There is a massive amount of speculation as to what kind of corporate action is at play in the coming year.

There had not been much position-taking ahead of the decision, so the reaction was muted.

I don’t think anybody’s panicking, because it can’t go up in a straight line forever. It’s probably a healthy blow-off of steam, and it’s not surprising that it’s occurring on a Friday.

That’s not a bad number. But I think the market was obviously expecting an upside surprise which never came.

We’ve been in and out of positive territory a couple of times. The resilience and underlying momentum, which is very much weighted on the buy side, is still there.

We’ve had this significant run which has been pretty much one-way traffic for the last two weeks, so it doesn’t really come as a surprise that there’s a correction of some sort.

There was a big disappointment that fourth quarter growth (for 2005) was below expectations.

Fund managers can at times indiscriminately pull the plug on some markets, and normally sell in baskets.