Most economically illiterate line of the morning from the BBC “Given that Alitalia was government owned, how could it have gone so wrong?”
Most wishful thinking line of the morning from the BBC “Our government has banned short-selling(in the money market) but the Russian government has banned all selling”
From first thing in the morning to last thing at night, the BBC spews out a relentless diet of left wing TOXIC bias.
very true DV, they’ve even been bombarding us with that global warming bollox as well
America is now a Socialist/Communist state, thanks to Bush’s massive nationalization policy.
As Jim Rogers said, America is now a communist state under Bush.
Its surprising the BBC has not hailed Comrade Bush, Comrades Bernanke and Paulson, for their loving embrace of socialist ideology.
Their delusion knows no bounds. They pathetically cling to their beloved socialist principles, in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
To paraphrase their beloved Obamassiah, the BBC’s problem is that:
“…they get bitter, they cling to socialist lies, statistics, spin and propaganda and vilify ordinary working people who aren’t like them, fostering ethnic minority victimhood and pro-immigrant policies in their quest to eradicate the traditional fabric of the country.”
Russia has banned all selling??!! I’d love to work as a trader over there then – turn up, go to pub, knock off home…
I regard short sellers as financial parasites and their activity devalues pension funds How many times do we see false rummers (later denied) and no regulatory action taken so that the short sellers can continue to make a quick ££
From a wealthy capitalist
pension funds aren’t obliged to lend their shares to the hedge funds…
David,
are these quotes from the Today programme?
Pension funds still suffer if someone else instigates a run on the share price of their investments don’t they?
It’s not those that sell at the top of an artificially deflated market that suffer, just those who hold their investments having made perfectly rational decisions about a company’s financial position only to be undone by some bullshit chicanery cooked up in Abacus on a p*ssed up Friday night. Not really the way to run a sensible capitalist economy.
Short selling would be an excellent thing if there was a means of ensuring itr remains above board, but there isn’t.
“Banning” short-selling – pathetic, window dressing. How? I expect soon they will be “taking urgent action” or some such civil service waffle to cover up they are too late and powerless anyway. Government by press release continues – look behind the curtain of the Wizard of Oz.
BBC leads with
Leading UK shares rose in early Friday trading as investors appeared to welcome the City regulator’s ban on short-selling in financial stocks.
wonder why the regulator (ie Gordon’s enforcer is having such an effect worldwide.
MARKET DATA – 10:18 UK
FTSE 100 5232.60up 352.60 7.23%
Dax 6103.88up 240.46 4.10%
Cac 40 4198.84up 240.98 6.09%
and DOW up 4%
could it be more to do with the afterthought?
Shares were also lifted by US plans to rid American banks of their bad debt.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7624654.stm
Hettie,
Yip – from Today between 7-8am this morning!!
If a company has a weakness – usually ‘hidden under a bushel’, or a massaged balance sheet, then they are targets for being sold-short, and rightly so.
The principle also works in reverse, as gems are also hidden under similar bushels, then they are ‘bought long’, and a profit is made.
It’s what trading and investing is all about. The companies that get ‘hit’ don’t like it, because they get ‘caught short’, and don’t like being reminded of their ineptitude and complacency.
The short sellers would not be able to operate if they didn’t have the collusion of the big investors, such as the pension funds, etc, who ‘lend’ the shares, (for a fee), to the short sellers in the first place. The damage done to said pension funds by ‘loaning’ shares usually remains hidden, but who cares? the transaction shows up as a ‘trade’, and the more of those, the bigger the bonus.
The damage is done when companies are targets for ‘naked short selling’ – i.e. where shares are sold without the seller having access to the actual shares. They have until settlement day to buy shares to fill the order for what has already been sold, and the only way to show a profit is to publicly deride the company, so that the share price is sure to fall. That’s really manipulation of the market, and should be, and is already illegal.
The BBC is proud of its ‘analysis’. Why? Ignorance is strength I suppose.
Apparently the BBC uncovered some obscure report that people who suffer panic attacks are more likely to for Right Wing Policies, and felt this news merited broadcasting.
Meanwhile in the real world, what opinion poll and which Manhattan Declaration??
emil
… well the BBC did say, too, that this report claimed that the panic attack sufferers are more liable to be anti-immigration as well … all in all these panic attack sufferers seem to be a pretty nasty lot.
Thanks BBC – let’s all have a go at them and perhaps we can root out this evil.
I regard short sellers as financial parasites …
From a wealthy capitalist
Anonymous | 19.09.08 – 9:29 am | #
Tosh.
Banning short-selling is just another example of the State trying to solve a problem, whose cause has been state interference in the first place, with more of the same state interference – it’s like giving an alcoholic a barrel of beer to cure his alcoholism.
Once more the market is distorted and no one will know the true value of an asset.
You should target your venom at the directors of HBOS who have f**cked the business resulting in it being ripe for bankruptcy; being unable to find the money it needed to repay £150bn of bonds next year and paying a current premium of 3% on the interbank rate, which lead to S&P downgrading the bank’s credit rating, which resulted in ordinary shareholders getting rid of HBOS stock as fast as they could.
Short sellers on HBOS accounted for 3% of all trade volumes.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/09/19/16123/hbos-where-are-the-shorts/
“Weathy capitalist”? Hmm, how is this so with your ignorance of financial facts?
Yours,
A poor laiissez-faire capitalist.
I’m with you – a poor capitalist. The State IS using this to extend it’s power and the BBC is happy to facilitate.
Newsnight is doing a great Socialist Worker party political broadcast tonight; unrelating bash the rich
This short selling issue is a bit like a lynching party led by the Sun et al – all emotion without addressing the reality that this government dithered and now have the same greedy bankers consulting with them as to how to change the system – God help us.
A rare occassion this morning when the Today Programme quoted an anti government “dialogue” from a Brit in France responding to the Harry Potter author’s giving £1 million to this bankrupt government.
Shows that sometimes they can reveal some daylight into their bubble.
They spoilt it slightly when Humphries tried to blame the Conservatives for this financial debacle – Ken put him right, but not as aggressively as he should.