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Well, yesterday no reported short position moves that were reportable (which cup is the pea under), so the massive ramp up yesterday may well be a new buyer adding, so I suspect that something is amiss in the market. This time something the shorts may not know or don't want to know compared to a possibly buyer adding volume. What the shorts expect to do now I think is cross their fingers and look to the heavens for divine intervention. Trump/Reeves and the bond markets may well do that, otherwise they are possibly slightly out of luck. Aberdeen dropped 2m shares and the share price effectively did not move (returned back to pre sale level).

After market auction cleared above the last trades again (1.4p premium at 178k volume) and the shares may well be into a 350-370 range until the court ruling, who knows ? One notable chunky 102k trade today at 361.2p, possibly the 360p book protection squad ? Only 19% of the 2-10k volume trades went through sub 360p with 33% at 365p and higher. 360p possibly seems to be the level someone is trying to set or protect or who knows....

I think I know popcorn...munch...munch...

Or, the instance of information leak in terms of a sale process. Think about Gordon and the magical Golden handout, where any forward knowledge of sales is just front run and the market pushed down. Aberdeens sale looked to have happened over a couple of days and may have been the particular down trend that existed. Barclays Qatar exit. Who knows.

Realistically though I suspect it is more the element that the 2m sale did not push the price down anywhere near as much as expected and possibly indicates a lot more support than the shorts may like to believe. Plus, a particular poster seems to be a good indicator of the bottom of the market pattern at times. Today seemed to hit a few instances where shorts may have been trying to protect book positions by throwing a little volume in to see if the buying trend lacked enough depth or momentum to keep going at the price hit and resided below 360 for a short while. The end of day flurry of people cashing in and day traders, puling the price down a little, breaking the uptrend around 3:50pm. Within day volume around 1m shares on market looks interesting compared to Abredeens off market sales last week, shows it's not always about what is seen in the open market. Today 5 chunky trades stood out 15-27k in size.

Next few days could look interesting or a short led rollercoaster dip. If the buying holds the shorts may start to face book limits with a squeezy feel to the market growing. No change on the shorts yesterday and todays last trade of today at 363.2p vs 360p post close (shorts pushing auction down or protecting book limits ?) make for an interesting report tomorrow to see who was flushed out or not. Suspect someone was flushed, otherwise squeezy ahead. Into the Oct 2024 plateau, post quarterly update flush over ? Who knows...

Screaming rollercoaster or quiet popcorn ahead...munch...munch...

See what happens in the next half hour to hour in relation to the falling wedge pattern and the strong linear programatic buy levels.

Another forum raised the Nelmes (2016) case as a reason the car trades are on the back foot, although when looking at the actual case it#s just a situation of a separate defined broker payment and a hidden secondary payment, which was a well known issue clased as actually being "secret" rather than the nonsense of half-secret. So I half-told you about this and half-told the story and it will half-impact the share price in half-ther time. I might eaven hear a bear half crying at this point.

Maybe the 2m level in relation to the buyouts of undervalued UK companies was an interesting combination of events.

More popcorn on order...munch...munch...

Forgot to add, Aberdeen sold out 2m shares and the share price is potentially back to the same position before they sold out, so maybe the share discount levels is at a point more people are starting to see the actual value. Reasonable support starting to be seen at this level given the view that bribery is off the table.

Even more popcorn...munch...munch...

No change on the shorts, Aberdeen reduced by around 2m shares at the close of the 6th and look to have been responsible for Fridays low point. With none of the shorts reporting a change, that in theory (if you believe in the tooth fairy as well) that Aberdeen exited 2m (1.35%) shares and nobody with a reportable position changed much. Maybe all smaller players picking up the shares or some find the ball under the cup onshore offshore switcheroo, who knows.

What it does say or give an indicatiuon of is that with the shorts adding and Aberdeen exiting Friday looks to have been and interesting low, given that 1.5% or more of sells did not push CBG down that far (if all those sales actually occured when reported).

Todays market has flipped to the post acution premium above the last trades, so back into the bullish position for the moment. With the late afternoon rally, that could be a nice trap or a close out because Aberdeen may have finished trimming short term risk ahead of the court decision. Again, time will tell.

Popcorn as usual...munch...munch...

Uncertainty always creates a discount. The SC will remove uncertaintly.

Simple popcorn...munch...munch...

Step back and look at the numbers in a cold manner with some easy conservative rounding. CBG has just over £1.5bn in net assets. Share price is £0.5bn, so a discount of £1bn. Likely payout £0.3bn. Residual imbalance £0.7bn.

What level do the shorts think is fair value ? PE of sub 2 ? It's all a short term play. Even if the payout is £0.6bn it still levaes the company with a net surplus of £0.4bn and they have a longer time to payout and raise capital. That is besides Barclays potentially dragging the process into 2026.

High emotional popcorn...munch...munch...

I did wonder when the Lloyds comments would provoke a post. "cometh the day of the SC announcement.....only then will the time to buy become apparent." I'm quite surprised that you now see the whole matter as transitional interim volatility, rather than long term CBG is doomed.

The FCA have zero consideration for any shareholders. HMT will have consideration about funding the government debt when the bond market reacts. There are two sides and the Labour government is just the shop front to the Whitehall deep state, as if the current immigration show of smash the gangs is not evidence enough. Your over estimating the handout impact because the impact to those that matter (HMT) will be far greater in effect. That is if you have a tinfoil hat and think the judiciary are aligned with voting intentions now, which will have faded by 2028.

Todays drop is just a brilliant example of shorts taking any news to try and flush people out, nothing more. If you have bought with a mult year perspective, just sit back, it's the interim show. Look at Centrica over the last 10 years and think of the utter panic if you had bought at 34p at the time, when all doom and gloom. Takes years, not weeks or months. Arguing about the wind direction next week is just as effective, there will be wind.

Yesterday Citadel proved the day trading, backing out of 0.01%. Nothing else to say.

Long term popcorn ahead...munch...munch...

On a 6mth basis Loyds and CBG are only 2% different. Rollercoaster of interim volatility.

The change and split from these correlations will occur after the court case. The FCA will have to admit they can't start a redress scheme until 2026 because of the Barclays case, unless the SC rules wider than the case before them. That continued uncertainty may force the FCA into a position of having to back down, especially if the bond markets corner the Treasury in the interim.

Rollercoaster screams for more popcorn...munch...munch...

Watch for the CBG bounce.

Wonder if the whole situation ends up in a decision between letting the existing car market off with the cost impact to the market already as a penalty or the sitiation where CMC's end up with a free 30% that's even more unfair to the consumer than the prior legal commission schemes. Unintended consequence, who would have thought.

Springy popcorn...munch...munch.....

So, Systematica are sticking to the regulatory letter and only updating their short every 0.1% change and yesterday they reached the limit and notificed they had added 0.1% since the 12th May. Citadel, day trading with a 30k addition, which is interesting as that either looks like just flat day trading or just one side of a hedged position.

Todays end of day auction only 1p lower and slightly lower in volume (123k / 36% of day volume) so it maybe looks like a point in time change in behaviour in in progress and a burnt out bear. With 5.5m shares still short (3.6%) that still leaves a large overhang on the price.

Groundhog flavoured popcorn...mmm....munch....mmmm...munch...

Yesterdays end of day auction had about 100k less volume than peioer days and today, which was quite interesting. The sawtooth type charts we see where a steady programatic sell volume creates the slope. These may well be contractual swaps or other derivatives being run out.

The end of day auction (52% of volume) turning out below the last days trades continues the recent trend and volumes back in the 160k range today, so that may be how one of the short may be closing out. The no change for yesterday may give an indication of this if another reduction is seen in tomorrows report. That may well then point to a timeline for that strategy of hedges, which may be hanging on the share price.

Sideways and onward, popcorn time again...munch...munch...

Curiously Citadel reduce by about 150kon Friday while the share price dropped, so that looks like they may be using the after market auction to pickup the volumes. This may be a situation where some volumes are looking to exit ahead of the court ruling due to the uncertainty about how the court is going to rule. On a relative price basis it seems hard to reconcile if someone has sat on a position since say 800p and then deciding to exit now ahead of the ruling. That to me would seem to point more towards a smaller shorter term holders reversing back out, where the current situation is above their risk appetite. Will see how this develops over the next week or two and see if another larger buyer takes the other side.

Or maybe it's just the rinse repeat pattern of quarterly updates where they try to flush out holders in the week or two after the update...

Who knows, time for popcorn again....munch...munch...

FCA having 'trouble' with their short reporting site, so given no data I'm already assuming no change due to the way the day traded. Today, a steady climb with 483k volume for the day and 44% of that in the after market auction, whihc was a higher volume than the prior few days. The level going through this time closer to the actual level of trading at the end of the day, so yerserdays game was a one off surprise type opportunity.

FTSE250 position very unlikely to change, if they did go for a flush out it would be a massive buying opportunity in my mind, so I'm looging for loose change down the back of the sofa ahead of that.

Otherwise little changed on the week, being only 1% different from the big four banks after the small rollercoaster ride.

Yawn, weekend popcorn....munch...munch...

No change on the shorts, nothing much else appart from someone has discovered they can push the end of day down 3p with about 6k in volume. End of day this time turning nearly 3p lower than the last trades. That may be a game repeated for a day or two before another particiapnt sees they can play the other side again, however that's the current change.

Steady as she goes popcorn...munch...munch...

Citadel reduced their short yesterday by 165k, which is probably the main reason for the slight bump yesterday. Today from around 10/11am it looks like a programatic sell was started that reversed around 3pm with the end of day auction closing below the last trades again, which looks like a reversal from the trend of the last week or so. End of day auction volumes seem to have a base of around 100-120k or so shares with the days variability on top. Todays end of day auction was 40.5% of the days total and possibly the way some of the short positions are closing out. With the 4:30pm reporting deadline it would possibly mean that the end of day auction volumes (4:35pm) then end up in the position reports for the day after, 2 days delay rather than 1 day. Just because of the 5 minute difference. Just to mix things up a little. Guessing tomorrow will show no change in shorts or if anything a small 0.1% addition, more likely too small a difference to report.

Boaring popcorn, yawn.......munch...munch...

My thought is that if people follow and understand what is going on in the market and why (my belief or thoughts) then they can think about their own views in a more rational manner and less emotionally. Sometimes the pattern over a few weeks creates more of a picture than any individual day and time takes on a different perspective. I'm not correct and just have a perspective because nobody knows the full picture as to what is going on. Sometimes it makes a difference, sometimes it does not. I though that it would also help people think about the market differently and figure things out for themselves in the future. End of the day, figure things out yourself and don't rely on other peoples opinions or views or in the words of Ronald Regan, "Trust but verify".

Star Wars popcorn times...munch...munch...

So, on Friday Millenium added (165k shares) to their reported short, presumably around the 340p level or lower as they may have chased the market down. Todays close makes for an interesting coutcome on that position, given the main driver is a Trump U-turn on Europe tariffs over the weekend. The shorts may well have been on the back of an expectation of at least a few more days before a policy reversal. Ho, hum...

Todays pickup at 3pm was a decorrelation from the other banks on little volume (18.3k from 341-350p) so side market activity and a short closing or a squeezy feel. After market auction (34% of vol) closed below the last traded by 2.4p and only 0.3p different to Fridays 'close' (if looking at the last 6k, 343.1p at 16:46:53).

Sideways until July ? Unlikely.

Unpredictable popcorn... munch... munch...

Can't let a simple think like following the law at the time stop you from retrospectively being found guilty of a crime when I change the law today and prosecute you for yesterdays crimes. Just imagine if this same logic was applied to free speech, oh, wait....

Confused popcorn...munch...munch...

Main problem is that the Barclays case needs to be settled before the FCA can go the redress route. The FCA I think made their statement, thinking that the SC will rule in a way that effectively rules on the Barclays case before the judges derive a verdict after the hearing. The sequencing is bad. However, if the SC ruled before the Barclays case was heard and the ruling was such that it made the Barclays case a done deal (no need for the case to go forward) then and only then could the FCA get a redress scheme going after the consulation to figure out what they are missing because I don't think they cant form a scheme with the information they have. The other scenario is that the SC rule only on bribery and leaves the Barclay route open, which could then end up with a SC challenge heading into 2026 for a ruling with the FCA unable to form a redress scheme before about May next year ?

Delayed popcorn indeed...munch...munch...