If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago it would now be worth £4.95. With HBOS, earlier this week your £1000 would have been worth £16.50. £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now be worth less than £5.



But if you had bought £1000 worth of Lager one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminium re-cycling plant, you would get £214.



So based on the above statistics the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and re-cycle.

You may very well be correct. I'm sure stockowners of Lehman Bros. were drinking heavily last week. On the plus side the CEO of Lehman Bros. can buy any winery in Napa Valley.