Personally, I’ve always considered trading shares a very intimate process. I would do my homework, I would look at the market and I would decide, initially my entry point, and down the track, my exit point for any given equity.

The timings were mine, the mistakes – of which there have been many – were mine, and even the odd windfall was mine. It was done to my schedule.

I had no real plans to do any active trading this week. I was obviously going to keep my eye on the market in general, and my finger near the erratic pulse of the equities I hold, but besides that I was to be largely inactive.

Inactive, that is until the letter from my broker informing me of yet another rights issue. This time from Lloyds Bank.

I now have until 7th December to decide which action of the four offered up via my broker, I’m going to take – inaction is definitely an option here, yet unfortunately probably the least attractive from where I sit.

So now I need to ponder whether to:

1. take up another 1,037 shares of Lloyds at 37 pence a share
2. sell the holding in its entirety in its nil paid form
3. sell some of the nil paid shares to raise the funds to accept part of the offer
4. do nothing

All this is based on my holding of 774 shares of Lloyds at COB on 26th November 2009.

Part of me doesn’t want to be forced into making these decisions – option 4. The timing of entry and exit to the market is sacred and having an entry point forced upon me, seems to go against everything I think I learnt about this sort of thing, many moons ago in those hazy years dubbed my further education.

My last little splash in the pool of semi-forced top-ups was with Cosalt and despite some optimism of late, it has failed to pay off.

I could take the money and run – options 2 and 3 – or I could wring out another 400 quid from a bank balance that really is feeling the pinch and go all in – option 1 – hoping Lloyds will soar, like banking shares of yesteryear.

I guess I’m being a little negative in one respect, in that the options available do present me with a nice range of choices, that at least in the short term could net me a little extra coin. But with every choice there is opportunity cost and at the end of the day we are yet to see the market come to its full conclusion on the issue of this issue.

I’ve still got a couple of days to decide so I guess I’m off to do a little more Lloyds homework. Sorry for the uneducated rant, and thanks again for dropping by.

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