Financial Betting Articles

It's A (Not So) Wonderful Life - This is one of those days when, regardless of what you were going to write about, you're going to write about Northern Rock instead.

In lighter moments one of the ChoiceOdds traders will point at a chart of the FTSE from December 1999. They'll put their finger on the EXACT moment the London Stock Exchange hit an all time high and say, "See that... somebody bought there." (Probably one of them).

Similarly, some old biddy hobbled into her local branch of Northen Crock (of you know what) on Thursday of last week, pushed her life's savings that she'd finally brought herself to take out of the mattress, across the counter, hobbled home and settled down to a nice cup of Horlicks. Which she proceeded to spray over the television as she watched the news. And you thought it was only somebody next to them shouting "House!" that got them swearing.

"The Bank of England will never let Northern Crock go under." Oh really? One word: BCCI. (Oh, alright, one acronym.) Doubtless Merv will be out this week telling the press there's no need to worry, but tell that to the thousands of people queuing round the block in a vain attempt to get their money out of Britain's 5th largest mortgage provider.

(Here's a wheeze to pass an idle hour: if you're some poor weak-minded sap staring at their NR savings on the interweb but - like so many - strangely finding it difficult to access them, then do this: Go round and repossess your local branch. Take the furniture. Seize its assets. Get a court order to take over the building. ...Hey, it's what they would have wanted.)

But how could this have all happened? One minute an Arizonan white trash trailer park mom defaults on her loan because it turns out she's not - as she wrote on the casually accepted mortgage - the CEO of JP Morgan but, er, an unemployed bum. The next minute y ou can't get your kid's school fees out of your local building society in Bridlington.

The reason? Good old fashioned City greed. The system works when everybody hands around our money and skims a little bit off the top. Everybody - in the City - is happy. Unfortunately for us, they don't understand a lot of the money they're passing around. Which means they don't understand the risk. Which means they don't understand that this time - as they passed around sliced up United States mortgages - they should have taken a closer look.

The result has been there for any investor to see. A roller-coaster of a summer. Has it been painful? Just ask a spread better. Right now a 5 minute view of the markets is considered brave. Expect the markets - stuck between a Northern Rock and a hard place - to be nervous this autumn. Volatility is back. Good for our short term betters - you've been cleaning up: I salute you. Bad for all of us if Northern Rock is but the first... Pop down to ChoiceOdds.com and take a view.

In the last three years, the DOW hasn't risen for more than 8 consecutive trading days.

Last week the FTSE traded in a 251.4 tick range compared to a 211.4 tick range the previous week.

Germany's Dax bucked the trend. Last week saw trading within a range of just 175.5 points, compared to 304.5 points the week before and 305 points the week before that.

Northern Rock is an anagram of "Get Your Money Out Now".

Back to "Articles"

Open Account