Royal Bank Of Scotland Share Discussion Threads

[leedskier] 14/10/2013 08:56

Banks took an early hit, with Royal Bank of Scotland the worst of them, down 4.5p at 372.4p after Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgraded the stock to underperform from neutral and trimmed its target price to 325p from 345. Elsewhere, Lloyds lost 0.89p at 75.13p and Barclays fell 0.82p to 27.18p.
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[leedskier] 14/10/2013 08:54

The FTSE100 is flat.

RBS being washed and rinsed again.

That could be related to the prospect of more US banking investigations.

[gcom2] 14/10/2013 01:29

e240bn , you gotta laugh

[aomar] 14/10/2013 00:42

worth reading

[leedskier] 13/10/2013 23:25

US futures down now.

[leedskier] 13/10/2013 21:51

One idea with some cross party support is for waiver of the Government's $2 trillion debt to the Federal bank. A paper exercise, however it brings the spending within budget.

How others owed similar sums would react remains to be seen.

[leedskier] 13/10/2013 21:40

36 minutes ago

Senate Leaders Talk but Fail to Reach Deal on Shutdown




It could be difficult tomorrow.

add:

US futures very chippa ... but that may not reflect sentiment at 2.30pm tomorrow, if no deal is on the table.

[leedskier] 13/10/2013 21:34

Dope the only thing the Republicans want Obama to stop spending on is not the $2billion a day spent on defence but $1.1billion a year on Obamacare.

[speedy] 13/10/2013 20:44

I too have read an article on the mess in the USA ...



"There has been a financial coup d'etat."

ADD "David Walker was head of the GAO, chief auditor to the U.S. Congress, while the U.S. government consistently failed to comply with laws requiring audited financial statements and over $4 trillion went missing."

[dope007] 13/10/2013 20:19

Leeds I read an article on this mess in the USA and according to the article the press have misinformed everyone on how this works.

The house votes on the level of budget the senate can have
They have agreed a budget and told the senate that is it
The senate and hence Obama can choose how to spend it
The money is more than enough to pay for everything and clearly enough to pay interest on the debt
There is not enough however for Obamacare and everything else
Obama is refusing to make choices and wants everything - Typical socialist imho

So the real villain is Obama, and the republicans are not getting the actual process properly discussed.

Or so the other side goes ;)

Another similar article here seems to confirm Obama is a weasel, which anyone with any sense knows

hxxp://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2013/10/03/dont-believe-the-debt-ceiling-hype-the-federal-government-can-survive-without-an-increase/

In the end why should Obama be allowed to keep spending and trashing the USA economy with massive debt? Of course same goes for the republicans who will spend when in power, just like Obama oppsed debt cieling rises when in opposition.

They are all useless and those who keep voting for them all are idiots

[leedskier] 13/10/2013 19:09

Washington Post ...

Reid: Talks with McConnell over shutdown, debt ceiling continue today

By Paul Kane, Rosalind S. Helderman and Lenny Bernstein, Updated: Sunday, October 13, 6:40 PM (BST)

Opening a rare Sunday session of the Senate, Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said he and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are continuing talks to raise the debt ceiling and reopen the government, but gave no hint of progress in their negotiations.

"We're in conversation today," Reid said on the Senate floor. "I'm confident the Republicans will allow the government to open and extend the ability of the country to pay its bills. And I'm going to do everything I can throughout the day to accomplish just this."

[leedskier] 13/10/2013 19:02

I do not understand the Republicans. Having won the election in 2012, where the issue of the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare, was front and centre, Obama plainly has a mandate to push ahead with it.

If, as a consequence, US public spending exceeds taxation -- nothing new there -- taxes should rise to balance the budget.

The argument that an affordable public health service is 'unaffordable' in the World's richest nation when many impoverished former USSR countries, now in the EU, provide it free at point of delivery, is just nonsense.

However given many elected members of the GOP appearing to be still fighting the precepts which led to the Civil War, it is hardly a surprise that the notion of increasing taxes of the wealthy to provide free health care at the point of delivery to the poor of Chicago, is being objected to as a point of principle.


WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans on Sunday kept up the drumbeat of blame against President Obama for what they say is his failure to negotiate with them on the fiscal crisis that will come to a head on Thursday, when the government will run out of money to pay its bills. As the Republicans pointed fingers at the White House, Senators Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell were set to sit down again on Sunday in an effort to come up with some sort of agreement - even one that will kick the most pressing problems down the road for a few weeks or months....

[leedskier] 13/10/2013 18:34

According to the New York Times ...

FINANCIAL MARKETS New York Stock Exchange is open.

[leedskier] 13/10/2013 18:32

Relevant to that this suggests US markets are closed on Monday for Columbus Day.

I read and posted that only the Bond market was closed.


NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
A solution from Washington just can't come fast enough for the markets.
Looming large on investors' minds this week is the Oct. 17 deadline -- the date Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has warned could bring a U.S. default, absent Congressional action.

Such a scenario will be a reversal from the optimism of last week, when markets surged on hopes of a potential deal to avoid the debt ceiling and reopen the partially-shuttered federal government.

The Dow gained 1% last week, bolstered in part by a 320-point jump on Thursday, the index's largest point gain since December 2011. The S&P 500 also gained close to 1%, while the Nasdaq slipped slightly.

Both the Dow and the S&P are now above levels they were at when the government shutdown was triggered on Oct. 1.

The investing week starts Tuesday: Markets are closed Monday for Columbus Day.

[dope007] 13/10/2013 16:20

Went short on Tesla again late friday on the back of some moronic analysts double counting VIN numbers!!!!

[leedskier] 13/10/2013 16:15

I think so too. Cash in the bank is better than in US housing.

[cfc1] 13/10/2013 14:57

Seems like a good idea!

[speedy] 13/10/2013 13:21

This week, the USA's debt ceiling preoccupied the financial press. The real story was elsewhere, beginning with US ACA (Obamacare).

The US demographics suggest that they will become older and perhaps sicker, with costs rising from some 17 percent of GDP to 22 percent of GDP "in the near future". Note the "GDP" and the "perhaps". Taking the "perhaps" first:
The demographics are what they are, hence lifestyle and related choices will determine much of what happens next. Smaller quantities of better food seems to be the consensus opinion for a long and active life, with some version of the Okinawa Diet as a long term goal. (but see more on the downstream effects in John Mauldin's article). The USA has some commercial hurdles pushing the flow in a different direction, specifically their GMO lobby and their Food lobby.

From this distance, the USA looks like a giant GMO laboratory, with the 1-percenters as the control group [pun intended – it gets worse]. It is tempting to say that the bunch of lab rats forming the 99-percent are being force fed GMO calories and protein, with little alternative choice. That just isn't true, but their GMO and Food industries spend huge amounts of money pushing them in that direction, and they would not spend that money if it was ineffective. Similarly, why lobby for legislation to prevent any person suffering from ill-health from suing these industries alleging the effects of bad choices? I'd guess that that industry will try to argue that they are simply meeting a need, but to the untutored eye, their goal seems to be to get from hydrocarbons to edible calories by the shortest route at maximum profit. I'd be interested in a comparison with the effects of the tobacco industry, for future reference.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be, somewhat like GDP. Some argue that the constant adjustment of GDP unfairly alters the difference between nominal and real GDP, and underestimates the effect of inflation. Food used to be a larger part of most household budgets, and technology used to be much more expensive. So, inflation impacts the wealthy differently from the poor. It matters too in assessing the Debt/GDP ratios of various sectors. If GDP is less than the government claims, then Debt is a bigger problem. Put another way, growing our way out of the current difficulties will be that much more difficult. This is not a short term thing, it impacts long term debts such as mortgages and similar assets held by Banks, hence it is likely that these are overpriced.

So, if you are thinking of buying shares, ask yourself, do I feel lucky?

[speedy] 13/10/2013 12:49

IMF solving the problem of re-election for the pols in the EuroZone ...



"This is a story that should raise an eyebrow or two on every single face in Europe, and beyond. I saw the first bits of it on a Belgian site named Express.be, whose writers in turn had stumbled upon an article in French newspaper Le Figaro, whose writer Jean-Pierre Robin had leafed through a brand new IMF report (yes, there are certain linguistic advantages in being Dutch, Canadian AND Québecois). In the report, the IMF talks about a proposal to tax everybody's savings, in the Eurozone. Looks like they just need to figure out by how much."

ADD "And one last point, just in case it had slipped your mind. You remember what brought about that surge in government debt between 2007 and today? We bailed out the banks."

[leedskier] 12/10/2013 21:37

By Kathleen Hunter, Roxana Tiron & Richard Rubin - Oct 12, 2013

Lawmakers said they lack a clear plan for preventing a U.S. default and ending the 12-day government shutdown as bipartisan Senate leaders began preliminary discussions.

Senate Republicans today blocked Democrats' plan to suspend the debt ceiling through 2014. Talks between House Republicans and President Barack Obama faltered. Senate Democrats rejected a proposal from Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine that had gained momentum in the past day.

Democratic senators warned of potential stock market declines Oct. 14 if Congress can't reach an agreement. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell entered into talks that Reid described as "very preliminary."

"I hope that our talking gives some solace to the American people and to the world," Reid told reporters today in the Capitol. "We're trying to figure out a way to go forward."