Is the Time to Invest in Banks approaching?

gozomark

tempting, but dangerous - you will have capped your upside, whereas you had 100% downside

gozomark

what was your target price when you bought them ? To me if it was only 50% up on purchase price then it wasn't a worthwhile trade given the downside risk

eeja

gozomark wrote: »

there is alot in this - if a fund manager buys something and it goes down 99% thats part and parcel of the job, but if a company you hold goes bust there is alot more explaining to do - been there, done it, got the T shirt, and the T shirt said "don't do it again"

"you bought shares in something you knew could go bust and it did"
"yes, but the risk/reward profile made it worthwhile"
"but it went bust"
many hours then wasted putting together an explanation as to why shares had been bought

Unless you are a diehard speculator, Gozomark, forget shares and buy bonds which are much safer.
Did you know you can get 11% -12% interest 'for ever' if you buy Barclays Bank bonds ?

StevieJ

gozomark wrote: »

tempting, but dangerous - you will have capped your upside, whereas you had 100% downside

You could still have 100% downside:eek: what was old saying 'nobody ever went bust by taking a profit'
Anyway, I will hold onto these, I am building a falling knife portfolio so far,
RDSB £14 + 15.10 approx
RIO £1150 approx
Barclays 51p

Trollfever

European banks see losses, announce job cuts

Mon Jan 26, 2009 5:37am EST


By Sudip Kar-Gupta and Reed Stevenson
PARIS/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Crisis-hit European banks announced losses and job cuts on Monday, including a shake-up at Dutch financial group ING (ING.AS) and a worse-than-expected final quarter from top French bank BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA).

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSLQ15077120090126?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

I,_Brian

The big point in all this to remember is that the best time to invest is when the market is at a low - which is precisely when the markets have least confidence.

Make no mistake, the stock market is stressed and it may yet get worse - but for the long-term investor the current climate is an unparalleled opportunity. You just not to have a sound investment strategy and be able to stick with it.

There are plenty of doomsayers, but I bet any investor here - with the benefits of hindsight - would have loved to invest directly after any major crash, whether the dotcom bubble, 1987, or the Great Depression of the 1930's - the resulting returns would always have been excellent.

And now we are at that point again.

Question is, whether anyone is serious enough to take investment advice from "a bloke in the pub" (as forums inevitably are) compared to making considered decisions themselves.

2c.

gozomark

I,_Brian wrote: »

I bet any investor here - with the benefits of hindsight - would have loved to invest directly after any major crash, whether the dotcom bubble, 1987, or the Great Depression of the 1930's - the resulting returns would always have been excellent.

And now we are at that point again.

first part, yes, of course buying at the bottom means you will make money

second part - well thats a prediction - we might only be half way through the current crash

Stavros_3

Barclays up 67% today, whoever bought at the end of last Friday has done well

gozomark

StevieJ wrote: »

You could still have 100% downside:eek: what was old saying 'nobody ever went bust by taking a profit'

well actually they do - one of the biggest mistakes investors make is cutting winners to early and running losses, and then saying "its not a loss until I take it"

StevieJ

gozomark wrote: »

what was your target price when you bought them ? To me if it was only 50% up on purchase price then it wasn't a worthwhile trade given the downside risk

To be honest I did not have a price target more a date target, The minimum holding time would have been the accounts presentation in Feb, today they seem to have pre-empted that. I have no target now.