That kicked into the equities market. Around 25 percent of bank profits come through bond holdings. If they are losing these capital gains then the banks are hit. People then started selling the yen because I think they started fearing things are not smelling too good here.

I would like to congratulate Steve. It was an extraordinary flight. I'm not very happy about losing my own record but I can't think of a nicer guy to take it.

[In the technical industry, there is concern about losing workers in highly technical jobs, such as engineering and science.] The concern is if you have a large proportion leaving at the same time, ... how is that knowledge being captured (transferred)? Many companies are looking at how to do this through phased retirement.

Dollar/yen has responded to horrific weakness in data which has continued over the last business day in Japan. Machinery orders were a bit of a horror story.

There is a lack of confidence but there were not any fundamental developments at all.

They're shorting the yen and that's the right attitude. There's a feeling we're reaching some kind of endgame,