Member Info for skier1

CBX has been re-listed as CEL AI, with the ticker CLAI.

It is pivoting into wellness and beauty AI.

Interesting to note that 50% of all UK bets by volume today are being placed on a "Conservative majority" for the 2024 UK nationwide election. With 30% being placed on a "hung parliament". Only 20% on Labour...

Yes, because the co-op and mutuals sector -- largely centred around Manchester and Northern UK -- has done so much for UK prosperity up-north in the past century...

How many fundraises and dilutions has this company had since the 1990s?... ;-)

They are doing work to find the source of the green diamond!

Lol.

LLOY is up +15% in 2 weeks. It must feel like winning the lotto for some of the long-termers here.

UK is mired in a quarter-century bear market.

It ain't rocket science. The FCA love to punish. Just ask Amigo Loans! They're like a dog with a bone -- and they won't let it go. The car-loan scandal is going to drag on for years, and cost the industry billions (not millions).

The latest YouGov poll-tracker of roughly 1000-5000 UK adults in Feb 2024 shows the top-five "most important issues facing the country" right now are...

1. Economy (51%)

2. NHS (46%)

3. Immigration (38%)

4. Defence (23%)

5. Environment (22%)

If Rishi can cut big taxes, throw more cash in the bottomless NHS pit, and get some token flights off to Rwanda, he still stands a fairly good chance of beating Labour.

Looking at the betting markets today, only a marginal 55% of bets by volume are being placed on Labour (vs. Conservatives). Labour's "lead" is much smaller than people realize.

Nope.

The phrase "discretion to increase the cost of finance" is just a cloak-word for hidden fees and overcharging. That is why the FCA is looking into it. Don't bury your head in in sand.

Banks and car dealers in the 2000s, 2010s and early 2020s were often charging interest rates in the 5-15% range... at a time when a normal unsecured personal loan was running around the 2-10% level... That is why the FCA is investigating.

The car-finance scandal is about (allegedly) inflated and hidden loan fees. Well done to Martin Lewis for bringing it to popular attention.

The EU goaded Ukraine to join the EU, in direct breach of international law! The EU is as guilty as the US and UK of starting the war in Ukraine.

Under Trump, no new wars started. Under Biden, wars are popping up worldwide like mushrooms. Biden has lost control of the world. Trump has the power and reputation to stop those wars and bring stability back to the world.

UK is no.2 in NATO and still a major world power. One of only 4-5 countries on the planet still with global warfare and cyber capabilities.

Lol.

Lot of denial on this forum...

LLOY is down -11% YTD, -17% YoY, -30% in 5 years, -50% in 10 years. It never goes up! And the headwinds keep on coming. Car loans, windfall tax, recession fever, Iran, US regs. There seems no end to bad news.

Today's £450m provision for alleged car-loan misselling looks way too low. Investors need to be thinking in billions, not millions. RBC Bank reckons LLOY need to set aside £2b. I estimate £3b. This is just the start, and will drag on for many quarters ahead.

https://www.cityam.com/lloyds-announces-record-annual-profits-and-announces-bumper-shareholder-returns-but-expects-motor-finance-probe-hit/

Share price is up slightly in Germany pre-trading.

Know someone who recently went to fetch a prescription from the chemist. First time they'd been in years. When the lady behind the counter asked "do you pay for your prescription", the lady looked startled and taken aback when the fetcher replied "yes"... Like it was an unusual and rare event for anyone to actually pay for their prescription meds!

The FTSE100 today is tanking again. Down -1% YTD and -4% YoY. Nvidia results tonight may well be bad, sending the S&P500 back into a slightly bearish mindset. US banking regs are about to tighten further. The UK car-loan misselling scandal is going to cost billions. Labour will be rubbing their hands at a bank windfall tax.

A heckuva lot of short-, medium- and long-term headwinds out there for LLOY right now. Hard to see much upside, at this point.

A back-envelope guess says this alleged car-loan misselling (CLM) scandal will cost the UK finance industry somewhere between £5-30b in total between 2025-2035. Using a middle £15b estimate, and apportioning 20% marketshare to LLOY (Black Horse), this suggests Lloyds might be on the hook for a £3b payout in the next 1-10 years.

That £5-30b guess is half the £50-55b that PPI cost the UK banks in the 2010s.

A £3b payout would be roughly 50-75% of LLOY fullyear net profit in (say) 2024.

All speculation, and figures are for rough illustration only. But you get the idea. This CLM scandal could get very expensive very quickly.

Dyor, etc.

PPI = £50-55b

CLM = £5-30b

As posted yesterday, those UK "recession" stats for H2 2023 will almost certainly be wrong, and be revised up in a year or so. It's a fair bet that the UK is NOT in technical recession at all, and the "official" stats are wrong, knowingly way too pessimistic. The ONS (weirdly) delights in talking down the UK.

UK nominal GDP jumped +5% YoY, retail sales leapt +3%, unemployment is near a record low at 3-4%, wages are strong, and everyone who wants a job has one. They are not signs of recession. They are signs of economic health.