King Kevin Posted September 29, 2016 Share Posted September 29, 2016 39 minutes ago, StivePesley said: Subtle difference though - what you actually mean is that credit has never been cheaper. When I bought my first house in the early 90s I was earning £15k pa and my house cost £30k. I think my mortgage was on about 5-6%. The most the bank would have lent me was 3x salary and that was considered risky. When I sold it 11 years later I got £130k for it! And the house I bought was £190k. Was my salary 50% of £190k? Nowhere near, but the mortgage rate was about 3% and over the first few years dropped down to the historic lows and stayed there So it was the "perfect" storm. We weren't building enough houses, so prices rocketed due to demand, people's wages didn't increase at the same rate, so the market got propped up by increasing the supply of cheap credit instead. Which meant prices carried on going up and BTL was suddenly a great investment for those with spare savings. They should really make it illegal for BTL owners to rent to housing benefit claimants. It's completely unethical to have your BTL mortgage served by benefits payments that come from taxpayers contributions Stive you have only reiterated what I've just said cheap mortgages [credit] and higher house prices .The problem with any Government is they make policy decisions in isolation [in this case removing tax relief on pension dividends ] and fail to plan for people making alternative arrangement for their pension and other effects on other parts of the economy. Investment returns have been better on BTL 's than just about any other non equity based investment you can't blame people for doing it ,government policy has driven some of it . The real issue is lack of joined up government thinking ,in theory the last budget should free up housing due to tax relief being gradually removed from BTL landlords ,I have yet to see that happen but certainly returns on BTL will diminish over the next few years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LesterRam Posted September 29, 2016 Share Posted September 29, 2016 oh my god, I must stop reading the news, my blood is now at boiling point arrggggggghhhh Taxpayers are paying more than £400,000 a year to subsidise a farm where a billionaire Saudi prince breeds racehorses. The Newmarket farm of Khalid Abdullah al Saud - owner of the legendary horse Frankel - is among the top 100 recipients of EU farm grants in the UK. The system's critics say Brexit will let the UK redirect £3bn in subsidies towards protecting the environment. A spokesman for the prince declined to comment. Farm subsidies swallow a huge chunk of the EU's budget. They were started after World War Two to stimulate production, but led to food mountains that had to be dumped. A compromised reform process - the so-called "greening" of the Common Agricultural Policy - resulted in farmers mostly being paid depending on how much land they own. The UK's top beneficiaries include estates owned partly or wholly by the Queen (£557,706.52); Lord Iveagh (£915,709.97); the Duke of Westminster (£427,433.96), the Duke of Northumberland (£475,030.70 ) the Mormons (£785,058.94) - and many wealthy business people. Asked if the Queen thought it appropriate to receive taxpayers' subsidy based on the size of her land holding, a spokesman for the Palace said: "Subsidies are open to all farmers, and are received on the Queen's private estate. We would not comment beyond the detail that is already in the public domain." A spokesman for the Duke of Westminster also declined the question, but said the farm produced quality food while taking the environment very seriously. In EU-wide rankings, the UK scores highly on the transparency of information about who receives what, although the identity of some landowners on the list is concealed through offshore trusts. The big conservation organisations Natural England (£970,580.50), the National Trust (£2,666,880.26) and the RSPB (£2,002,859.51) are among the top recipients. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37493956 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stive Pesley Posted September 29, 2016 Share Posted September 29, 2016 I had two friends visit from London last weekend - both in their 40s, decent jobs (Accountant and Insurance Broker), no kids and no mortgage and more money than they know what to do with. Their Financial Adviser is begging them to get into BTL as their money pile is simply not accruing enough interest in an ISA. They were looking at houses in Derby because they are so comparitively cheap. I just felt a bit ashamed to be talking about it with them. Lovely people but pound notes in their eyes 56 minutes ago, SillyBilly said: I agree on your last point. The actual doing something about it is the issue as millions of people now live in that sector. I can only see a gradual climbing down possible if we started building social housing now and moving people over family by family, the gravy train will have to come to a slow stop Agree. More rent-controlled social housing is the key - then maybe they just need to slap a big tax levy on BTL owners who take HB income from tenants, so a decent chunk of the money at least goes back into the public purse. That way the tenants don't directly suffer. BTL owners would then have a smaller pool of "customers" if they are incentivised to rent to non-HB tenants and in theory that would drive down their rental prices and things might start to even out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zag zig Posted September 30, 2016 Share Posted September 30, 2016 On 27 September 2016 at 13:43, SillyBilly said: Currently down another 3% today. It has to be too big to fail, the European banking industry would be hit harder than 08 otherwise and potentially even the Euro would go down. D.B is the biggest short in town. Been easy money for those doing so this week, it's teetering today and dipped under the €10 mark first time in 30 years. Merkel can't be getting much sleep on this now. All before the U.S goes to the polls, wonder who is going to budge first, Yanks or Germans? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stive Pesley Posted September 30, 2016 Share Posted September 30, 2016 Good piece on the BBC today about the DB saga http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37514327 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Kevin Posted September 30, 2016 Share Posted September 30, 2016 2 hours ago, StivePesley said: Good piece on the BBC today about the DB saga http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37514327 Interesting read that .Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stive Pesley Posted October 3, 2016 Share Posted October 3, 2016 Well it looks like the Tories are finally ditching Osborne's futile attempts to balance the books in unrealistic timescales http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37536943 Stopping short of saying it's an "end to austerity" - he's at least admitting that now is the time to start investing in our infrastructure. About time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SillyBilly Posted October 6, 2016 Share Posted October 6, 2016 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37572684 Government announces move away from QE. A political soundbite to prop up GBP in my view. Believe it when I see it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfie Posted October 7, 2016 Share Posted October 7, 2016 I find stories like this terrifying and anger inducing in equal measure. It was bad enough having humans cause one financial crash but when f****ing automated systems can plunge the markets like this - have we learned nothing??. There are consequences for normal people FFS! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37582150 Flash crash sees the pound gyrate in Asian trading 11 minutes ago From the section Business The pound has dived on Asian markets with automated trading being blamed for the volatility. At one stage it fell as much as 6% to $1.1841 - the biggest move since the Brexit vote - before recovering to $1.24, still down 1.5%. It is not clear what triggered the sudden sell-off. Analysts say it could have been automated trading systems reacting to a news report. The pound has been volatile since the UK voted to leave the European Union. The sharp drop came after the Financial Times published a story online about French President Francois Hollande demanding "tough Brexit negotiations". "It's difficult to know exactly what triggered it," Angus Nicholson, market analyst with IG in Melbourne, told the BBC. Analysts speculate that a computer may have been set to scan the news for negative Brexit stories, with the order to sell if it found any. The trigger could have also been a simple mistake, or what's know as a fat finger trade, when a trader enters a wrong number. 'Feedback loop' The situation could have been exacerbated by trading algorithms - software which is designed to trade automatically and can react much faster than human traders. "Possibly a keyword or newsflow-focused algorithm started the selling in the pound based on that article, and other algorithms may have seen the volume and momentum coming into the pound at what is normally a relatively low volume time," Mr Nicholson said. "That may have brought in other algorithms which compounded the selling creating a feedback loop that resulted in a flash crash," Mr Nicholson explained. The incident happened at a time when there is very little pound trading going on - which means that any sell-off will have a bigger impact than during busy hours. "It's a very volatile currency at the moment," Mr Nicholson said. Traders remain nervous about the fallout from the UK's talks with the EU over leaving the bloc. Last Sunday, the Prime Minister Theresa May said she would trigger Article 50, the clause needed to start the exit process, by the end of March 2017. Sterling has been "on a precipice" since then, according to Sean Callow, senior currency strategist at Australian bank, Westpac. "I think we've underestimated how many people had money positions for a very wishy-washy Brexit, or even none," he said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramarena Posted October 7, 2016 Share Posted October 7, 2016 27 minutes ago, Wolfie said: I find stories like this terrifying and anger inducing in equal measure. It was bad enough having humans cause one financial crash but when f****ing automated systems can plunge the markets like this - have we learned nothing??. There are consequences for normal people FFS! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37582150 Flash crash sees the pound gyrate in Asian trading 11 minutes ago From the section Business The pound has dived on Asian markets with automated trading being blamed for the volatility. At one stage it fell as much as 6% to $1.1841 - the biggest move since the Brexit vote - before recovering to $1.24, still down 1.5%. It is not clear what triggered the sudden sell-off. Analysts say it could have been automated trading systems reacting to a news report. The pound has been volatile since the UK voted to leave the European Union. The sharp drop came after the Financial Times published a story online about French President Francois Hollande demanding "tough Brexit negotiations". "It's difficult to know exactly what triggered it," Angus Nicholson, market analyst with IG in Melbourne, told the BBC. Analysts speculate that a computer may have been set to scan the news for negative Brexit stories, with the order to sell if it found any. The trigger could have also been a simple mistake, or what's know as a fat finger trade, when a trader enters a wrong number. 'Feedback loop' The situation could have been exacerbated by trading algorithms - software which is designed to trade automatically and can react much faster than human traders. "Possibly a keyword or newsflow-focused algorithm started the selling in the pound based on that article, and other algorithms may have seen the volume and momentum coming into the pound at what is normally a relatively low volume time," Mr Nicholson said. "That may have brought in other algorithms which compounded the selling creating a feedback loop that resulted in a flash crash," Mr Nicholson explained. The incident happened at a time when there is very little pound trading going on - which means that any sell-off will have a bigger impact than during busy hours. "It's a very volatile currency at the moment," Mr Nicholson said. Traders remain nervous about the fallout from the UK's talks with the EU over leaving the bloc. Last Sunday, the Prime Minister Theresa May said she would trigger Article 50, the clause needed to start the exit process, by the end of March 2017. Sterling has been "on a precipice" since then, according to Sean Callow, senior currency strategist at Australian bank, Westpac. "I think we've underestimated how many people had money positions for a very wishy-washy Brexit, or even none," he said. Really? According to some of the people I've spoken to about this, they seem to think a tanking currency is great news for exporters and won't have any affect on them personally, let it slide is the general consensus. Happy days! As a side note the trade deficit is still looking really ugly and will drag the pound down further as we move forward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shang Posted October 7, 2016 Share Posted October 7, 2016 6 minutes ago, Ramarena said: Really? According to some of the people I've spoken to about this, they seem to think a tanking currency is great news for exporters and won't have any affect on them personally, let it slide is the general consensus. Happy days! It's good for people who sell stuff to people abroad, my friend who works for an academic book publishing house has had a massive increase in orders from schools abroad because their books are now cheaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramarena Posted October 7, 2016 Share Posted October 7, 2016 14 minutes ago, Shang said: It's good for people who sell stuff to people abroad, my friend who works for an academic book publishing house has had a massive increase in orders from schools abroad because their books are now cheaper. True, but we aren't all exporters! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddie Posted October 7, 2016 Share Posted October 7, 2016 12 minutes ago, Ramarena said: Really? According to some of the people I've spoken to about this, they seem to think a tanking currency is great news for exporters and won't have any affect on them personally, let it slide is the general consensus. Happy days! As a side note the trade deficit is still looking really ugly and will drag the pound down further as we move forward. I remember when Harold Wilson famously said "The pound in your pocket has not been devalued" in the 1960s when the value of Sterling against the Dollar was re-valued at $2-40 from $2-80. It was utter rubbish then and it's utter rubbish now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shang Posted October 7, 2016 Share Posted October 7, 2016 7 minutes ago, Ramarena said: True, but we aren't all exporters! I think we will be in the coming years... we're going to have to produce goods at prices we can afford at our ridiculously low wages (our wages in real terms have decreased, we're now on par with Greece in terms of wage growth). Importing food from Europe is no longer an option (especially since Tories are aiming for a hard Brexit). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfie Posted October 7, 2016 Share Posted October 7, 2016 55 minutes ago, Ramarena said: Really? According to some of the people I've spoken to about this, they seem to think a tanking currency is great news for exporters and won't have any affect on them personally, let it slide is the general consensus. Happy days! As a side note the trade deficit is still looking really ugly and will drag the pound down further as we move forward. I don't have an issue with the pound being low. My problem is that the market rates are being affected/controlled by computers making decisions based on what's trending on twitter etc. We'll have Kim Kardashian setting BoE Interest rates while we sleep, soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfie Posted October 7, 2016 Share Posted October 7, 2016 I get it that there is a great deal of uncertainty with Brexit etc at the moment and that's why the pound has fallen. How come shares are doing so well in the same environment, though?. Genuine question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramarena Posted October 7, 2016 Share Posted October 7, 2016 28 minutes ago, Wolfie said: I get it that there is a great deal of uncertainty with Brexit etc at the moment and that's why the pound has fallen. How come shares are doing so well in the same environment, though?. Genuine question. Weaker GBP allows foreign investors to buy FTSE shares for "cheap". Also FTSE companies are mostly global organisations that will be less impacted by any domestic political issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramarena Posted October 7, 2016 Share Posted October 7, 2016 As I write the pound falls through 1.23 to 1.227, it was 1.29 on Monday! I know this is just a snapshot and could rise by the end of the day/next week, however there does not seem to be a floor at the moment. At what point would be be looking at a Sterling crisis if the trend, or what would be the point where the BOE would have to act? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramarena Posted October 7, 2016 Share Posted October 7, 2016 2 hours ago, Shang said: I think we will be in the coming years... we're going to have to produce goods at prices we can afford at our ridiculously low wages (our wages in real terms have decreased, we're now on par with Greece in terms of wage growth). Importing food from Europe is no longer an option (especially since Tories are aiming for a hard Brexit). I can see that scenario, although the downside is the increasing input costs as currency devalues. Also we can't compete with China, so we would have to concentrate on high tech, which we do well, sadly there isn't the demand or skills available to base the whole economy upon this. Interestingly I remember reading an article by pro brexit economist Patrick Minford who said that, brexit would decimate manufacturing in this country, which he seemed to think was a positive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GboroRam Posted October 7, 2016 Share Posted October 7, 2016 4 hours ago, Ramarena said: As I write the pound falls through 1.23 to 1.227, it was 1.29 on Monday! I know this is just a snapshot and could rise by the end of the day/next week, however there does not seem to be a floor at the moment. At what point would be be looking at a Sterling crisis if the trend, or what would be the point where the BOE would have to act? Doesn't a sudden drop increase the chances of a run on the pound? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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