Member Info for skier1

Some are saying it is the next PPI.

The Tories are the world's oldest and most successful political party. It has been around ~200 years. They formed the backbone of the world's biggest empire mankind has ever seen in the 1800s, dominated most of the 1900s, and has so far dominated 60% of the 2000s.

China is years away from invading Taiwan. Western satellites track every inch of that area and there are no major forces lined up across the Taiwan Strait, China has 130km of choppy ocean to cross to even get there, while China's mounting domestic problems are pulling resources away from war. Taiwan is safe (for now).

Ukraine will soon have a ceasefire. A US election is coming up in H2 2024.

Iran will start to back down when they realize Trump is returning in 2025. They won't have forgotten that their top general got a visit from one of Trump’s twisty blade missile things.

The biggest threat to LLOY remains a possible Labour win or Labour-LibDem-SNP hung parliament in H2 2024. That's going to mean an even further lurch to the hard-left, and thus a growing risk for a painful bank windfall tax and anti-bank policies that will snip profits.

Lol.

UK food exports to the EU soared +7% to an all-time record high in 2023. UK food exports to Europe have never been stronger, bigger or healthier. British cheese and chocolate are wildly popular.

As for imports -- the UK is just equalizing with the EU. For years, the EU has placed extensive red tape on UK food imports. Now, it is only fair, and time, to also place similar red tape on EU food imports to the UK. Make it a level playing field.

US rate cuts coming in Q1 2024. UK rate cuts in Q2 2024.

Yes, this is a far more important topic than we realize.

War in Europe (beyond Ukraine) may be as close as just 1-3 years away. Norway said this week they expect war from 2026. If Putin decides he wants a holiday home in the Suwalki Gap, everyone's pension will crash 10-50% in a flash.

Has anyone on here made their investments or pensions war-ready?

If yes, what have you jiggled about?

Are they the same pollsters who "predicted" SNP would win in 2014 and Trump wouldn't win in 2016 and Brexit wouldn't win in 2016 and Boris wouldn't win in 2019 😄

Interesting to see the Evergrande CEO being (re)arrested and shares halted in Hong Kong this week. He was once Asia's richest person, with ~$40b in 2017. He now has $0 in 2024 and is facing life in the clink.

A timely reminder that China is still a mess and econo-political headwinds for the region remain bad. Not good news for HFEL at the start of the new year.

Vodafone is just one megadisaster after another. It's like a two-decade slow-motion traincrash. Can't people shareholders still pump it up.

First, they exit high-profit US and swap it for low-profit India!... Next, they build up gigantic levels of debt and dividends they can barely afford... Servicing the ridiculous debt and divvy means they underinvest in R&D, networks and growth... Now, they want to go 50-50 on a merger in Italy -- even tho Voda is contributing 65% of subscribers!

It's just one disaster after another. Decade after decade!

Wow. Look at Scottish Widows' TrustPilot ratings. Around 70% are 1 star. No wonder LLOY want to get shot of it!

The global financial institutions (GFI) PE ratio is currently running today around 7. The LLOY PE ratio is today running around 9. So, on that valuation, LLOY is perhaps 10-20% overvalued. Add in the serious threat of Labour in 2024, and a possible bank windfall tax, and it's hard to get enthusiastic about LLOY for now.

Regarding the 2023 shareprice-prediction competition -- the crowdsourced average forecast (excluding the extremist outliers) was around 59p. The power of the crowd was roughly 20-25% too optimistic.

Perhaps the lesson for 2024 is to take the crowdsourced average, and subtract -20%. For example, if everyone guesses an average of 70p, then it might end up at 56p on Tues 31 Dec, 2024.

Merry Crimble, all 🎅 An elf told me that Santa voted for Brexit and he's pleased with the strong progress made this year 👍

Lol. Nobody takes the ONS seriously anymore. Its numbers are almost always wrong -- wildly wrong. A fair bet these will get revised again in 12 months.

Ask old Conroy at the AGM what colour sparklers he expects to pull out the ground in 2024. There are still some colours of the rainbow left, such as red or yellow!

Euro gas futures leaping 10-15% today, due to supply concerns.

The technical chart does have a nice shape to it and looks ready to bowl over the 8000 level.

Oh, stop it! Nobody takes the BoE seriously anymore! They have been wrong on almost every major forecast for the past 8+ years. Brexit, recession, unemployment, inflation, etc. etc. They are an utterly discredited institution. All they ever do is talk down the country and push out wrong predictions.

LTI,

Please layout the roadmap how Ukraine beats a country 3-4 times larger in 2024. Details and specifics. No generalisations.

UK exports worldwide have soared to a record $1.1 trillion in 2023... almost doubling since Brindependence in 2023.

UK recently overtook France as the world's 8th largest manufacturing country in 2023.

UK is doing just fine.

What happened to the magic skin powder here?