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Now, about those HBOS rumours…

This entry was posted by Paul Murphy on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 16:30 and is filed under Capital markets. Tagged with bank of england, hbos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

1. Mar 20   2:37 Posted by followthe directors [report]

   ‘Sell on the rumour, buy on the news’, (or the converse of course) has always been the adage when dealing in equities.

2. Mar 19   21:47 Posted by Sean [report]

   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/03/19/bcnrumour419.xml

3. Mar 19   20:22 Posted by tolstoi [report]

   What really scares me is that the BoE has explicitly denied rumours that a bank is accessing its anonymous emergency facility.

   This means that from now on, when the BoE stays silent, people will happily assume that the rumours are true.

   I really think that there are many good reasons as to why the BoE should not respond to rumours.

4. Mar 19   20:20 Posted by Paul Amery [report]

   If the Bank of England is calling newspapers to try to dispel rumours of bank funding problems, then things must be even worse that we had thought.

   Perhaps they’d like to publish the names of banks applying and amounts sought under the current special auction programme in order to reassure us?

   I’m also reminded of the old City saying “Never believe anything until it’s officially denied”.

5. Mar 19   19:44 Posted by Paul Murphy [report]

   Chill, everyone. Chill. Please.

6. Mar 19   19:36 Posted by Sean [report]

   soree - forget tu yuse mi spill chekker

7. Mar 19   19:28 Posted by democritus [report]

   HBOS isn’t stricken (or even sticken, Sean), it’s just the next day-trader target, and as you all seem to be a page of day-traders, I hope you all get bitten in the bum!

8. Mar 19   19:01 Posted by Lemmy Caution [report]

   The FSA struggles to catch insider traders - ie people within a small circle who have price sensitive information- despite all too common share price moves before a deal. To put it politely, if they want to pursue rumour-mongers, well they aren’t lacking in ambition are they?

9. Mar 19   18:42 Posted by Sean [report]

   Did the government pass emergency legislation allowing them to rescue sticken banks in secret ?

10. Mar 19   18:42 Posted by Pedant [report]

    Odd thing is the FSA statement warns not ” to commit abuse by spreading false rumours and dealing on the back of them” - any trader found to be doing this should perhaps be fired for being an complete bozo.

    The actual offence, for obvious reasons, is to trade before spreading malicious(or speciously optimistic) rumours. The way the FSA have put it seems they want to catch the guy at the back of the theatre who’s screamed “fire” and hoped to beat everyone else to the exit.

    Natural selection generally takes care of these idiots, not sure the FSA should be worrying about this.

11. Mar 19   18:02 Posted by Anonymous [report]

    very amusing…probably applicable to the BS investigation as well.

12. Mar 19   17:40 Posted by democritus [report]

    of course you can short, but make sure you have deep pockets!Everyone knows the only way to make money in these markets is to day trade and short. I think the next stage of defence should be to damage the hordes of traders - make them think. If a bank can’t come to it’s own defence in this way, well, it’s a shame……..

13. Mar 19   17:10 Posted by hedgehog [report]

    @democritus:

    are you suggesting no one should be allowed to go short? If the central banks became involved as you suggest then the effect would be to blow the innocent shorter out of the water along with the real (or fantasy) rumour spreaders - thin edge of the wedge.

14. Mar 19   16:59 Posted by democritus [report]

    as you well know, all banks lend long and borrow short, and HBOS is a very strong Bank with no liquidity issues. A run on the bank will cause the strongest bank to have liquidity problems, however, and rumours spread like wildfire in this environment. The best thing the BoE can do in these circs. is start buying HBOS shares and blow the shorters out of the water. It’s such a shame they can’t do it.

15. Mar 19   16:56 Posted by jawdog [report]

    Does the FSA have knowledge it’s not sharing with rest of market?

16. Mar 19   16:53 Posted by coffin dodger [report]

    welcome to the Farce Economy

17. Mar 19   16:42 Posted by Vicky Pollard [report]

    lost for words, like…