Banks

The share price of Lloyd’s Banking Group moved from up .01 pence to down .27 pence in the time it has taken to write this sentence.  Given Lord Levene’s accusation before the Treasury Select Committee that the Group’s leadership has been “disingenuous” in communicating the facts of Lloyds proposed divestiture of the 632 branches referred […]

Pound Sterling – the Pound had a week of ups and downs even as released economic data showed that the UK economy is on track to make a recovery. Early in the week a combination of positive construction, PMI and GDP data supported Sterling, sending it upwards against its peers. To ask a currency expert a […]

You remember the Winklevoss twins.  They are the guys to whom Mark Zuckerberg paid $65 million in combined cash and equity in Facebook to settle the lawsuit in which they alleged that Zuckerberg had stolen their social networking idea.  Today, under the sponsorship of Math-Based Asset Services LLC (a Winklevoss company), Cameron and Tyler filed […]

Banks:  You can’t live without them;  You can’t shoot them.  But you sure wish you could.  I looked up “scandal” in the dictionary today.  It said, “see ‘Banks’”. The European Commission has revealed that it has issued a Statement of Objections to 13 different financial institutions, accusing them of colluding “to prevent exchanges from...

After several weeks of declines the UK index has registered some welcome progress, finding support just above the round number 6000 and posting a 4.5% rally to test the trendline of falling highs since end-May. Uncertainty may still be rife regarding the future of the US Federal Reserve’s QE3 programme. However, Bernanke had his committee […]

Less than a fortnight after ADVFN reported that the Bank of England had publicly stated that the Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE:RBS) needs to raise £3.2 billion, the Church of England is reportedly heading a consortium that is about to drop some loose change into the offering plate. Most of the reports so far are more or less […]

Pound Sterling – it was a mixed week for the Pound as it began the week down against the US Dollar as it declined to its lowest-level in more than two weeks ahead of the sale of UK government bonds. Against the Euro, Sterling weakened for the first time in three days. On Tuesday it advanced […]

According to Direct Line (LSE:DLG) there are soon going to be nearly 2,000 red telephones on desks with  with no one to answer them.  Although the company bid farewell to several hundred employees in 2012, yesterday they announced another round of cost-reduction cuts that will send up to 2,000 more office and support staff directly to the […]

Pound Sterling – Despite an improving picture emerging for the health of the UK economy, this week was one of declines against the US Dollar. On Monday the Pound was little changed against the Euro and US Dollar due to an industry report showing that home sellers raised their asking prices for a sixth-straight month […]

It’s almost impossible to believe how much one economy, and one man at one central bank, can affect the entire world with one short speech about his financial strategy.  But Ben Bernanke got the world to play the game of “Ring Around the Rosie” by doing just that yesterday afternoon.  “We all fall down.” As […]