Should anyone take investment advice from Royal Bank of Scotland, the institution which so misread markets before the crash that it required the biggest taxpayer bailout in banking history? Possibly not, but a bulletin from RBS’s research team this week certainly caused a stir by declaring that ‘in a crowded hall, exit doors are small, risks are high’, ‘sell mostly everything… except high-quality bonds’; and finally, ‘for the world: the game is up’.
Strong stuff, indeed — and written in such staccato City language that it reads like the last scribbled testament of a passenger in a crashing plane. Behind it is the view that assets boosted by quantitative easing can now only go down, that China is in even deeper trouble than first appeared, that the build-up of global debt is even more dangerous, and the share and oil-price falls of recent weeks are merely a harbinger of worse market turmoil to come.
RBS’s scribblers are not the only ones who think ‘this all looks similar to 2008’: George Soros, always worth heeding, has said something similar, and come to think of it, even this column has warned more than once of ‘the writhing python of doom’ lurking over our heads. We should certainly brace ourselves — but should we really stampede for the exit? I’d call that wild headline-grabbing rather than wise advice, from a bank with a peerless record of irresponsibility.
Bolland has had enough
It must be decades since I bought underwear at Marks & Spencer, for myself or anyone else. I’d shop anywhere for a two-for-one on button-front Jockeys; I was thrilled to get ten pairs of socks for £9.99 as an add-on to the £165 suit I bought from a Spectator ad; and the next time I send an anonymous gift of lingerie to (let’s say) Fiona Bruce, I’ll pick a little number online from Bella di Notte, which happens to be one of our local Yorkshire success stories.
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