Royal Bank Of Scotland Share Discussion Threads

[ramco] 13/5/2013 15:29

More on retail sales: Building material and garden equipment sales (HD, LOW) were again, up 1.5% M/M and 4.1% Y/Y, while department store sales (SHLD, KSS, M, JWN, JCP) trailed expectations. Grocery store sales (KR, SVU, SWY) slipped during April compared to March but were 2% than a year ago on pricing gains.

[ramco] 13/5/2013 15:28

The faster-than-expected retail sales report has Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan lifting their Q2 GDP growth estimates. JPM's Mike Feroli: "The risks to our previous projection of 1.5% real GDP growth in Q2 are unbalanced, and we are revising our estimate up to 2%." Morgan Stanley ups its forecast to 1.5% from 1.2%.

[ramco] 13/5/2013 15:28

Mar. Business Inventories: +0.0% to $1,640.9B +0.3% consensus and +0.1% prior. Sales -1.1% to $1,269.6B. Inventory/sales ratio was 1.29.

[leedskier] 13/5/2013 14:26

Employment growth set to continue in Q2, says CIPD
BFN

The Spring 2013 Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)/Success Factors Labour Market Outlook (LMO) survey report - published today - suggests that employment growth is set to continue in the second quarter of 2013.

The report shows that the net employment balance - which measures the difference between the proportion of employers who expect to increase staffing levels and those who intend to reduce staffing levels, has increased to +9 from +5 for the previous quarter. The net employment balance for the private sector is +21, up from +16 last quarter. This is the fifth consecutive quarter of projected growth according to the Labour Market Outlook report, which continues to accurately predict official employment statistics quarter on quarter.

However, despite these positive findings, the survey shows that with 45 applicants applying for every low-skilled job, the labour market is still a 'battleground' for job seekers, particularly those with less experience, skills or qualifications. The survey results are consistent with anecdotal reports of employers who report being inundated when they advertise vacancies. Meanwhile, the median number of applicants employers receive for medium-skilled roles is 29, while highly- skilled vacancies typically receive 10 applicants.

The report also shines a light on the extent to which certain groups are excluded from the recruitment process. 14 per cent of employers said they would not consider employing school-leavers and 11% would not recruit from the ranks of the long-term unemployed.

Gerwyn Davies, CIPD Labour Market Adviser, comments: "Signs of increasing buoyancy in private sector job prospects is encouraging, especially since other forward-looking labour market indicators have been equally positive of late. Even though last month's official figures showed a slight dip in the level of employment, these findings suggest that further employment growth is possible. However, with a projected increase of half a million people to the UK population over the next 12 months, the number of jobs being created may fail to keep pace with the population growth. In this scenario, we could see employment rising accompanied by increases to unemployment; as the Office for Budget Responsibility expects.

"Against this backdrop, it is perhaps unsurprising that the labour market at present is a battleground for job seekers, particularly those with fewer skills or qualifications. With more than forty applicants typically chasing every low-skilled job already; there's a danger that the stricter requirements being imposed by government on benefit recipients to look for work, coupled with the ongoing shift towards online recruitment, may lead to even more applicants for employers to consider for each vacancy in the future. It is very tempting for employers to feel overwhelmed by such a high volume of applicants and to set a high bar for their needs today.

"However, employers should see it as an opportunity to draw on a wider pool of talent for their needs tomorrow to help address skills shortages and improve their talent pipelines. Our recent report exploring employers' recruitment practices highlights the importance of employers ensuring that they don't inadvertently screen out candidates of different ages or backgrounds for the wrong reasons, for example, by requiring degrees for roles where they are not needed. Such an approach would marginalise young people most and add to the pool of wasted young talent".

Also commenting, James Reid, UK and Ireland Managing Director, SuccessFactors, said: "Long term unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, can create a 'lost generation' of people whose professional and personal development has been severely hampered by being out of work. The overall impact of this skills gap is a society incapable of meeting the productivity demands of a globalised economy. The whole world will suffer if we do not find a solution for this significant challenge. We must not only identify industries that will hire our unemployed, but we must also give them the skills and confidence to succeed."

Further findings from this quarter's survey include:

Expected increases in employment levels this quarter are strong in manufacturing and production (net positive balance of +16) and private sector services (+21); especially in IT (+36) and consultancy services (+25).

Overall, the private sector employment balance has risen to +21 from +16 during the previous three months. By contrast, public sector employment levels are set to fall further in the second quarter of 2013 (-32).The LMO survey also finds an expected average pay settlement in the twelve months to March 2014 of 1.6%.

Excluding bonuses, the average pay award forecast by employers who expect to have a pay review in the coming year has fallen to 1.7% from 1.8% three months ago. The evidence suggests that it will be some time yet before pay settlements rise consistently above 2% - implying a sustained period of squeeze on real incomes given the current rate of price inflation. However, there is evidence of upward pay pressure in some parts of the private sector, notably finance and insurance (3%) and consultancy services (3%).

The CIPD press release is available in full at :-

www.cipd.co.uk/pressoffice/press-releases/employment-growth-labour-market-battleground-jobs.aspx

Story provided by StockMarketWire.com

[gcom2] 13/5/2013 14:17

more green shoots

[dope007] 13/5/2013 14:13

But last month revised downwards

[leedskier] 13/5/2013 13:58

The dollar rose against most of its major counterparts after a report showed U.S. retail sales in April exceeded forecasts, bolstering optimism in the world's largest economy.

The euro fell versus the greenback before data this week forecast to show the 17-nation currency bloc's economy contracted for a sixth consecutive quarter in the three months through March. The shared currency was little changed versus the yen after rising to the highest level in more than three years before euro-area finance ministers meet in Brussels today.

[leedskier] 13/5/2013 13:57

US retail sales were forecast to fall but in fact rose.

[speedy] 13/5/2013 13:33

This is seems to happening faster than a bitcoin meltdown ...



"These are simply astronomical moves in the context of JGB history and strongly suggest Abe & Kuroda are anything but in control of the quadrillion Yen domestic bond market as they jawbone inflation expectations into the psychology of the people."

[speedy] 13/5/2013 13:24

H/T Dr Constantin Gurdgiev

"Nassim Nicholas Taleb was asked by BBC's Jeremy Paxman whether the people taking to the streets in Athens is a Black Swan Event. He replied: "No. The real Black Swan Event is that people are not rioting against the banks in London and New York.""

[jazza] 13/5/2013 12:30

intae them Dave! =0)



UK Prime Minister David Cameron has rounded on senior Conservatives wanting to leave the European Union, accusing them of "throwing in the towel" before negotiations have even started.

He called the position held by former cabinet ministers Lord Lawson and Michael Portillo "very, very strange".

[speedy] 13/5/2013 12:25

Today's comments re the Spanish economy brought to mind this piece on fraud ...


"My mentor, an elderly 'mittel european' refugee and 'businessman', who had spent his mature years, either selling insurance and other forms of investment opportunities, or borrowing money from a series of banks and individuals, cross-firing it through a wide variety of accounts, and then, mysteriously, forgetting to pay it back, tried, gently, to teach me the gospel of eternal greed."

Maybe, just maybe, he ran the Spanish Treasury ... or was a developer there

ISTR that, in the boom, some 40% of the price of a new house went to the Irish
government in taxes or revenue.

Add : I doubt the figures for Spain differ

[leedskier] 13/5/2013 11:46

Housing has done for Spain in the same as it has done for Ireland, but it is even worse in Spain.


III. Spain: A Flourishing Economy

In order to join the EU, the Maastricht Treaty requires that countries converge on certain criteria, including interest rates, inflation rates, and government deficits. Since 1990, Spain had faced budget deficits as large as 6.5% of GDP. Because of the strict requirements in the Maastricht Treaty, by 2005 the Spanish government began posting budget surpluses.

The Maastricht Treaty also called for Spain to reduce its long-term interest rates. As a result, businesses and individuals saw their borrowing capacities increase because they could afford paying loans with lower interest rates. More people, especially those in their twenties who had recently graduated from a university, took out loans to purchase homes. Traditionally in Spain, the younger generation lived with their families after school until they married, but in the past ten years, more bought their own residences before marriage because obtaining credit was easy and interest rates were low.

The construction market flourished because of the increased demand for housing. As more Spaniards bought houses, more construction companies required unskilled labor which prompted an increase in immigration to Spain's labor market. From 2000-2008, Spain's population grew from 40 million to 45 million, and from 1999 until 2007 the Spanish economy created more than one-third of all employment generated in the Eurozone. As more immigrants came to Spain, more housing was necessary and the cycle continued. During this time, prices of houses increased dramatically, as did the number of loans used to purchase them. The construction market continued to build, heedless that the growing housing market would inevitably begin to cool.

IV. Crisis in Spain

Because of the dramatic increase in construction of new homes and the long time between the beginning and end of a construction project, by the time the demand for housing had slowed in 2007, available housing was just reaching its peak. By this time, construction accounted for 13 percent of total employment in Spain. When prices began falling and housing demand halted, unemployment jumped up 10 percent.

As unemployment skyrocketed, so did unemployment benefits. In a welfare state like Spain, unemployment benefits are generous. However, what was a sustainable unemployment level quickly became a drain on the Spanish government. The reduction in the Spanish government's tax revenue, which is heavily dependent on real estate, exacerbated the problem. These drains on the economy turned a previous budget surplus of over 2 percent of GDP into a deficit of almost 4 percent of GDP, violating the limits of the Pact.

The Spanish Banking System

Spanish regional savings and loan banks, called cajas, account for half of Spain's banking system. There are around 24,000 branches of cajas throughout Spain to serve its 46 million residents (one branch for approximately every 1,900 people). The United Kingdom, in comparison, with a population of around 62 million, has only 10,000 total bank branches (one branch for every 6,200 people). Cajas are not publically traded, and usually regional politicians control the cajas instead of shareholders. The majority of cajas' clients are families, small and medium-sized business, and non-governmental organizations such as health care facilities, environmental groups, and cultural groups. Before the crisis, cajas often loaned to those that the larger banks turned away because they were considered "undesirable"-clients that were less likely to pay back their loans. Unlike the rest of the banking system, cajas were relatively unregulated, and they were not required to disclose certain information such as collateral on loans, repayment history, and loan-to-value ratios. This nondisclosure prevented the Spanish government from understanding cajas' financial situations before and during most of the crisis. The government was also unaware of the depth of cajas' investment in the real estate market.

[dope007] 13/5/2013 11:39

SPain is a mess, France is in a mess. Stock markets are an inflated QE fuelled bubble

[leedskier] 13/5/2013 11:33

The concern is Spain. Bizarre really that the markets are ignoring the depth of the problems there.

This from the Guardian EZ blog ...


Our economics editor, Larry Elliott, writes today that Spain's leaders are pinning their hopes on banking union, and eventually fiscal union too. But the risk of a "crash landing" remains dangerously real, he warns:

That's not just because unemployment in Spain has risen by three and a half million since the start of the crisis and has now reached 27%, or that the domestic economy has shrunk by a sixth. It is that Spain is up to its eyeballs in debt, with no likely improvement in prospect.

Despite austerity, little progress is being made in reducing the budget deficit and national debt is heading for well over 100% of gross domestic product. In the absence of more rapid growth and a banking union being agreed swiftly, a Greek-style debt restructuring seems eminently possible.

Spain is perhaps the emblematic eurozone country. Its past performance reflects the design flaws in the single currency; it is trapped in a low-growth, high-debt vortex; and it can only recover if a reluctant Germany backs plans for integration.

[dope007] 13/5/2013 11:21

More poor data out of China today I see

[leedskier] 13/5/2013 11:18

That is a different issue altogether. The welfare rules need tightening up across the board including domestically.

[portside1] 13/5/2013 11:11

the simple answer is to stop all benefits free health and no housing benefits
and must have paid income tax for at least 5 years before going on housing list
family allowance should be stopped after two children .
and not allowed to enter the uk unless they have health insurance for the next 12 months and must be made to renew health insurance or must leave the uk

simple answer is to vote FOR UKIP vote ukip ukip ukip

[leedskier] 13/5/2013 11:09

I see BLNX has pleased the City and investors today. It used to be one of those shares where the bashers posted 24/7.

[leedskier] 13/5/2013 11:03

Not quite sure where that would leave two men of different nationalities in a civil partnership arrangement ;

add:


Or two women for that matter.

[portside1] 13/5/2013 11:00

the mans country should always be the country they should live

[hamnavoe] 13/5/2013 10:40

some clever men have come out of Ireland

Richard Cantillon

[leedskier] 13/5/2013 10:21

Speedy I enjoyed all the pics ;

add:

I wonder what the fare was for the donkey ...

[leedskier] 13/5/2013 10:15

Market Movers - Top risers and fallers at 10:00
BFN

FTSE 100


Lonmin PLC 295.80 6.10%


G4S PLC 253.20 2.22%


Antofagasta PLC 930.00 1.86%


Rolls-Royce Group PLC 1184.00 1.37%


Petrofac Ltd 1411.00 1.22%


Standard Chartered PLC 1514.00 -4.36%


Inmarsat PLC 699.25 -2.07%


Carnival PLC 2349.00 -2.00%


Lloyds Banking Group PLC 57.78 -1.97%


Royal Bank of Scotland Group (The) 293.90 -1.87%