Hbos Share Discussion Threads

[spittingbarrel] 19/12/2008 17:08

Mova - I agree with you, it feels as if the market is telling us the terms should be renogotiated.

[mova] 19/12/2008 17:04

eastender boy - rather than the two getting closer to.605 they are now at .48 it is not making sense . is the price going to get renegotiated ? there is something very uncomfortable about it .....

[number1] 19/12/2008 17:03

LLOY closed at 134p - this should spike on Mon to close the gap ... fingers crossed!

[eastender boy] 19/12/2008 16:59

finished at 65.2 so not too bad.
The good news is LLOY finished strong in auction at 134.6
So HBOS should start up well on Mon..
134.6 = 81.6 hbos price

[fatboy1nc] 19/12/2008 16:54

The stanD call worked out well. Flats to start.

have a nice weekend and thanks.

[mova] 19/12/2008 16:49

i know - but i was comparing the buys to sells , there is more sells - why such a high volume of sells. i was expecting to see more buys today .

[millymoose] 19/12/2008 16:43

Mova - have you ever been on here before?

Closing Auction Uncrossing trade is what that is

[mova] 19/12/2008 16:42

why has there been a massive sell in hbos

[diku] 19/12/2008 15:42

dope007...when the Oil was at $147 those so called experts were saying the demand from the Far east would take up the Western slack...it was all a myth...nothing to do with demand but just speculative driven by the powers of those who control...the same powers of control with the aid from the media are destroying good companies and creating panic/fear in the wider market...

£ against $ and Euro...is it speculative or demand!!!...

[mova] 19/12/2008 15:20

why the drop when lloyds is moving up ?????

[unicorn77] 19/12/2008 15:13

if your not in for a day trade take advantage of it ;)

[baronstjohn] 19/12/2008 15:04

Nice to see the HBOS with a little bit of blue today ,red is so depressing and l want to be a happy chappie for Christmas.

[ssvsjs2] 19/12/2008 14:54

lloyds x .605

[huffyuk] 19/12/2008 14:46

can someone give me the maths again to work out how many Lloy shares I get.. sorry..

[adp] 19/12/2008 13:42

out too, into kaz for a quick 10 points

[scubasi] 19/12/2008 13:09

All this talk of the banks being recapitalised - the HBOS Lloyds group hasn't received any funds from the govn so far - not until merger is complete will they receive a penny, so who can blame them for not wanting to lend.

[hdenandy] 19/12/2008 12:03

You've just sold Lloyds for around 107p.
Mad.

[leopold555] 19/12/2008 11:09

Good luck to all I am out

[pearsy] 19/12/2008 10:34

Hrmm lloyds in freefall are we going to see parity today... lloyds would have to reach just under 110p to match the hbos price...

[hdenandy] 19/12/2008 10:05

Bigface - you can buy HBOS now and those shares will be converted to Lloyds shares towards the end of Jan., subject to court approval for the merger (which of-course is a foregone conclusion)

[masurenguy] 19/12/2008 09:16

Daily Telegraph

Nationalisation looms for Britain's banks as they face 'Prisoner's Dilemma'
By Philip Aldrick, Banking Editor
Last Updated: 7:39AM GMT 19 Dec 2008

"I am in no doubt that the single most pressing challenge to domestic economic policy is to get the banking system lending in any normal sense. That is more important than anything else at present." Mervyn King

Nationalisation looms for Britain's banks as they face 'Prisoner's Dilemma'
Tax cuts, interest rate stimulus, a public spending binge – none of it, in the mind of Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, is as important to hauling Britain back from the abyss as getting the banks lending again. Moreover, his opinion is rapidly becoming the consensus. Chancellor Alistair Darling and his opposite number George Osborne agree, albeit acrimoniously, on the issue. Peter Mandelson wants "bankers to start being good, plain bankers again". Even the venerable UBS economist George Magnus, who predicted the financial crisis, concurs. "It is very important that those credit flows be kept open," he said. "Restructuring of debt is a critical part of the healing process. Debt forgiveness might even be necessary."

The thinking goes that by extending credit lines, banks can keep viable but limping businesses and households alive through the recession. Fewer jobs will be lost and the economy will recover more quickly. Arguably, such behaviour is better for banks, too, as a recovering economy will mean fewer defaults. Higher levels of lending, though, risk more bad debts – reviving concerns about capital despite the £50bn round of fundraisings, £37bn from the state. In the context of fending off another great recession, however, those fears are a side show. Charlie Bean, the central bank's new Deputy Governor, said: "It may well turn out that further capital injections are required." Tossing such loaded comments around so freely demonstrates there is little resistance to the idea among policymakers. The private sector could be asked to chip in, but banks are more likely to come back to the taxpayer a second time. Tellingly, Mr King has refused to rule out full nationalisation.

The problem is, as Mr King told the Treasury Select Committee last month, that a lending-led economic rescue plan only works if banks act "collectively" – anathema to free market capitalism. As he describes it, lenders are effectively trapped in a classic Prisoner's Dilemma. "Individually, it makes sense ... to behave defensively and reduce the size of their balance sheet," Mr King said to MPs on the select committee. "Collectively, it makes no sense at all because if all banks behave in that way not only will the economy go into a steep recession but the banks themselves will see even bigger losses on their pre-existing loans. "The challenge we have to confront in dealing with the banks is to find a way in which their individual incentives do not lead to a collective outcome that is clearly adverse."

From the banks' perspective, all this must be pretty confusing. Pilloried for their reckless lending before, they are now being actively encouraged to load faltering businesses with credit on a scale far greater than that mapped into their business plans at the time of the recapitalisation in October. The request goes against all the basic principles of good banking. Going into a downturn, banks need to conserve their capital because they have no idea how long the recession will last. Every bad loan made today piles on top of the shoddy lending in the books already, eroding reserves and weakening the lenders. Having just been recapitalised at punitive cost to both the taxpayer and shareholders, it might seem forgivable that the banks want to make the money last as long as possible. Particularly given the unknown dangers still lurking in the shadow banking market, the murky financial world where sub-prime monsters – disguised as collateralised debt obligations – roamed.

Credit defaults swaps (CDSs) – insurance products against companies going bust – are the shadow banking market's "bête noire", according to Mr Magnus. The value of all derivatives, including CDSs, last year was around $600,000bn (£387,000bn) – 10 times the size of the global economy. Although the default risk is a tiny fraction of the total, it is impossible to calculate the black hole of potential losses because no derivatives are exchange traded. Economic historian Niall Ferguson, author of The Ascent of Money, fears CDSs will cause a financial crisis next year the likes of which will make 2008 look like a training session. He is an increasingly lone voice but nobody is wholly comfortable with the opaque derivatives market. Even if CDSs don't blow up, the banks face a possible leveraged finance crisis. In 2006, the volume of leveraged buy-outs around the world peaked at $753bn. Much of the lending was done on a five-year timescale, with vast quantities due to be refinanced in 2010 and 2011. By then, these over-indebted companies will look far less enticing prospects. If banks want the debt off their books, they will have to take much deeper writedowns than they have to date.

Britain's banks have less exposure than their US rivals, but the numbers are still jaw-dropping. At the half year, the Royal Bank of Scotland had £10.8bn and Barclays £7.3bn of leveraged loans outstanding. In a variance of the "mark-to-market" accounting policy, one banker described the two banks' current provisioning as "mark-to-myth". Running in tandem with these potential risks is the very real cost of a recession. HBOS last week gave some warning of just how dire things may get by revealing £3bn of bad debts in the past two months alone. Given the potential pressure on balance sheets, it is no surprise the banks want to hoard their capital. Small businesses and households will not be utmost in their minds.

The problem is that banks have outgrown themselves. They are now so vital to the economy, politicians believe, that they can not be allowed to operate in their own myopic, commercial interests. It is no surprise that RBS, now 58% owned by the state, has taken the lead on lending to small businesses and homeowners, and is brandished by the Treasury as an example to the industry. Politicians are making little effort to disguise their belief that banks are a tool of economic policy. John McFall, chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, has urged the Prime Minister to get the banks "into a room and collectively and simultaneously ensure that they resume lending". For Willem Buiter, a former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, new regulation could reduce banks to little more than a utility, like gas and electricity. If the dogma holds that they must do "their bit" for the economy and the feared crises do manifest themselves, he may be proved right sooner than expected.