more morality that profit could have been made by the British taxpayer, but no, far better to make sure the execs can get a bonus right, when it was they that allowed the bank to get in dire straits in the first place.

That includes the £7.7m fine by the FSA and best part of £60 million in compensation for 2 funds that were sold as low risk when everyone knew they were medium risk. (they just sacked their entire sales force and back office staff @1000 people, who were completely innocent and following company standards). In a bitter twist of irony, the people who misclassified the 2 funds kept their jobs... bizarre eh?

Yep they sure deserved those bonuses.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

You seem very confused.

Where in the Articles of Incorporation does it say that if a bank gets into trouble it needs to go to the Government with a begging bowl to get bailed out? Surely it is exactly the opposite argument that most extol.

And what if they had taken the deal from UKFI - their share price might well be lying in the doldrums way off the UKFI strike price so that ensures that everyone in the UK has taken a bath on that investment!!

You say it was easy to make money at the bottom of the market - it is only the bottom with hindsight - at the time no banks were genuinely safe.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

The Wall Street protestors have had their tents taken away - and today's horrible rain seems to have tested their commitment

alloy

Hippies....hopefully now as opposed to moaning about the economy they will return to roles where by they are helping contribute to the solution.....

alloy

It takes courage and commitment to make any investment, let alone one to the scale of Qatar Barclay stake. You say that morally the UK Government should have had the opportunity to make the return that Qatar did, well hindsight is a very wonderful thing indeed! The sheer audacity of a UK plc to tout private investors to support it as opposed to going cap in hand to the Government .... Should the UK Government have bailed Barc out then simply the story would have been another UK bank draining on the taxpayer etc etc....

Your stock options are worthless....well that is no ones, but your own fault for not protecting them.....

Trout

iTrader: (1)

How about this for a return to traditional banking values.

From a letter to all staff from the newly appointed CEO of a Global bank this week...

And he is putting his money where his mouth is by scaling back many of the capital intensive, high risk trading plays and focusing on his end clients.

Who'd have thought it

Trout

iTrader: (1)

You just don't get it do you - it is always someone else's fault.

It's the fault of HM Gov investment, it's the fault of no HM Gov investment.

It's the exec.

It's their bonuses.

It's the traders.

When will you get it?

Galifrey

iTrader: (3)

Wow, how naive, it was brave of them, lmao.... It was brave of them to invest people mortgages in those American funds as well right?

I will leave you guys to it, you are so far bought into the current economic system it is a waste of time even trying to bother. Protect company stock options.... right.. How do you protect something that allows you to buy shares at 10% below the starting price when the shares are now cheaper than that?

Yeah it was only the bottom with Hindsight, that was why I scrabbled to get my redundancy money in time before the price went up, sadly it was held onto for 4 months, anyone who didn't realise Barclays was gonna go back up quickly is an idiot, plain and simple, they would have had no understanding of the net asset value of the organisation. Yeah it took courage to invest in something that even if broken up would have made a massive profit.

Galifrey

iTrader: (3)

No, like I said on page 2 with my first post, it is an economic system that entirely favours those with money, be it inherited or earned to manipulate a system to meet their own ends because it is DEBT BASED, we cannot get off the road we are travelling without a major overhaul of the system. One world govt working for all mankind and a resource based economy, even if that resource is labour.

Sadly that utopia is a long way off. :cloudcuckoo:

alloy

No naivety here pal. I'm a market professional.....every investment carries risk, you are the naive one by reviewing things with the benefit of hindsight. The real world doesn't work on your basis!

How to protect your stock options, its called hedging, go and google how to hedge a call option and realise that if you have money in the markets you need to understand how to protect it....

Galifrey

iTrader: (3)

Like I say, I am not gonna argue with you guys anymore, as you clearly have no idea how an employee share scheme operates if you think hedging products are a solution for most employees. I didn't lose capital I lost returns over many years!

And yeah after many years selling financial instruments all over the world worth 10's of millions of dollars, I do know how hedging works, and very often fails. I also know how expensive call and put options have become since the banking crisis.

alloy

From your posts it appears that you don't know your **** from your elbow when it comes down to financial instruments.....good luck to you!

GlesgaKiss

Examine the economics of the situation and you'll see that there will be no profit. Can't expect the average bank employee to understand that though.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Galifrey - you are a multi-million pound trader? What instruments?


As for using your brilliant investing tool, hindsight, how about the Mike Ashley deals he did when (with the help of Lehman if I remember correctly) he called the bottom on HBoS shares twice. He was so brilliant at calling the very obvious bottom he lost in excess of £400m going long.

If like everyone else he had shorted (before the window closed) he would have made a mint.


Finally - you could have hedged - but you didn't.