Word of the week

The UK was officially in recession following figures published on Friday that GDP had dropped a further 1.5% in the last 3 months of 2008 following a 0.6% drop in Q3. And it felt momentarily like the chaotic winds of Autumn again in the past week with RBS and Lloyds suffering huge share price slides. The market settled down on Monday with Barclay’s meteoric 65% share rocket as the bank’s chief executive and chairman resorted to publishing a joint letter to the stock market outlining in detail why it had no need to bolster its capital with extra government funding. This welcome confidence boost was undermined as it emerged on Tuesday that the reintroduction of short selling had coincided with US hedge fund Paulson & Co cashing in on £270m after betting on an RBS collapse. It’s not quite October again but lets hope these echoes are no more than that. Meanwhile Gordon Brown made the outrageous claim that "I called for global financial reform 10 years ago"! I suppose he has been busy as UK chancellor since then and hasn’t had much time to think about shoring up the security of our economy. Dear me.

Jack