Lloyds share price down nearly 60%
http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=Logarithmic&chdeh=1&chdet=1231286744957&chddm=65919&q=LON:LLOY&ntsp=0

Barclays down nearly 60% too
http://finance.google.co.uk/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=Logarithmic&chdeh=1&chdet=1231286882602&chddm=38325&q=LON:BARC&ntsp=0

HSBC down nearly 30%
http://finance.google.co.uk/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=Logarithmic&chdeh=1&chdet=1231287011850&chddm=38325&q=LON:HSBA&ntsp=0

RBS down over 75%!
http://finance.google.co.uk/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=Logarithmic&chdeh=1&chdet=1231287057025&chddm=38325&q=LON:RBS&ntsp=0

HBOS down nearly 70%
http://finance.google.co.uk/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=Logarithmic&chdeh=1&chdet=1231287099893&chddm=38325&q=LON:HBOS&ntsp=0

Well done to the authorities. What do the ignorant naive short whiners have to say now? These people have the mind set that banning shorts means stocks can only go up! Doesn’t look that way to me!

I still maintain my short WalMart idea however it’s not risen high enough to get in yet.

Markets seem to be staying up at the moment. I still maintain they will start to drop between xmas and January. I’m wondering if people are covering shorts for tax reasons? I’m not completely sure on how things work in the USA. I see a lot of people saying “I sold for tax reasons”, I guess it works the other way around too although shorts aren’t an asset.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7798718.stm

Mr Brown told energy ministers that the high oil prices of recent years had stoked inflation and forced governments to keep interest rates much higher than would have otherwise been the case.

Oh yeah, 5.75% interest rates! That’s so high! What is the point he is trying to make? If interest rates were lower we wouldn’t be in the mess were in today? Wait, let me recap back to the reason were in this mess. Was it because people were very diciplined with regard to taking out credit while interest rates were so low? Oh wait, it was low interest rates and worthless western economies running on consumerism. Can you imagine the mess we’d be in if rates were already lower. BoE certainly wouldn’t have any room to cut, not that cutting the rates is going to make much difference anyway.

What a jobsworth.

Oil was high for a relatively tiny period. It was a bubble that started as an effect of this financial mess, not the cause of it. Roll on deflation, our crappy economy cannot continue as it was. Deflation is bad in the short term, but in the long term it will filter out the crap and make people realise you cannot built an economy on spending alone.

Deflation will favour people who have cash and savings. It will reverse the effect of all these interest rate cuts that are killing savings. On the flipside it will amplify debt. I’m not sure how countries as a whole deal with debt write offs.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7791269.stm

Update: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7791985.stm

Nice, someone from OPEC agrees. Yes Mr Brown. Why don’t you cut taxes? Is it because you are a labour jobsworth with an Ideology synonymous to your party’s voters who want to get paid to do nothing?

Waiting for another big move down from the markets. Got a lot of cash at the moment and want to pickup bargains again. Will probably invest more heavily this time around.

Also bought 1000 shares of Level 3 Communications (LVLT). Just an impulse buy. Maximum loss is $700 so I’ll see how that one turns out.

I also love the fact that over borrowing by the public got us into this mess and the government plans to get us out of it by borrowing more. Isn’t that the attitude gamblers take? Double down until you win? What a great idea Mr. Brown!

Why don’t you just fly to Las Vegas and put our entire country on red?

If we look at the Wal-Mart valuation realistically though that is not going to happen. Wal-Mart was the stock to invest in 18 months ago as the bargain hunter stock. 

There are some problems with Wal-Mart and the fundamentals of the markets.

Wal-Mart has a P/E of 17 and is valued at $225B.
Dividend is nothing to write home about
A lot of other big blue chips are in the 10-12 P/E range
If Wal-Mart is a good bet when the economy is bad what happens when it recovers? Surely the growth will stop?
If the economy stays bad for a really long period of time surely we are going to go into deflation and see Wal-Mart profits drop too?
Deflation will lead to asset prices dropping further and big funds will have to give in and sell into the $225B monster
If the economy turns good I think investors will take their money out of Wal-Mart and start putting it elsewhere where larger growth prospects are.

You see, I cannot see any reason to not short Wal-Mart when it is in the $58+ range

Current holdings

4x NDAQ100 futures
100 Rio Tinto Shares
1000 SOLA Shares

I sold my 500 NVDA (Nvidia corp) last week at $7.75 and made 25c per share trading 500 last friday, wish I held on for the rally, but oh well it’s back down again. Also sold a NDAQ100 future today at 1200.

Lightened by position so I can concentrate more on work and load up if we dip down again.

Current Orders

BUY 500 NVDA @ $6
BUY 500 SOLA @ 90p 
BUY 1 NDAQ100 @ 1102

SELL 1000 SOLA @ 180p
SELL 100 RIO @ 1505p

A huge selloff here on some news from JASO.

Just bought 1000 @ 134.25p

Limit sell set at 200p, will consider selling at 150p+ depending on other market conditions. Been wanting to get in on this company for a while though. Not sure about a  long term hold at the moment. The way the markets are at the moment a long term hold may not break even for 5/10 years.

Buy the fear, sell the party

Update: Bought 500 more at 95 and sold at 110 and 500 @ 90 and sold at 105. I want around 2000 shares of this company. I am going to keep trading and if it drops heavily enough i may commit to another 1000.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=axScg04s0X38&refer=home

The reason inflation is not a worry any more is because cash is in short supply. All these hyper inflated assets are crashing in price. There is no liquidity in the markets to buy them and no one wants them because they are not worth anything.

I do not understand the BoE inflation targets though. Inflation has been over the target for the past couple of years. Why maintain such static numbers for inflation? Isn’t that childsplay? Surely we should be looking at long term inflation rather than just a one dimensional YoY basis. If inflation is 3% one year and 1% the next we’re looking good, why would we want to aim for 2%? We’ve had 5% inflation this year and he’s worried about a -1% drop in inflation. Considering what happened with oil in the past year it is not a surprise that we are deflating. Is he seriously saying we want higher oil prices just so our inflation number looks nice? Oil hit $145 and is now sat at $57. That is a good thing!

Our currency is getting killed at the moment too so that is surely sending prices of goods up?

I still don’t understand the obession with inflation targets and controlling the economy with the interest rate. It seems like the dumbest system ever. Isn’t there quite a bit more to the world than that?

Also why are they surprised that price of materials are sinking so much? If something goes up 100% then drops 50% it is back where it started. Yes a 50% drop sounds bad, but in the bigger picture it is really nothing. So long as things maintain equilibrium I do not see the point of fussing about deflation in commodities as an effect of a bubble.

Real deflation where everything starts dropping in price is an issue. I think that is on the way. Jobs are being cut heavily. Wait till unemployment rises and people are desperate for jobs. Supply will out weigh demand and wages will drop. That’s when we’re in for trouble, especially with the amount of debt around the world.

I’m glad the UK goverment holds all my debt and I’m sitting on a nice pile of cash. I can’t wait to go shopping!