Member Info for skier1

Such typical "British" negativity / apathy / misery is why no big companies list in the UK anymore... The SpaceX IPO is gonna be huge. One of the world's biggest stockmarket flotations of all time. Trading will begin in June on the same day as a (rare) triple-planetary alignment. The hype (excitement) will be off the charts. Think Star Trek on steroids and Red Bull. SpaceX controls 85% of the entire worldwide space-rocket market. More than the rest of the whole planet combined. More than all US, Chinese, Indian, European and British space rockets combined. Its going to be a $1T valuation. Shares will, inevitably, be priced to pop on day 1. SpaceX is (literally) going to the Moon 🚀

Overpaying £140 a year in holding or dealing charges is £1,400 lost per decade, £7,000 thrown away in an adult's investment lifetime (50 years). Invested wisely, such as the S&P 500, it can be turned into £3,000 after 10 years, and £400,000 after 50 years. Never waste money!

When you can stick £200 in IG, and get (at least) £50 of shares free, a 1-month return of about +25%, there's little to beat that, right now. Even Warren Buffett would be pleased with that ROI.

IG Index are offering (this week) £50-2000 of free shares for ISA, SIPP, or GIA transfers, from as little as £200 investment.

The Scottish Widows app is pretty clunky, and slow, and they don't pay % interest on cash holdings.

II seem to be moving away from their low-fee model. Which is a shame.

HSBC today has become the first ever European Bank to top a $300b marcap 👍

https://www.cityam.com/hsbc-shares-keep-ftse-100-afloat-ahead-of-bank-earnings/

Lol.

They've been pumping the "coloured diamonds" nonsense here since the 1990s, at the end of the last century!

Diamond prices worldwide today are in freefall, due to the neverending flood of artificial diamonds, and China's economy slowing down. It's an industry that's way past its peak.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-19/de-beers-cuts-diamond-prices-for-the-first-time-in-over-a-year

Tin is the new silver.

US economy is growing at +5%. UK economy is "growing" at 0%. Gotta hand it to Trump.

Greenland is for Golden Dome. Nearly 100% of all Russian nukes, and a lot of Chinese nukes, need to fly directly over Greenland to hit America.

The US is going to be self-sufficient in rare-earths supply as soon as 2027, so it doesn't really need Greenland for that.

Could see this hit 110p by month-end, as a hedge against Trump tariff mania.

BRICS have been talking for years about an alternative system to SWIFT. But it never takes off. Would you trust Beijing, Moscow or Rio with your cash? Thought not.

What's more, the BRICS payment network is a hotchpotch mess of weak interoperability. Russia has had SPFS since 2014. China with CIPS since 2015. India with UPI since 2016. Brazil with PIX since 2020. Everyone trying to do their own thing. BRICS is everything, and nothing, at the same time.

Nobody is going to abandon the dollar. It's been 50-80% of global trade for the past 50 years. No other currency on Earth can touch it. Certainly not the Euro, whose share of global trade has shrunk dramatically in the past 10-20 years.

As for Greenland... the UK just sold Chagos. If the UK can sell Chagos, Denmark can sell Greenland 👍

Surprised at the lack of activity here today. Big RNS.

Good (Economist) article on the expected surge in US bank M&As in 2026, due to American oversupply. Wouldn't be a surprise to see LLOY hit with takeover rumours in the coming months. Would be a tasty morsel for a US or European bank.

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2025/12/11/wall-street-is-drooling-over-bank-mergers

This is why the London stockmarket is all but dead. US firms tend to "fund up" and talk their companies higher. UK culture is to "fund down" and talk their companies lower. This is a disgraceful fund-down by BMV. The firm is a heap of junk.

Yup, looks like your classic "UK death spiral". Where the company "funds down", instead of "funding up" (like they do in the US), causing an unstoppable tailspin of panic, fear and doom among shareholders, stakeholders, prospects and customers. Wouldn't be a surprise to see this down at 0.1p before the end of 2025. BSFA is (effectively) "talking itself down" into oblivion.

There's nothing to celebrate here. The over-65 ISA rule just adds yet more complexity to the already absurd tax system, yet more state bureaucracy to administer it, yet more tax to pay for that bureaucracy, more cost for Lloyds and other banks to police it, yet more investment uncertainty and tax confusion for citizens to wade thru. What's more, an extra 8k is barely going to move the needle. Older savers will just stick it in gilts or money-market funds, timid savers will swerve that 8k altogether, while smart investors will just stick it in US funds abroad and do nothing for the UK stockmarket. Furthermore, the ISA limit is held at 20k yet again, which, due to fiscal drag and inflation, is a big stealth cut of 3-5% for yet another year. It's an absolute dog's mess of financial naivety and ineptitude ☹️

To be fair, the markets have barely moved. So much of the budget was pre-leaked, weeks ago, there are no surprises left. Labour is actively circumventing parliament, and making Westminster wholly irrelevant.

The starting trigger was Michael "Big Short" Burry publicly shorting AI stocks, such as Nvidia and Palantir, from last month. Then, Softback this month dumped all its giant Nvidia holding. The Nikkei keeps sliding 1-5% every few days. Now, Bitcoin has plunged -25% in just a few weeks and is in a grim bear market. It looks like the world has entered in a correction phase.

Those new 2026 UK house-rental restrictions are very similar to the rent controls they had in the (failed) USSR and East Germany of the 1980s.

Not sure why the hysterical overreaction here. The cash, assets and IP have gotta be worth the best part of 1p to take POLX private or get taken over. Wouldn't be a surprise to see a reversal in the shareprice.

FTSE 100 is rising due to a wave of American money. UK and Europe stockmarkets are back in fashion (for now), to partly diversify away from overvalued US and AI tech stocks. Been great news for LLOY in 2025. A rising FTSE tide lifts all ships.