Lehmans

brit1234

Its dangerous times for all banks at the moment due to all the shorting of finacial shares. At the moment pretty much every share/commodity/property/currency investment is making a loss, the only area which is making a big profit is shorting. The main areas being shorted at the moment seem to be primary the banks followed by builders.

A few months ago I didn't seem to mind this but now everyone is jumping on the shorting bandwagon. The danger is now it may cause a even larger international meltdown leading to possibly the worlds biggest recession. This sudden bandwagon speculating is ripping apart normally sound companies. Just look at the XL travel company collapse today caused by soley oil speculation, then there was the huge gas price increases every few months which are likely to bring down our government.

We are truely in the most economic troublesome times in living memory, controls are desperatly needed for stability.

For those unfamilar with the term shorting have a look at the link below as a guide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_selling

Lehmans is toast, the shorters have already turned their attention to Merril Lynch as the next target.

In the UK Bradford and Bingley fopllowed by Alliance and Leciester are our most heavily shorted firms. Then the builders have been heavily targeted especially Barratt Homes.

Generali

edwinac wrote: »

Reuters, the financial "news" agency, has been putting out more false stories on the banking crisis.

(for background to this gigantic lie machine, see the staged photos Reuters just published from the Georgia conflict, and the "malicious" fabrications the agency cooked up last Monday to paint the Nationwide building society as "insolvent".)

This time, Reuters is putting out the false claim that KDB is still interested in buying out Lehman Bros.

Reuters' lies "sent Lehman's stock soaring".

I'd pick my sources a bit more carefully if I was you! LaRouche is a sort of neo-Marxist lunatic.

He claims (amongst other things and as far as I can tell) that the US Government is run by a sort of shadowy coalition of the FBI and the Communist Party USA under the malign influence of the British establishment and that global warming is caused by cosmic rays emitted from the Crab Nebula.

Brian_Bullocks

brit1234 wrote: »

In the UK Bradford and Bingley fopllowed by Alliance and Leciester are our most heavily shorted firms.

I can see B&B being a target for the shorters, but A&L have a price floor from the Santander offer. It would be the Santander share price that would affect the A&L price, as the offer was one Santander share for three A&L shares.

sabretoothtigger

Is there any central record of shares out on loan in the uk. For a while people were referring to 15% of HBOS shares on loan and so on, would be interesting to see who

StevieJ

brit1234 wrote: »

Its dangerous times for all banks at the moment due to all the shorting of finacial shares. At the moment pretty much every share/commodity/property/currency investment is making a loss, the only area which is making a big profit is shorting. The main areas being shorted at the moment seem to be primary the banks followed by builders.

A few months ago I didn't seem to mind this but now everyone is jumping on the shorting bandwagon. The danger is now it may cause a even larger international meltdown leading to possibly the worlds biggest recession. This sudden bandwagon speculating is ripping apart normally sound companies. Just look at the XL travel company collapse today caused by soley oil speculation, then there was the huge gas price increases every few months which are likely to bring down our government.

We are truely in the most economic troublesome times in living memory, controls are desperatly needed for stability.

For those unfamilar with the term shorting have a look at the link below as a guide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_selling

Lehmans is toast, the shorters have already turned their attention to Merril Lynch as the next target.

In the UK Bradford and Bingley fopllowed by Alliance and Leciester are our most heavily shorted firms. Then the builders have been heavily targeted especially Barratt Homes.

If they have been shorting Baratts lately they will have severely burnt fingers.

Generali

StevieJ wrote: »

If they have been shorting Baratts lately they will have severely burnt fingers.

It's a classic short squeeze: Barratt came up with a plausible turnaround plan (or at least to steady the ship) so the stock went up a wee bit. A few shorters thought, 'Sod it, I've made plenty on this I'm going to buy back the stock and bank my profits. Nobody ever made a loss on taking a profit!' The stock goes up a wee bit more.

More shorters then either take their (slightly diminished) profits or their stop losses start to kick in and they buy back automatically. The more the stock goes up, the more the shorters get hurt so have to buy back.

It's the trouble with obvious shorts - everyone else is short so you're vulnerable to this sort of thing.

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

Is there any central record of shares out on loan in the uk. For a while people were referring to 15% of HBOS shares on loan and so on, would be interesting to see who

There is no single centralised record but there are companies that try to track short positions with some success (they claim).

Most people seem to ring up one of the big broker-dealers and ask them where the short interest is.

sabretoothtigger

a wee bit? I wish I got in on that, its trebled or doubled at least since I started watching

worldtraveller

Sale, break up, or liquidation? Nothing appears to be being ruled out at this point in time. The latter, should it have to happen, would be grim for global markets tomorrow and have a profound affect on the future of many other financial institutions around the world and economies in general.

Full moon on Monday! _pale_

Walletwatch

worldtraveller wrote: »

Sale, break up, or liquidation? Nothing appears to be being ruled out at this point in time. The latter, should it have to happen, would be grim for global markets tomorrow and have a profound affect on the future of many other financial institutions around the world and economies in general.

Full moon on Monday! _pale_

We are doing some fervent activities to covering ourselves today on a Sunday, with most traders and back office personnel having come in, so I think the writing is on the wall... the firm is folding up, in the words of informal conversations I have had with personnel at the bank, on the verge of collapse...

Generali

Walletwatch wrote: »

We are doing some fervent activities to covering ourselves today on a Sunday, with most traders and back office personnel having come in, so I think the writing is on the wall... the firm is folding up, in the words of informal conversations I have had with personnel at the bank, on the verge of collapse...

Well the 2 dread words appeared in the Sunday Times today: counterparty risk.

If Lehmans can't fund itself in the money markets tomorrow then they're history. The Fed isn't going to provide their entire funding for more than a few days.

They'll either be nationalised or sold out Bear Stearns style unless they can offload their asset management arm pronto which looks unlikely.