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When I settle in to my office on a typical morning, Londoners have already had lunch and are ready for afternoon tea. This sometimes works to my advantage, when I manage to catch the late-breaking stories. At other times, I feel like I have been left with the scraps left over from my prolific colleagues, Tom Frew and Alpesh Patel. Today looks like a scrap day, because the ubiquitous Mr. Frew seems to have been overly inspired. So I am going to take the opportunity to talk about several things, instead of focusing on just one.
Hargreaves Lansdown (LSE:HL.) Setting the Market on Fire
Following yesterday’s publication of remarkable first quarter results, a day in which Hargreaves Lansdown’s share price rose 2.78%, the brokerage firm is continuing to see its stock rise, leading the FTSE 100 gainers with as its share price climbed another 4.81% to 1,090.0 by mid-afternoon. (Is that before or after tea time?) Given the strength of HL’s fundamentals, I see a continuing increase in the value of these shares as a strong possibility.
Should Barclays Hire Mike Tyson as a Their Company Spokesman?
I know that if I were on the Barclays (LSE:BARC) board, I’d vote for that. It just seems to be such a good fit, because every time the bank hits the headlines, it looks more and more like Big Mike’s face after he kept hitting Lenox Lewis’s gloves with it back in 2002.
This morning I had no sooner read that Barclays led lending institutions in the second half of last year with the greatest number of registered complaints, when I read the next headline that said that Hector Sants has had to take a three-month leave of absence due to “exhaustion and stress.” They didn’t mention embarrassment, but I’m fairly certain that has played a part in it. Rumor has it that he is on suicide watch. (That’s a joke. A bit morbid, perhaps, but a joke nonetheless.) I mean, what in the world was he thinking? When he was CEO at the FSA, he was the frying pan. There’s no better illustration of jumping from the frying pan into the fire than his move to Barclays. Even with a suspected £3 million compensation package, anyone would have to be a bit loony to step into the compliance responsibility at Barclays. But he did. And now he feels like Tyson did after putting repeated imprints of his face on Lewis’ mitts.
And what in the world is going on with all those Barclays bicycles around town? I guess that’s what they are going to use to get out of town to escape the continuing embarrassment of being Barclays.
World Markets Uncertain Over US Fiscal Fiasco
Ya’ll must think that we are stupid over here. When you step back and realize that we actually elected these nincompoops, I guess we do look pretty dumb. Forrest Gump said, “Stupid is as stupid does.” Apparently stupid also votes as stupid does. What in the world is going on?
Let me share just one little insight here that most people do not realize. The Republican party is taking a beating in the media because the story, as told by the Democratic party is that they (the Republicans) will not negotiate to raise the debt ceiling. Well, here is what these same leading Democrats said before the Obama administration took over:
- “We can’t give a blank check over and over and over again.” ~ Nancy Pelosi, November 2004. Apparently she believes we can now.
- “Most Americans know that increasing the debt is the last thing we should be doing.” ~ Harry Reid, March 2006. He’s right. We do know that. Apparently he doesn’t.
- “The request sounds like a drunk going to an AA meeting and asking for just one more drink.” ~ Charles Rangel, November 2004. I guess that now he is the drunk.
- “America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.” ~ Senator Barack Obama, March 2006. Well, amen to that! If we deserved better then, we deserve a whole lot better now.
Taxation without representation seems to have come back to haunt the US, Britain, and the whole world. I’m sorry. I have no idea what in the world is going on with these people.
