Does anyone remember when the UK had an economy worth investing in?

Mickey666

thegentleway said:

Michael121 said:

thegentleway said:

Why is it “your” country? You didn’t chose to be born here...

What difference does it make. 

I think it makes a huge difference. You don’t think your life would have turned out differently if you were born in a developing country? 

If you’re born in the U.K., you’ve basically won the lottery of life. Seems strange to complain about being extremely lucky to live in the 6th largest economy in the world when most people alive today are nowhere near as fortunate...

So true.

Mickey666

CreditCardChris said:

Mickey666 said:

Hmm.  If the world's sixth largest country by GDP is not worthy of investment then we're probably all doomed

The world's 6th largest country by GDP is propped up on dead beat industries. Take oil & gas, banking and insurance away from the UK economy and you'll soon find we're around 20th. In line with countries like Poland, Sweden, Austria etc. Not exactly poor countries, but nothing to write home about either.

Why do you think banking and insurance are ‘dead beat’ industries?  Can’t see them disappearing anytime soon can you?  Can’t honestly see oil and gas disappearing this century either, despite all the ‘green pound’ stuff being talked about.

Still, if that’s what you think then fine, don’t invest in the UK.  Your money, your choice.  Why bother to ‘tip off’ everyone else?  Don’t want them stealing your new-found insight do you?

Michael121

thegentleway said:

Michael121 said:

thegentleway said:

Why is it “your” country? You didn’t chose to be born here...

What difference does it make. 

I think it makes a huge difference. You don’t think your life would have turned out differently if you were born in a developing country? 

If you’re born in the U.K., you’ve basically won the lottery of life. Seems strange to complain about being extremely lucky to live in the 6th largest economy in the world when most people alive today are nowhere near as fortunate...

I agree that's exactly why you should be proud to call it your country, but we can't call the UK our country because we won a lotto ticket to be born here? Can you tell that to the people that was tearing down statues. 

CreditCardChris

Mickey666 said:

CreditCardChris said:

Mickey666 said:

Hmm.  If the world's sixth largest country by GDP is not worthy of investment then we're probably all doomed

The world's 6th largest country by GDP is propped up on dead beat industries. Take oil & gas, banking and insurance away from the UK economy and you'll soon find we're around 20th. In line with countries like Poland, Sweden, Austria etc. Not exactly poor countries, but nothing to write home about either.

Why do you think banking and insurance are ‘dead beat’ industries?  Can’t see them disappearing anytime soon can you?  Can’t honestly see oil and gas disappearing this century either, despite all the ‘green pound’ stuff being talked about.

Still, if that’s what you think then fine, don’t invest in the UK.  Your money, your choice.  Why bother to ‘tip off’ everyone else?  Don’t want them stealing your new-found insight do you?

https://i.gyazo.com/397cc756da0504f29d1f7bcbd56b7a79.png Lloyds
https://i.gyazo.com/838488a64c4c30d9905c78a4d0dc4fec.png Barclays
https://i.gyazo.com/cdd2b8e6571e8ef05a5013c547ab7566.png Natwest
Yeah, I can't wait to invest in these companies... Banks have zero growth opportunity, offer zero innovation and are generally a disliked industry as they make virtually all their profits from interest which requires literally no input from the company except time and the initial capital they lend you, which is lent out in fractional reserves so you're probably actually borrowing 5x more than the bank physically lends you.

Banks will be probably be around forever but they're slowly being phased out by the likes of Revolut, Starling etc which are disrupting those old grandpa banks.
Green energies will disrupt oil. Insurance companies build on technology like Lemonade will disrupt traditional paper insurance companies. Mining will still be around but earth is quickly running out of resources so they best start investing in space mining or they too will perish to the up and coming Elons of the world.

grumiofoundation

Michael121 said:

thegentleway said:

Michael121 said:

thegentleway said:

Why is it “your” country? You didn’t chose to be born here...

What difference does it make. 

I think it makes a huge difference. You don’t think your life would have turned out differently if you were born in a developing country? 

If you’re born in the U.K., you’ve basically won the lottery of life. Seems strange to complain about being extremely lucky to live in the 6th largest economy in the world when most people alive today are nowhere near as fortunate...

I agree that's exactly why you should be proud to call it your country, but we can't call the UK our country because we won a lotto ticket to be born here? Can you tell that to the people that was tearing down statues. 

*were

grumiofoundation

barnstar2077 said:

What are you trying to achieve with this thread?

That is the question

coyrls

barnstar2077 said:

What are you trying to achieve with this thread?

He's achieved what he wanted, 10 pages and still going.

bowlhead99

CreditCardChris said:
Banks will be probably be around forever but they're slowly being phased out by the likes of Revolut, Starling etc which are disrupting those old grandpa banks.

Revolut has been running more than five years now. Last year they made £160m in revenue, strong growth over previous year. Well, it's easy to get revenue growth if you buy it: after their £270m of operating expenses, they lost over £100m for the year.

Starling is another darling of the millennials as they give you what you want for free. They have over a billion of customer deposits and as of two months ago had lent almost £900 million through BBLS and CBILS (the government schemes for covid support where the govt pays the customer's interest bill for a while), and they have a hundred million grant from the Capability and Innovation Fund where they basically get free money for being a challenger bank. Despite being on a run-rate of £80m revenue a year, they spend more than that in operational expenses so haven't ever been able to report making a profit.

You can see that anecdotally they are disrupting the market because the millennials say they don't want branch facilities and prefer better apps, and no fees or charges of course, and both Revolut and Starling are what they want. Starling's June trading update reported that their customers are trusting them and putting more money with them now - at 9 months after account opening, balances have generally risen from where they were at 3 months post account opening. Within 9 months after account opening, an average retail customer's account had an average monthly balance of £700, the average sole trader almost £1900 and the average business account a whopping £12000.

Sure, they feel they are 'disrupting' the old 'grandpa' banks (the ones that provide hundreds of billions in lending to big corporate customers, SMEs and retail customers together with 1.5 trillion in residential mortgage lending to the UK market as of June).  Unfortunately, with minimal charges on those low balances, no profits are actually made. Being a 'disruptor' in the banking sector requires you to have deep pockets and ignore the fact that the type of customers you are taking on are ones that 'value' your innovations only as long as it doesn't cost them, while having the profile to jump ship if any other rival in startup mode will offer even more service for free. Meanwhile you knuckle down and hope someone else comes along and buys you out and can eventually turn a profit on the customer base with a access to cheaper finance and reverting to more well-proven profitable ideas.

Still, the practice of those two challenger business being allowed to have 'more than about 3 nonpublic funding rounds without being required by the government to offer shares to CreditCardChris through an IPO' probably makes them symptomatic of all that is wrong with the UK's culture of innovation and entrepreneurship anyway, so they are probably a red herring to this 'discussion'. Who needs banks anyway? It's not like they help the economy to function. Apple, Amazon and Facebook have a greater market cap than the FTSE100 anyway so we should just let them run the markets for financial services however they see fit, and hope it works out well for everyone.

/s

CreditCardChris

bowlhead99 said:

CreditCardChris said:
Banks will be probably be around forever but they're slowly being phased out by the likes of Revolut, Starling etc which are disrupting those old grandpa banks.

Revolut has been running more than five years now. Last year they made £160m in revenue, strong growth over previous year. Well, it's easy to get revenue growth if you buy it: after their £270m of operating expenses, they lost over £100m for the year.

Starling is another darling of the millennials as they give you what you want for free. They have over a billion of customer deposits and as of two months ago had lent almost £900 million through BBLS and CBILS (the government schemes for covid support where the govt pays the customer's interest bill for a while), and they have a hundred million grant from the Capability and Innovation Fund where they basically get free money for being a challenger bank. Despite being on a run-rate of £80m revenue a year, they spend more than that in operational expenses so haven't ever been able to report making a profit.

You can see that anecdotally they are disrupting the market because the millennials say they don't want branch facilities and prefer better apps, and no fees or charges of course, and both Revolut and Starling are what they want. Starling's June trading update reported that their customers are trusting them and putting more money with them now - at 9 months after account opening, balances have generally risen from where they were at 3 months post account opening. Within 9 months after account opening, an average retail customer's account had an average monthly balance of £700, the average sole trader almost £1900 and the average business account a whopping £12000.

Sure, they feel they are 'disrupting' the old 'grandpa' banks (the ones that provide hundreds of billions in lending to big corporate customers, SMEs and retail customers together with 1.5 trillion in residential mortgage lending to the UK market as of June).  Unfortunately, with minimal charges on those low balances, no profits are actually made. Being a 'disruptor' in the banking sector requires you to have deep pockets and ignore the fact that the type of customers you are taking on are ones that 'value' your innovations only as long as it doesn't cost them, while having the profile to jump ship if any other rival in startup mode will offer even more service for free. Meanwhile you knuckle down and hope someone else comes along and buys you out and can eventually turn a profit on the customer base with a access to cheaper finance and reverting to more well-proven profitable ideas.

Still, the practice of those two challenger business being allowed to have 'more than about 3 nonpublic funding rounds without being required by the government to offer shares to CreditCardChris through an IPO' probably makes them symptomatic of all that is wrong with the UK's culture of innovation and entrepreneurship anyway, so they are probably a red herring to this 'discussion'. Who needs banks anyway? It's not like they help the economy to function. Apple, Amazon and Facebook have a greater market cap than the FTSE100 anyway so we should just let them run the markets for financial services however they see fit, and hope it works out well for everyone.

/s

Banks do serve a purpose, but they will never be good investments. You're seriously comparing the performance and available funds of lloyds which is some 300 years old, Barclays which is 329 years old and Natwest 52 years old, to companies who're less than 10 years old? 

Of course they're going to be tiny players but all companies start off small. Look at how ridiculously pathetic Amazon was, competing against walmart, Kroger, Costco, Albersons etc, what on earth were Amazon thinking? All the while not making a profit for 7 years and even when they did make a profit, it was a measly $35million... Get back under your rock Amazon, there's no place for your distribution here! /s

Bravepants

coyrls said:

barnstar2077 said:

What are you trying to achieve with this thread?

He's achieved what he wanted, 10 pages and still going.

And that's just from bowlhead99!...