AlmostPregnant

No, that's "Indiego", pronounced exactly the same, though. I am truly too easy to tease by things like "Chocolate samosas", but I have met the chef and I liked the guy, and he liked my stuff, so!

AlmostPregnant

Ah, too good to be true, TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE:
"Senior vice-president, 55 years old, in Lehman since 1983, every penny earned invested in a very tall pile of company's stock options: "15 millions USD vanished in front of my eyes, all my pension's savings, gone".

From "La Repubblica" online

R-O-T-F-L-L-L!!! Poor dear, the pension's savings!

Ah, it looks that those 20,000 plus without a job but with a certain banking experience are looking internationally for a position, dare I say...Singapore? Or maybe a small emirate very dynamic, financially speaking...
Better they speak a decent Urdu!

Charismatic

Yay , probably to be bought by TSB @ 300p, currently 140if anyone else fancies a bit of pure speculation .

Charismatic

Sorry I meant 200p.

benzonar

If Halifax goes then at least we will have no more of that Howard annoying twat.

Charismatic

Lets hope...

Well some of us have done our bit in the name of shameless self interest , IndieG can scorn me later (rightfully it has to be said) for my wreckless speculation . It's sad to see another one bit the dust , let's hope any staff cuts are only minor . Let's hope that this is adjustment is over quickly.

It's very worrying how little real progress has been made economically in the US and UK since the mid-late 90's , lets hope the comming elections will change leadership. Geordos policy of stopping boom & bust (tax, borrow and spend instead!) has actually left a quite stagnent UK economy and a lot of debt so the next government won't have an easy time cleaning up the mess.

Good night all!

jvr20

that deserves the award for best use of smileys in a post...ever!

Charismatic

Roflylolers!!! I always knew I'd win an award, I just thought it'd be a Darwin award TBH.

So RBS next? [Watch this space].

al dente

I geddit - because he was rich and now has nothing, despite working and believing in the same company for 25 years he is worth laughing at?

Charmless.

Autonomy

Really? I thought they were solid? In the top 10 banks globally I thought?

Surely if they were in so much trouble as to possible threaten their operations it would be massive?

lionheart

I bought some HBOS shares for 160p earlier this week. It looks as if Lloyds TSB are going to buy HBOS for 232p per share, so the misses will be happy with my dealings.

The Dean

RBS safe as..... er........ houses..........

I would not be surprised to see some advance consolidation - eg RBS merging with Barclays or whoever BEFORE it becomes a 'rescue' (which one would be rescuing which one?).

BTW - Sky News just revealed that the newly-merged LTSBHBOS (?) will have 38 million customers............ que? What's the population of the UK?? (Neither bank has extensive operations outside the UK). Bizarre statistic.

Spugsy

more lingerie for her then eh?

Charismatic

Nice work.

Morgan Stanley might go to Citibank, keep an eye on that if your looking for some speculation.

http://finance.google.com/finance?q=LON%3Arbs&hl=en
Market capitalisation for RBS is very low, they have lost the other half this week. Lets see what happens in the way of buyers. Asian markets look grim, especially the Russian market as they keep burrying their head in the sand and suspending trade which isn't helping them .

There will be some good bargains in a few months/years when the market stabalises , maybe BOGOF with nectar points.

I'm not sure if this Lloyds-HBOS thing will work out, I've taken a quick look at their stats and they might have problems if this keeps going for a few more months.

I'm not in any of these positions at the moment though, just sitting on my hands (a technique widly known as "the stranger" I'm told).

Charismatic

I took myself out yesterday at around 190 (Struck oil and all of that). Is it a share swap () or are they buying out at a fixed price? Rhetorical question.

Markets are underpricing HBOS, could be that they think the deal will sink?

Delayed prices:

LLOY: 265
HBOS: 178

178 / (265 * 0.83) = 0.81