ziknik

Bank of England mortgage approvals (for new purchases) released this morning. 33k (SA).

This is a new ‘worst ever’, beating the previous ‘worst ever’ (last month) by 2k.

NSA is also the 'worst ever' at 38k.

EDIT:

Just noticed that the series only stars in 1993, so the ‘worst ever’ tag doesn’t mean all that much.

EDIT2:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7591421.stm

The number of new mortgages approved for home buyers fell in July to just 33,000 - down by 71% on a year ago.

SNIP

 

Any thoughts gratefully received!

It’s almost impossible to create a true affordability index. Your index is as good as anyone else’s, on the grounds that you have stated all your assumptions (and sources).

There are other complications if you want to consider them:

** Average earnings index is growing faster than inflation

** MIRAS

** Number of people working per house hold

** (Higher) taxes

What's wrong with her really? Why the spin? 'Crash & burn' is what she should be telling us.

 

Video on front page Bloomberg now.

 

Here the Chart from the BBC article:

 

Nationwide and Fionula need to start thinking about their credibility. The more I hear their horse **** the less likely I am to trust them with my money.

There’s a better version of the BBC chart at GHPC

http://forum.globalhousepricecrash.com/ind...st&p=355891

Well such a well thought out argument has reassured me

 

BBC

Fionula was on BBC radio earlier.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsi...000/7585465.stm

If we're talking not seasonally adjusted, then this month's 2.75% isn't the biggest drop ever: that's this May's unadjusted 2.78%!

Green shoots of recovery?

Once the job losses start, May 2008 will look like ‘the-good-old-days’. (Unfortunately, I’ll be unemployed, so I won’t be laughing when it happens).

(£169,316 - £164,654) / £169,316 = 2.75%

 

I think this is the biggest monthly fall EVER*

*(NSA, on the 1991 – present monthly spreadsheet)

Nationwide data released. -1.9% MoM

edit: Link http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/historical/Aug_2008.pdf

It has gone eerily quiet on the government house price saving masterplan. I wonder what the fools may be scheming over next?

The Liberals have come up with a plan of their own.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7583934.stm

** to buy empty properties and developers' land-banks to increase the amount of social housing.

** Mr Cable also called for lenders to go through the full and proper court process to repossess homes.

** A proposal for a new, regulated mortgage rescue plan would allow those who were unable to make repayments on their home loan to stay in their property as tenants.

Thanks for the link, but I do already have that. It's just that I didn't bother with it as it's quarterly data.

 

I could just do a bit of averaging (or something), but I had the vague nagging doubt that quarterly data isn't just monthly data added up for three months. I can't back this up with any maths you understand, but it did occur to me that just 'playing jazz' with the quarterly data might produce misleading results...

 

Perhaps someone else can make soothing noises about doing this... or just tell me the best way to produce good monthly figures from quarterly data, and, hence, a new chart!

Save a copy before you start.

1. Copy and paste the data from the linked spreadsheet in to your spreadsheet. Date (quarters) and Price

2. Press CTRL and H

3. Type ‘Q1 ‘ in the first box and ‘01/01/’ into the second box. Then click ‘Replace All’ (note, there is a space after Q1)

4. Do the same for the other quarters

5. Right click the chart and select ‘Chart Type’. Change to ‘XY (scatter)’ if it isn’t already selected

6. Now add the new data line

7. Right click the new data line and select ‘Format Data Series’. On the patterns tab, you can match the line type to the other nationwide line so they both look the same.

The Nationwide data will look like it is one continuous line switching from quarters to months (but it will be shown twice on your key)

Come back to me if this wasn’t clear

UK Series - House prices since 1952

 

Quarterly. You'll just have to fiddle it by hand

 

Nice chart. I look forward to the updated version

Link

http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/downloads/..._since_1952.xls

I suggest you also open a GM account. It would allow you to diversify, and buy some silver if/when you want.

How long does/should it take for GM o do the CAP verification? I sent off my paperwork a week ago and heard nothing back so far.

I should have spent 2 minutes looking at GM before asking.

It takes one working day to verify (usually)

http://support.goldmoney.com/article.php?id=081

While we're comparing house-price crashes:

 

 

(Assuming this whole ImageShack thing works... )

According to the Halifax data, we have done 39 months of damage in the first 11 months. And most people I know are still claiming ‘house prices may fall a bit, but they won’t crash’.

Why does your nationwide line start 2 years in?

The monthly BBA release is out. Number of new mortgages approved by British Banks increased by a massive 0.07k (seventy) Seasonally adjusted.

NSA, July 2008 was the worst month ever. (Or at least since 1997 when the data series starts)

http://www.bba.org.uk/content/1/c6/01/44/49/stats260808.pdf

This gold thread is very inspirational.

After thought, I am interested in storing physical oil.

I'll be curious to know if it is possible to stock physical oil in a major city?

Where would you go to store larger and larger quantities, without getting

into troubles?

Assuming you are serious.

It is possible but the outlay costs are prohibitive. I have bought a few fuel tanks over the years (for commercial use, I don’t have them in my garden). They cost around £5 per litre of storage. Example, a 2,000 litre tank costs £10,000.

It probably makes more sense to lease / buy a petrol station and use its tanks for your storage. I’d guess a fuel tanker will hold around 25,000 litres of fuel, so most petrol stations should have over 100,000 litres of fuel storage.

When you lease / buy your petrol station, make sure it has operational tanks. It will cost you a fortune to re-commission mothballed tanks because of the constantly changing environmental standards.

The sooner the **** bag builder fail, the better in my view

In my simple thinking.

The price of oil is coming down because people are expecting demand reduction in a recession. And people think the USD is regaining strength.

I think ’people’ are wrong and oil will soon rocket through 150 $/bbl and probably 200 $/bbl too. From what I have read on GEI, the bottom in oil price is expected to be somewhere around 100 $/bbl

Doesn’t the same also apply to silver (the bottom price is yet to come)?

Commodity bull market 101

 

They push the commodity price down by shorting it with paper contracts on future exchanges. Artificially low prices spur demand, then the shorts can't deliver enough of the real stuff. Stockpiles drop, prices shoot back up, the shorts get squeezed and by covering they push prices up even more than before.

SNIP

What do you think of DrBubb's prediction?

SNIP

As I have said elsewhere. I have been expecting Oil to make a peak somewhere between $140 and $160, and then head back towards $80-110. (Then, after the correction, I expect a huge move up in oil. I am currently targetting $400 per barrell for 2010-12.) SNIP

Edit: Spelling. Sorry DrBubb

Sorry if this is old news, I haven’t seen it anywhere.

The Bank of England has sold all of its gold!

I have put together this graph of the UKs gold holdings.

The continuous line is the Treasury. The dotted line is the Bank of England. $ is a log scale.

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/.../Tempoutput.pdf

EDIT to correct graph line

I’ve found the website

http://www.castlestonemanagement.com/fund-...n.php?fund_id=1

Aliquot Precious Metals

 

Aliquot Precious Metals is an open-ended mutual fund that owns physical Gold Bullion, Silver and Platinum. The Aliquot Precious Metals Portfolio provides a hedge against inflation and insurance against political risk, religious conflicts and unstable markets. The Fund does not use equities, futures, options, warrants, or leverage. Custody is provided by HSBC Bank USA.

There is a factsheet

http://www.castlestonemanagement.com/pdfs/...s-Factsheet.pdf

And a presentation with some precious metal investment graphs

http://www.castlestonemanagement.com/pdfs/...esentations.pdf

Friends Provident have got a precious metals pension fund. Does anyone know anything about this fund? I’m planning to put some money in, but it’s not showing on my list of funds.

I’ve sent an email to FP to find out when it is available.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/fundsNews/id...dName=fundsNews

LONDON (Reuters) - Friends Provident (FP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) will offer a precious metals fund to retail investors looking for protection against inflation and financial market turmoil, the company said on Monday.

 

The fund, managed by U.S.-based Castlestone Management, only holds physical gold, silver and platinum. Half of the fund, the Aliquot Precious Metals fund, is invested in gold, 30 percent in platinum and the remaining 20 percent in silver.

 

"Precious metals continue to offer investors the best safeguard and insurance against the real risks of inflation and the increasing geopolitical and financial risks existing today," said Angus Murray, founder of Castlestone Management.

 

Castlestone said investors will be able to lease out the metals, held in vaults in London and Zurich, and use any income to offset the costs of investing. The lease income for platinum this year has been above 5 percent, it added.

 

The fund rose more than 15 percent in the first half of 2008.

Gold in the mainstream media again

http://uk.reuters.com/article/fundsNews/id...dName=fundsNews

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. gold futures climbed to their highest level in nearly four months on Monday as funds poured into the bullion market amid stock jitters and a record high in gold-backed exchange traded funds.

 

At 10:03 a.m. EDT (1403 GMT), the contract for August delivery GCQ8 on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange was up $9.50 at $970.10 an ounce. The session high was $970.40, the loftiest level since March 19.

Sorry to clog up the thread but someone posted a link on here to a streaming media file a little while ago and said they had some (free) software which could download streamed files for viewback offline later. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I have searched and googled but can't find a good free option...thanks

Are you using Firefox?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006

Could this be a big day for gold? Bradford Bingley is on its **** in the UK and the USA are on a bank holiday.

http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index.php?showtopic=3551

I think it's simple human nature. You start doing well, so load up a bit more... then a bit more. Then things go against you so you add more in the opposite direction... and then you realise you've blown it.

 

As an example, I took GBP/JPY down from 230ish to 198 (and various other instruments) and lost all I'd made in the move back to 211. I believe it's known as an "inverted triangle/pyramid" in trading terms - you should never add to a position more than you started with.

 

I now view what I went through as an excellent learning process. I'm far more cautious and controlled and am not being greedy. Yes, on occasion I've taken profits and in hindsight it was the wrong thing to do, but being out of the market means you're NOT going to lose and have locked in whatever gains you've made.* ... The trick is then not to think "oh, I shouldn't have done that" and pile back in at a worse position risking more.

 

(* the obvious case where this isn't true is in a hyperinflationary holocaust where you just closed your long gold positions... but I doubt a spreadbetting company would survive such events so this is kinda a moot point)

Your story is very similar to mine (including Post #52). I was left with enough money for 2 trades after being too greedy. I’ve slowly managed to make my money back.

Thankfully, I’m spreadbetting with what I can afford to loose and I have learned a very important lesson.

How do you short a stock without spreadbetting? Is there another way?

I’ve been using Capital Spreads to short UK housebuilders.

Is CFD the other way? I’m not keen on CFD because of the tax.

Knavel, I have read your suggestion on rolling cash, I will do some reading.