Any other business: Are stock markets ‘cheered’ because traders are trying to save their own jobs?

I’m picturing you reading this in your armchair beside a blazing log fire on Friday evening, Christmas tree lights twinkling over your shoulder, spaniels steaming at your feet, beaker of mulled wine in your hand. ‘Quite exciting while it lasted,’

I hear you say, ‘but thank God it’s all over. Here’s to Angela and Nicolas and the FTSE through 6,000 by New Year’s Eve. Might even have another pop at those Italian government bonds on Monday. Pass the ski chalet brochures.’

Or perhaps you’re shivering in your overcoat with a mug of instant soup, contemplating the latest dismal news from British manufacturers as well as the implications of Standard and Poor’s threat to downgrade all eurozone debt, including that of France and Germany, and the cloudy outcome of the EU summit at the end of the week after the apparently decisive clarity of the Merkel-Sarkozy meeting on Monday. The mood swings in this continuing crisis are extreme, we are nowhere near the beginning of the end, and what is bizarre is how easily share prices in London and Europe are ‘cheered’, as headline writers like to put it, at every stumbling step. As I write, the FTSE 100 index has added 400 points in a more or less continuous rise from its late November dip. If it’s higher again by Friday despite the S&P warning and any other bad news, I’ll raise a festive glass myself. But I can’t help wondering: are investors mad to be so easily led, or is there another explanation? Read on…

The grim reaper

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Julie Burchill

Will I ever pee again?

Nick Clegg says it’s time to ‘get tough’ on ‘unjustifiable’ private-sector pay — though he gives no indication, and probably has no idea, what form ‘getting tough’ might take. Association of British Insurers director Otto Thoresen, the voice of the usually complacent community of institutional investors, calls for a ‘fundamental shift’ in bank pay to correct the balance between employees and shareholders.