Barclays Share Discussion Threads

[wenlynn] 09/8/2009 08:12

Ken,
Correct !

[kenbachelor] 09/8/2009 08:10

Wen - I've already posted my opinion on the so called shorters on this thread. They taunt the longs when the market is falling and run away when it turns up.

In most cases they are just wind-up merchants in my opinion.

[wenlynn] 09/8/2009 08:02

Ken,
When this was posted what did you think ?

1) I wish I was astute as monty !
2) OK ! Time to act ! Dignitas !
3) Monty ! what a c*nt !


montyhedge - 23 Jan'09 - 15:28
short at 50p

[maxwellman] 09/8/2009 07:58

open offer was like Xmas coming early :)

[kenbachelor] 09/8/2009 07:35

Smurphy - Yes of course I did. Didn't everybody?

[smurfy2001] 08/8/2009 23:20

Ken,
Did you take up the open offer to average down your LLOY shares?

[shaggy666] 08/8/2009 21:52

rofl Ken - 260k dabbling?

[khitchen] 08/8/2009 21:09

thankyou ken i have 40 years of investing behind me i am lucky my 70,000 barclays stand me at £ 98,000 i also have 135,000 lloyds which stand me at £82,000 plus numerous smaller holdings of other shares and unit trusts. i still cannot believe barclays were 58p or lloyds 42p . i think you will get your money back by the middle of next year..

[wyadvd] 08/8/2009 21:01

trading books going cheap on ebay!:

[kenbachelor] 08/8/2009 20:14

Khitchen - Unfortunately I'm holding 78,000 LLOY as well and having cost me about £260k they are currently down about £180k. I never sell shares at a loss and try to trade my way out of a hole, preferring to ride out the storm and I never short shares either. On occasions I do catch a cold, but not very often. I'm still solvent after about 50 years of dabbling in the stock market, so I must be doing something right.

[johncraven] 08/8/2009 19:40

Going of the dow should open lower monday. The price has risen alot so a retrace cannot be unexpected

[isis] 08/8/2009 19:13

Recession is over, says economist
According to Dennis Gartman, a number of indicators point to a recovery that is just getting started.
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NEW YORK (Fortune) -- When economist Dennis Gartman told subscribers of his newsletter in the fall of 2007 that the U.S. was entering a recession, the Dow was at 13,500, and the official government call wouldn't come for another full year.

Now he's ahead of officials and forecasters again. According to Gartman, the U.S. recession that started in December 2007 is done.

"We saw it happen two weeks ago -- it's over," he said in a recent interview.

Other well-known economists and market watchers have recently been hinting at the same thing. NYU economics professor Nouriel Roubini, also known as "Dr. Doom" for his prescient predictions of the worldwide downturn, says the U.S. recession will end later this year. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said last weekend that the recession is easing. And President Obama told Univision last week, "We maybe are beginning to see the end of the recession."

But Gartman says the Great Recession ended in July.

"Too many people get too arcane and have too many arguments about why an economy goes into or comes out of a recession," he says. "Having done this for 35 years, I've fallen into using just a couple of indicators that characteristically have done a very good job."


The first is a spike downward in the number of weekly jobless claims, which unlike the unemployment rate, focuses on newly laid off workers. Gartman doesn't seek a specific percentage decline (such as when a 20% decline denotes a bear market), but instead he waits for a sharp downward trend. "It's like the definition of pornography: I'll know it when I see it," he says.

He saw that downward spike last month. Weekly jobless claims rose to 658,000 in the first week of March but have since declined to a seasonally adjusted 584,000 for the week ending July 25. "That's enough of a spike," says Gartman, who considers the recent declining 4-week average of jobless claims -- the less volatile average recently reached its lowest point since January -- to be "icing on the cake.''

Gartman then looks at a ratio from The Conference Board: the percentage of coincident economic indicators to lagging indicators.

The ratio measures changes in the economy by dividing coincident (or real time) economic indicators like industrial production and personal income by lagging indicators, like the unemployment rate. So, if during a recession coincident indicators increase at a faster clip than lagging indicators, the economy is expanding and the ratio rises.

As Gartman notes, that ratio has been rising three months in a row. It increased to 90.5 in June from 89.4 in March. According to Gartman and Conference Board data, the fall in jobless claims and a rise in the ratio correlate with the end of recessions since 1959.

Gartman can't say why these two metrics out of hundreds of other have corresponded so well with economic recoveries. "I'm not one to get caught up in the explanation of things if I see the correlations hold," he says, noting that they poorly predict the beginning of recessions.

He expects economic indicators to slowly turn positive by October, but he's careful to remind investors that "the news is horrible at the bottom of a recession. It's going to be terrible for another couple months." Because it's a lagging indicator, Gartman expects unemployment to rise into 2010.

Critics could argue that Gartman's model would have a hard time holding up in the worst recession in more than 70s years -- after all, the Conference Board's ratio didn't even exist in the 1930s. But he's standing firm on its consistency.

"Every time can be different," he explains, "but they very rarely are. Every time you bet on something being different, you pay dearly for it."

[khitchen] 08/8/2009 19:10

hello ken thanks for your thoughts i also have a lot of barclays, also about twice as many lloyds, can i have your thoughts on lloyds, should i sell some and buy more barclays

[roadwalker] 08/8/2009 17:10

I have always maintained that BARC will be a major player in the financial world and it will be only a matter of time when we witness the share price climbing to £7+. With Lehmans attached to the portfolia the strong potential growth surely speaks for itself. Good Luck all.

[smurfy2001] 08/8/2009 15:24

Just read the header Ken, blimey, you must have been worried when they were less then 50p.

[denc] 08/8/2009 12:37

Barclays is now a bigger and more important player than before the CC

Will it be perhaps the only major bank to emerge bigger and stronger than it ws before

it looks like it

and if the shares were 800p for the old barclays

what will they be for the new bigger barclays - twice as much ?

even the likely divident yeild doesnt look less than about 6% at the current price

a lot further to rise imho

[shaggy666] 08/8/2009 09:12

Cheers isis :)

[isis] 08/8/2009 09:07

Had it not been for subprime Lehmans would still be a thriving business on it's own as would Bears Stearns both of which survived the Great Depression and crash of the 1930's.
This equation has now been virtually taken out of the market and Barclays managed to buy Lehmans debt free for virtually nothing
Lehmans are/were the biggest Bond Underwriter in the World and I expect them to hold this position.
They would have fetched between $40-$50billion in normal circumstances.

[shaggy666] 08/8/2009 08:47

This is about RBS but if you watch the video it basicly says what I was thinking earlier about the future profitability of investment banking if Hester was saying it wasnt going to be as good, will other analyst see this as bad news for Barc, I know Barc now owns Lehmans but is still a worry.

[kenbachelor] 08/8/2009 08:40

It might be worth reminding people to read the red at the top of the header.

[trader deak] 08/8/2009 08:36

I've been waiting for a "correction" in the BARC share price for a few weeks and it has run wawy from me everytime.Is now a good time to jump on the bus??

[shaggy666] 08/8/2009 08:21

wow that would be nice, thanks for that Ken :)

[kenbachelor] 08/8/2009 08:03

The next hurdle is 385p, but once we get through that level (a break-out in my terms means by 3%) to about 396.75p we've got clear air all the way up to 475p.

Your question was the end of next week. I'll certainly be satisfied with 385p, before I go away for a few days.

[shaggy666] 08/8/2009 07:48

what target would you say for end of next week Ken?