Wild Ride For UK Bank Shares

It has been a few weeks since we last looked at the UK banks. Last time we saw them, they were on their knees begging Gordon Brown for help and the Labour MP’s in parliament were salivating at nationalising the core of UK capitalism.

Yet the recent stock market recovery has been a wild one for bank shares since March:

Barclays (BARC.L) - 58p to 300p
RBS (RBS.L) - 10p to 50p
LLoyds (LLOY.L) - 38p to 121p
HSBC (HSBA.L) - 350p to 517p

Long-term investors have still seen massive value loss - but have recovered quite a lot in the case of Barclays and HSBC in particular.

The UK Government is now in the money on its Lloyds investment and only 30% away from being in the money on its RBS investment. All this on the back of some spring optimism and a duff set of stress testing in the UK. Not long until Brown will start boasting about this is my reckoning.

On a personal note my investments in RBS and then Lloyds have me smiling a little more as I near break-even from last years 40% loss on my portfolio. But I have been selling down my shares, this bank rally seems to be built on sand. A case of making hay whilst the sun shines…

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