Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Humour

Extreme bank-herding

After the unbelieveable video of sheep-herding yesterday, it made me wonder if Lord Turner, Tim Geithner, Jean-Claude Trichet and their mates are all trying to achieve this result, e.g. if you could get all the sheep (banks) to go to the pen (regulatory regime) at the same time, then you’d have a result. Unfortunately, banking…

Extreme bank-herding

After the unbelieveable video of sheep-herding yesterday, it made me wonder if Lord Turner, Tim Geithner, Jean-Claude Trichet and their mates are all trying to achieve this result, e.g. if you could get all the sheep (banks) to go to the pen (regulatory regime) at the same time, then you’d have a result. Unfortunately, banking…

Extreme sheep-herding

Those who read this blog know that I love any new marketing ideas that work. So forget traditional marketing methods on TV and copy Samsung who commissioned a few Welsh farmers to make this viral ad for YouTube: Posted on 16th March, 100,000 views already and rising. Love it … and it'll give you a…

Groom robbed banks to pay for wedding

The Austrian Times reports that a desperate bridegroom committed four bank robberies after his fiance's plans for a huge white wedding got out of hand. "The hapless groom, a 36-year-old Turk living in Vienna, netted more than €275,000 ($350,000) before he was caught but it still wasn't enough for his fiancee who demanded 500 guests,…

Jim Cramer vs Jon Stewart, Round Three and KO

In what began a week ago as an attack on CNBC's Business News coverage and escalated into a head-to-head battle between CNBC's Stock Market pundit Jim Cramer and Comedy Central's Jon Stewart, came to what seemed to be a conclusion on Thursday night as Cramer made a personal appearance on Stewart's Daily Show. The full…

Jim Cramer vs Jon Stewart, Round Two

There's nothing like being an online pundit, yours truly included, because your views are on record and, if you call the future and get it wrong, boy, are you dead meat. Jim Cramer knows this when he cried "do not take your money out of Bear Stearns" last March, just days before the broker was…

HSBC’s bouncing share price

I'm on travels again and in Hong Kong this week.  That's fine although it was disappointing to wake up to the South China Morning Post screaming headline: "HSBC hit by worst fall for two decades". Oh yes, that really cheered me up. It's all to do with the HSBC £12.5 billion ($17 billion) rights issue…

Kipper_03_bsn_0303_026a

HSBC’s bouncing share price

I'm on travels again and in Hong Kong this week.  That's fine although it was disappointing to wake up to the South China Morning Post screaming headline: "HSBC hit by worst fall for two decades". Oh yes, that really cheered me up. It's all to do with the HSBC £12.5 billion ($17 billion) rights issue…

Kipper_03_bsn_0303_026a

A great time for words

It’s been a great week for men of words in the banking system to come clean and tell their stories of mistakes and errors. It started with Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labour under Bill Clinton, stating that: “The idea of a self regulating market seems quaint if not outright ludicrous in the wake of…

A great time for words

It’s been a great week for men of words in the banking system to come clean and tell their stories of mistakes and errors. It started with Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labour under Bill Clinton, stating that: “The idea of a self regulating market seems quaint if not outright ludicrous in the wake of…