Lloyds Bank to axe hundreds of jobs / and now RBS

dowie said:
I'm not sure Lloyds made much (if at all) from prop trading
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Lloyds have traditionally been a bond house, and played a large role on corporate GBP trading, then branched out in EUR and other currencies. Whilst they weren't heavy on the largescale investment trading that the tier one and two banks focused on (macro, long/short, etc.), Lloyds was a strong centre for the facilitation of credit flow trading. As a result of the ban on prop trading they've - like the rest of the street - been unable to hold bond inventory, perhaps the most basic and open form of proprietary trading.

Now that they can't operate in such a manner their fixed income and credit business has to rely solely on whatever they can muster from a weak primary market, but also to try to generate PnL from the secondary bond market. For instance, most tier two firms have decent sized high yield and leveraged loan operations and make okay revenue. Lloyds lost their Head of HY Trading about 18 months ago and saw no point in replacing him due to restrictions, meaning that they've been unable to compete in the illiquid bond market. A few weeks ago they made a load of redundancies across their credit sales and trading operation. Firms that have been able to still commit some capital to their leveraged credit businesses have performed well - one guy I talk to at one of the larger banks (who still value their credit business) has generated around £100m over the last three years in his two-man team.
 
is that just due to the nature of those markets being rather illiquid? I mean if you're going to count holding inventory as 'prop trading' then, well it doesn't really work so much in other markets I mean market making in general carries some inventory risk and that is generally unavoidable though I guess when there is more liquidity then you're not necessarily left holding that risk for so long, it isn't some long term position in the same way that perhaps it would be if trading in some illiquid market

(and no doubt there is some prop trading still going on at various institutions disguised as market making too)
 
The_Abyss said:
It is ok - driverless cars won't mean these people are out of jobs. In 100 years time the unions will have negotiated with TFL to put 8 drivers in every underground train and limited their working hours to just 4 hours per week (all paid as overtime).

They'll be fine.

;)
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So what you're saying is that if you want a secure job, join a union?
 
MooMoo444 said:
We already have parralel parking technology. That really isn't far from road driving technology. It just needs a few years and I bet we will have it being trialed by someone.
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Parallel parking is a relatively easy problem to solve with logic though and has few variables in comparison. It's an impressive innovation though, an example of a problem with an appropriate technological solution.

Driving in this country is just too chaotic and too unpredictable. One problem I foresee is that as any commuter will tell you; to get onto certain roundabouts/roads at busy times you kinda need to put your foot down when a small gap opens up. There's no way a driverless car will do this, so will probably just sit there for minutes causing a massive queue to develop behind it. It's going to totally exacerbate congestion in this country, increasing pollution.
 
scorza said:
Parallel parking is a relatively easy problem to solve with logic though and has few variables in comparison. It's an impressive innovation though, an example of a problem with an appropriate technological solution.

Driving in this country is just too chaotic and too unpredictable. One problem I foresee is that as any commuter will tell you; to get onto certain roundabouts/roads at busy times you kinda need to put your foot down when a small gap opens up. There's no way a driverless car will do this, so will probably just sit there for minutes causing a massive queue to develop behind it. It's going to totally exacerbate congestion in this country, increasing pollution.
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Yes but if you automate the majority of the traffic on the road, your chaotic situation turns into automated efficiency.

End of the day a machine is a more logical thinker, they have quicker reactions, they don't have fits of anger or lack of concentration and they do not show off. All of these things will endear it to the government and the insurance company's who's only role will be to reduce accident statistics.
 
scorza said:
Parallel parking is a relatively easy problem to solve with logic though and has few variables in comparison. It's an impressive innovation though, an example of a problem with an appropriate technological solution.

Driving in this country is just too chaotic and too unpredictable. One problem I foresee is that as any commuter will tell you; to get onto certain roundabouts/roads at busy times you kinda need to put your foot down when a small gap opens up. There's no way a driverless car will do this, so will probably just sit there for minutes causing a massive queue to develop behind it. It's going to totally exacerbate congestion in this country, increasing pollution.
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It'll be fine though when they ban "unsafe" manual driving as all the driver less cars will give each other room, thereby actually decreasing congestion.
 
amigafan2003 said:
It'll be fine though when they ban "unsafe" manual driving as all the driver less cars will give each other room, thereby actually decreasing congestion.
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So in your mind at some point in future a law will come into effect stating that all manually driven cars may no longer be driven on the road. Not gonna happen I'm afraid.

Had an incident a few weekends ago where I happened upon some temporary traffic lights were stuck on red on a three-way junction. All the drivers with a Mk1 Human Brain figured this out and managed to navigate the hazard with caution in a safe manner. A driverless car would have been stuck there until the workmen turned up on Monday lol. I was always taught that rule one for driving in the UK was "expect the unexpected".
 
Abraxaz1 said:
I'm sure farming can be brought into the 21st century, automated plowing or harvesting using gps loggers and positioning. Can even do it at night.
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Casdawer said:
At some point in the future, most jobs will have been automated by AI / Robots, it's inevitable.

What we need to do is shift the way we perceive life as it won't revolve around 'work'.

Obviously this does come with issues around what to do with the mass population and how they would earn a living.

I do hope for a Utopian future where no work really 'works' and we are all working together to expand human knowledge and understanding. Then again, the chance of that happening is the same chance that it's all going to turn out like Star Trek.
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In theory in the long term we should be looking to expand outwards from Earth - even with advanced AI, etc. the space program and mining/colonising would require significant numbers of actual people working on it. Sadly we are around 50 years behind where we should be in that regard and people prefer to follow short sighted, short term strategies instead :|
 
dowie said:
is that just due to the nature of those markets being rather illiquid? I mean if you're going to count holding inventory as 'prop trading' then, well it doesn't really work so much in other markets I mean market making in general carries some inventory risk and that is generally unavoidable though I guess when there is more liquidity then you're not necessarily left holding that risk for so long, it isn't some long term position in the same way that perhaps it would be if trading in some illiquid market

(and no doubt there is some prop trading still going on at various institutions disguised as market making too)
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Of course, completely agree, but the regulations have severely restricted these types of businesses from operating or competing to a large degree... despite the fact that they're barely prop trading at all. The HY/illiquid point was purely an example - Lloyds IG credit trading business is decreasing heavily too and that's still a relatively liquid market.

Of course there's still a small amount of prop activity going on at the banks, mostly pure as a risk management and hedging tool. From a recruitment perspective it's created a very strange environment whereby the hedge funds look for talented traders (2-6 years experience), but unfortunately individuals with that level of experience frequently lack the required exposure to prop trading because it's been restricted. There are obviously some candidates out there still with decent exposure to it, but most 2-6 yr traders have only done prop as a side business to their main market making roles.
 
Abraxaz1 said:
Yes but if you automate the majority of the traffic on the road, your chaotic situation turns into automated efficiency.

End of the day a machine is a more logical thinker, they have quicker reactions, they don't have fits of anger or lack of concentration and they do not show off. All of these things will endear it to the government and the insurance company's who's only role will be to reduce accident statistics.
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Being a logical thinker doesn't help when the problem is illogical. Make no mistake - driverless cars/trucks will result in more deaths on the road.
 
I'm supposed there isn't a machine that can remove a old surface , remove the debris and lay a new surface in one continuos method.
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Fairly certain I saw something like that in the US or Canada a few years ago and the road laying machine in the film "Cars" presumably has its basis in reality.

In truth the only time we go in Lloyds branch now is once a month to make the extra payment off the mortgage, the one thing that isn't very easy to do on-line (unless you want a fixed standing order). And that will (hopefully) finish in 3 or 4 years time at the rate we're paying it off.
 
scorza said:
Being a logical thinker doesn't help when the problem is illogical. Make no mistake - driverless cars/trucks will result in more deaths on the road.
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Yup, just like auto pilot in planes has lead to more plane crashes.

Oh wait.....
 
amigafan2003 said:
Yup, just like auto pilot in planes has lead to more plane crashes.

Oh wait.....
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Flying a plane is actually a fairly easy problem to solve logically. A lot fewer variables than driving a car. Plus autopilot turns itself off when it detects a situation it can't cope with, in your world if a driverless car did that it would be illegal :p
 
scorza said:
Being a logical thinker doesn't help when the problem is illogical. Make no mistake - driverless cars/trucks will result in more deaths on the road.
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The only illogical thing on the road is people, remove the people and you remove all your issues.

The majority of deaths on the roads is human error, either not driving to the conditions, distracted, tiredness or incompetence.

Automation will be the answer and manual cars will be moved to the track.
 
Abraxaz1 said:
The only illogical thing on the road is people, remove the people and you remove all your issues.

The majority of deaths on the roads is human error, either not driving to the conditions, distracted, tiredness or incompetence.

Automation will be the answer and manual cars will be moved to the track.
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Agreed but as said, banning manually driven cars is a pretty unlikely scenario. Are you going to remove all the pedestrians, motorbikes, cyclists, workmen, emergency services vehicles as well?
 
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