Often companies and economists make forecasts and predictions about the direction of the economy, so it is interesting that two of the largest banks in the UK, Nationwide and Halifax, have decided to scrap any forecasts for 2009. They will continue to give their monthly figures regarding house prices and statistics but gone are the predictions. Halifax said they couldn’t give predictions because of their merger with Lloyds, Nationwide were more brutally honest ‘We can’t because we are finding it too difficult at this time’.
The interesting date in the near future for UK banks is the 16th of January, because that is the date that the FSA have set for the end of the short-selling ban, this will result in one of two things. First is that short sellers will pile in and sentiment with order backlogs will cause a brief spike in prices -if shorts are not naked ie: you are actually paying to hold the option to buy/sell …