Thanks, it's at least nice to see that someone cares to bother at looking at details. Doesn't mean i agree with you though
For example , I attach little significance to comparative sizes of market cap at this point at least in isolation. Relative strengths of capital tier ratios favours HSBC which is no surprise and explains in part why they showed such relative strength throughout this crisis. However ,regarding those stress tests I take the contrary view that it is simply because they have not performed well in the past I now expect them to perform very well indeed..human behaviour my friend ,asrse will be getting has covered as they can possibly be in this area now simply because they have no excuses left to fall back upon and no one involved in this will want to be on the front page in future trying to explain their mistakes.
Re your comment on the UK market I think you will find it is not a like for like comparison. LLoyds et al are the govts poodles and undoubtedly they will get business ,but will it be governed by profitability ? Barclays I think will take any and every opportunity to take profit both in the UK bank lending activity and outside it both geographically and by sector activity which is what there recent acquisitions were meant to promote. I'm sure we will see more of he same.
Tax bill...well I'd love to know the outcome of that..but I don't, what I do know is these matters can take years to deal with ,moreover if I wanted to skip around every stock that might have some potential issue hanging over it then I wouldn't be left with very much to pick from.
We still don't have a straight "basic maths" though do we.LOL...and we're not likely to..with this volatility you can have one week with Barc at £1 and HSBC at £4 so bang there goes the half price quip wouldn't you say...what I am saying is no buggers got a clue right now..if they had we wouldn't be seeing this scale of volatility.
Far as I am concerned this is a traders market until that volatility dissipates ,or if you want to invest think small and nibble at it on any extreme weakness as the picture becomes clearer.
As you see we don't see this exactly the same way nonetheless I appreciate your point of view and your willingess to at least try and get some data that supports your view. Thanks again for the reply.