NatWest Online Crashed

NatWest online has just crashed, and apparently NatWest debit cards are not working either!

As per NatWest site:

"We're sorry but online banking is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.

If you continue to experience this situation please contact the online banking helpdesk for further assistance.

For a list of helpdesk numbers, please see our page of contact numbers "

They fail to mention that their debit cards don't work either!

Oddly enough, Nationwide are also experiencing problems.

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The Faecesbook Clusterfuck - The IPO That Just Keeps Giving

The clusterfuck IPO of Facebook last week is an IPO that, for those who haven't touched these shares with a bargepole, that just keeps giving.

Unsurprisingly these massively overvalued shares fell again yesterday, by 9%. However, Faecesbook mission to "find bottom" in the market is far from over.

The BBC reports that the SEC and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) are concerned about the way advisers disclosed information to investors, and may review the disclosure process to see if some investors got favourable access.

Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reported that Faecesbook's advisers may have revised their financial forecasts, but that only selected investors were told.

Oops, how very remiss of them!

Morgan Stanley said that the bank had:

"followed the same procedures for the Facebook offering that it follows for all initial public offerings".

In other news, Philip Goldberg (a private investor) has issued a writ against Nasdaq over technical problems on Friday that made a shambles of disrupted Faecesbook's first trading day.

Rest assured, the Faecesbook clusterfuck will run and run!

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Start Printing The Drachma!

Reuters reports that De La Rue, the British bank note printer, has drawn up contingency plans to print drachma banknotes should Greece exit the Euro.

Unsurprisingly, shares in De La Rue have risen by 11% over the last month on anticipation of this news.

Why use a UK priner, as opposed to a Greek printer?

Well, as Zero Hedge states, Greece ran out of ink when it tried to print tax returns!

In other news EU trade commissioner, Karel De Gucht, has said that the European Commission and the European Central Bank are working on an emergency scenario in case Greece has to leave the Eurozone.

As befitting an organisation that couldn't run a whorehouse, let alone manage a crisis, this statement was denied later in the day by @ECspokesOlivier (a subordinate of Gucht) who claimed that no plan is in the works.

Suffice to say, no one believes Olivier.

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The Greek Clusterfuck Negotiations

Despite the hype form some sections of the ill informed media and from the EU, that the Greek deal on haircuts was almost in the bag, reality has hit the fan.

Eurozone finance ministers have rejected the current offer from bondholders, and have "demanded" that negotiations between the Greek government and Institute of International Finance (IIF) reach agreement on a lower average coupon.

Lovely!

The EU seems to be under the impression that it has some control over this and that, like Canute, it can somehow control elemental forces (in this particular case, the markets and economic reality).

The EU ministers want a lower rate than the 4% currently being demanded by the bondholders.

Ain't going to happen without enforcement (ie a default).

Negotiations are turning into a clusterfuck!

There will be no deal.

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The European Financial Clusterfuck

The European financial clusterfuck continues this week unabated.

Here are but a few headlines to start the week with:

- Moody's has issued a downgrade warning on France.

- Despite a landslide victory in Spain, for a party that will implement further austerity measures, markets are falling and Spanish bond yields are rising.

- Hungary has asked the EU and IMF for financial assistance, oddly enough they haven't put a figure on how much they actually want/need!

- The European Commission has sated that the "cure" for Europe's ills are Eurobonds. This has been publicly slapped down by Germany, which stated that Eurobonds were not a "cure" at all.

- The EU's Jean-Claude Juncker says if France were to lose its AAA rating so would the EFSF.

Wrt the latter point, so what?

The EFSF is a busted flush anyway, a downgrade in rating is completely irrelevant.

Oh, and if anyone is remotely interested, Belgium's politicians have yet again failed to form a government (Belgium has now been without a government for 526 days).


The week starts as it means to go on, badly!

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