Hello Share Minders: There is classic advice always with us that we should not put all our eggs in one bucket. That a wide spread of different companies is safest.
Hello Share Shifters: Once again, the two British banks with huge chunks owed by the government are in a state of flux as far as share shifters are concerned.
Hello Share Misers: The two partly state-owned British banks, Lloyds Group (LLOY) and the old Royal Bank of Scotland, RBS (RBS) which includes that Nat West, are both zipping along happily so far this year.
Hello Share Magnates: There are some share people who only buy Footsie shares. They think that is safer. Except that it is not always safe.
Hello Share Twiddlers: There is a view among the more cautious investor that he or she should have about three quarters of their money in Footsie companies.
Hello Share Gang: When I was an investigative journalist with the BBC I looked into a lot of business issues very carefully. We had many letters from listeners about banks.
Hello Share Twiddlers: The British banks are a complete nuisance for armchair investors like us, aren't they? The share prices will just not get going – even though their value- when compared to pre-credit crunch days – are very low indeed.
Hello Share Fans: Sorry if I've mentioned it before, but I think that Lloyds Group (LLOY) might possibly do rather nicely out of the success of the Royal Mail fandango. So might the old Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)
Apparently the City is up in arms over the “sacking” of RBS CEO Stephen Hester, as if he was some kind of Moses figure who will not be able to lead the zombie bank to the Promised Land of re-privatisation. However, given the way that the table has been tilted in favour of the sector in the UK, and the point in the cycle that Hester came into the job even Coco The Clown could have done as well or better.
One of the factors that contributed to the great British banking collapse of 2007-8 was lax regulation, something which is perfectly understandable if as a regulator you are dealing with your future employer.
The latest from the bank that did to banking what Fawlty Towers did to tourism in Torquay is that it has £20bn to lend to small business, but has no takers.
The share price of RBS (RBS) has headed due south since my bearish comments on the company last month. Reviewing the share in terms of its future dividend paying capacity in the light of recent history, I observed that in the different world and circumstance of 2007 ( when bank capital adequacy was seemingly almost inconsequential and some banks were running on low or dubious capital or both ) RBS had distributed only 30% of its earnings as dividends. That implied on a totally theoretical, best expectation 30% dividend payout from 36p of earnings per share, a dividend of 11..9p; translating into by way of academic exercise, into an annual yield of a mere 3.3%.
