Monday, October 31, 2016

Mortgage Approvals Hit Three Month High

As per Bloomberg:
"Mortgage approvals rose in September to a three-month high, the Bank of England said.

Almost 63,000 loans for house purchase were granted, up from a revised 60,984 in August, it said in a report in London on Monday. Economists in a Bloomberg survey had forecast a figure of 61,500.
The report also showed that consumer credit rose 1.4 billion pounds in September after a 1.6 billion-pound increase the previous month.

The BOE figures suggest that household demand for credit is holding up since the Brexit vote in June. With the economy performing better than expected in recent months, the central bank is forecast to refrain from cutting interest rates this week."
Another couple of nails in the coffin of Project Fear!

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Nissan To Build New Car In UK- In Spite of Project Fear

Post Brexit Growth - In Spite of Project Fear!


Project Fear proven wrong again!

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Hammond Mulls Dropping Autumn Statement


An excellent idea, as it has proven to be a means to muddy already very muddy waters wrt tax and government finances.

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Greece Gets Another 2.8BN Euros


The taxpayers of Europe are throwing their money away, or rather are having their money thrown away for them!

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Greek Economic Statistics Are Bollocks

Brexit Doesn't Dent Retail Sales


Project Fear Fail!

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

UK House Prices Rise - Project Fear Wrong Again



Despite dire warnings, pre Brexit, by Project Fear of a property apocalypse in the wake of Brexit, Project Fear has been proven wrong!

Friday, October 14, 2016

Greece Needs Fourth Bailout


Why oh why does Greece want to stay in the Eurozone?

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

The ECB Lives In Fantasy Land - Strengthening The Greek Financial System

Strengthening the Greek financial system

Introductory remarks by Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at a public hearing at the European Parliament,
Brussels, 12 October 2016



Sheer fantasy, that will never occur!

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Samsung In Meltdown Over Exploding Phones


Samsung can't catch a break with the Galaxy Note 7.

Samsung recalled 2.5 million phones in September after complaints of exploding batteries, and later insisted that all replaced devices were safe.

However, there are now reports that even those phones were catching fire.

Samsung has urged owners of the Galaxy Note 7 to turn off the phone while it investigates new reports of the device catching fire.

The firm also said it would stop all sales of the phone.

The key issue here is not the fact that the phones seem to have a serious technical flaw, but that Samsung dragged its heels wrt denials actions taken when problems were first reported.

It's the lie that gets you!

Monday, October 10, 2016

Deutsche Bank Given Special Concession By ECB

The FT reports that Deutsche Bank was given special treatment in the summer EU stress tests that were meant to restore faith in Europe’s banks by assessing all of their finances in the same way.

Deutsche Bank, which has seen its share price fall as much as 22 per cent in recent weeks on fears that it could face a US fine of up to $14bn, has been using the results of the July stress tests as evidence of its healthy finances.

Deutsche’s result was boosted by a special concession agreed by its supervisor, the European Central Bank.

Deutsche’s results included the $4bn proceeds from selling its stake in Chinese lender Hua Xia even though the deal had not been done by the end of 2015, the official cut-off point for transactions to be included.

The ECB claims that it treats all banks equally, yet this is clear evidence that it doesn't.

The ECB knows that if Deutsche Bank goes under then so does Germany and the whole eurozone!

Friday, October 07, 2016

The Pound's Flash Crash - The Danger of Algorithms

The pound dropped as much as six per cent to $1.1841 today.

For why?

It seems that there was a case of fat fingers or idiotic trading in Asian markets that caused an algorithm to kick in and start dumping Sterling.

Algorithms are all very well, occasionally. However, to rely on them to "manage" trading is foolhardy in the extreme!

Turn the bloody things off and take responsibility for poor trading decisions!

Thursday, October 06, 2016

Deutsche Bank's $47 Trillion Derivative Exposure

Those of you who think that things have calmed down a tad for Deutsche Bank may care to remember that in its 2015 annual report, Deutsche Bank said its exposure to derivatives was €41.940 trillion ($46.994 trillion).

The Wall Street Journal provides more detail, noting that Deutsche Bank has more Level 3 assets compared with its common equity Tier 1 ratio, a measure of financial strength, than its peers. Its Level 3 assets are estimated as being valued at 72% of its Tier 1 assets. That compares with a 38% average for 12 global banks.

Wednesday, October 05, 2016

Jockeys Told To Avoid High Street Banks

The BBC reports that jockeys in the UK have been advised to move their money out of High Street banks, after a string of frauds dating back more than two years.

The Professional Jockeys Association issued the warning after saying an estimated £200,000 had been stolen from about 30 jockeys across the UK.

The money had been withdrawn over the counter from cashiers, possibly using fraudulent documents, the body added.

The PJA said banks were "unwilling and incapable" of preventing the frauds.

It said the crimes dated back to 2014, when about £50,000 was reportedly stolen from the bank accounts of several riders.

Whilst it may be the case that jockeys (as a percentage of the population) have had a higher rate of bank fraud perpetrated on their accounts, it is not just jockeys that have had money fraudulently removed from their bank accounts. The issue does not just affect jockeys.

Advising jockeys to avoid high street banks is all very well and good, but where are they meant to put their money?

Tuesday, October 04, 2016

Sterling Falls - So What?


I remember the days 31 years ago when the pound plunged new depths, yet here we all are 31 years on.

The world didn't stop spinning then, and it won't now!

Monday, October 03, 2016

Deutsche Bank's Lost Weekend



Hot on the heels of the unsurprising revelation that AFP's stock rallying report at the end of last week, that a deal had been done between the USA's Department of Justice and Deutsche Bank, was utter bollocks; it transpires that Deutsche Bank suffered a further blow to its image this weekend with a third IT outage in the space of a few months on Saturday "that prevented some customers getting access to their money for a short time."

Today is a bank holiday in Germany. However, that will provide no respite for Deutsche Bank. We can expect more bad news whilst the markets in Germany are closed.