What on earth are they going to do next?

HSBC's group chief executive Mike Geoghegan's interview with the FT last week was the icing on the cake for me. He predicted another downturn at some point in the next 18 months - confirming the fears of all those who, like me, reckon we are midway through a W-shaped recession.

“Is this a V recovery or a W?” he asked. “It is the latter. [If I am right], we have to be very careful we do not grow the balance sheet so far before the recovery has come only to write it back into the impairment line later on.” I am not going to make Geoghegan out as the world’s greatest economic-timing expert or macroeconomic pundit but a) he heads possibly the most-diversified global bank with a look through into businesses from Salford to Shanghai and b) he is a brilliant business strategist who has managed to steer his almighty economic supertanker through some very choppy waters ...