Expert view: Business bad? Go for a workout

When the financial world - as we once knew it - is falling apart around you, being fit and healthy is crucial.

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Expert view: Israeli stars want to list in London

As we grow accustomed to ever more depressing economic news, it is hard to imagine the day when we will, once again, witness Israeli companies travelling to London to try their luck with a listing on the main market or AIM. However, that day will surely come, which perhaps explains why, despite the understandable pessimism currently enveloping us, the London Stock Exchange is looking to the future and making another one of their regular visits to Israel next month.

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Expert view: Is now a good time to buy shares?

It has been another tumultuous few weeks on the stockmarkets. The benchmark FTSE 100 index has reached a series of new lows as concern about the banking crisis grows, and investors are questioning the ability of global governments to deal with it. Volatility on Wall Street has hit its highest level for years.

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Expert view: This market is full of opportunities

I now take a deep breath before picking up the morning's papers. A trickle turned into a brook, which became a stream and has now developed into an economic tsunami - the after-effects of which will be felt for a very long time to come.

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Expert View: A week seems longer than seven days

Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, HBOS.... a list of names which might have been unfamiliar to a UK audience until the recent banking collapses and rescues hit our headlines. Their operations have all been caught out in the latest storm whipped up by collapsing property markets and related debt instruments. The speed of decline has been bewildering. Where does this leave the private investor, the person who keeps all their cash in the building society because that is safe; the person who says this has nothing to do with me?

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Expert view: The banking crisis isn’t all bad news

In the midst of an economic crisis, it is extremely difficult to maintain perspective. The worst banking crisis since the Great Depression has shocked even the most fervent of bears, led to numerous redundancies and exacerbated panic over contagion in the existing economic system. The UK economy has serious problems, with a housing market in freefall and the highest level of consumer debt per capita in the world. However, that it can, at this stage, be described (by Alistair Darling) as "arguably the worst" economic downturn in 60 years, is highly questionable. Britain is not going to return to the rationing of the 1940s, the three-day working week, or the 3m unemployed of the early 1980s. Whilst unemployment will rise sharply, there is a great deal of flexibility in the labour market due to the recent influx of foreign labour. Interest rates are historically low and inflation is slowing as commodity prices fall to reflect the slowdown in the global economy, easing pressure on consumers.

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Expert view: A happy new trading couple: India and Israel

The newspaper headlines seemed very familiar: rapidly increasing inflation, a government facing an uncertain political future, and heavy flooding causing chaos in various parts of the country.

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Expert view: Bring back busyness

Most chickened out in July and ran away to the solace of a sunny swimming pool. The market had long since departed, probably for an even longer break. Hopes of returning to a warmer economic reception disappeared quicker than a tan. We have all loved the inflation-led, bullish "everything is going to be worth more tomorrow, so let's buy it" world that we lived in for the best part of two decades, and we're missing its charms like some holiday romance never to be revisited.

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Expert view: The market must, and will, go green

As consumers have become more affluent, marketeers have been successful in convincing them that life will be better if they purchase more. Of course, there have been benefits in many walks of life. But the by-product is over-consumption: living beyond the means of the planet. To be sustainable, economic growth must be detached from growth in consumption of materials.

The demand for natural resources created by global economic development is exceeding our planet's capacity to supply us.

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Expert view: The depression isn’t so depressing

So the property market isn't great. But you know what? We had a pretty good run. Unlike others, I didn't stop buying two or three years back because I didn't want to miss out on a rising market. I might have regrets about one or two buildings we bought at the end of the run, but I did so well on the way up, it doesn't really matter. It's no good being greedy.

Things are horribly quiet at the moment. You can tell that times are bad when people spend more time hanging around at receptions. They are not itching to get back to the office because there's not much to do.

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