Why it will be a long wait for the tide to turn

The three sectors fundamental to our wellbeing - property, retail and banking - are still falling fast. The economic tide is still ebbing and it will be a long while before it turns.

Readers will know that we regularly use the phrase, the tide is going out' as a simile for the credit contraction. For asset markets ever to recover, which they eventually will, that process of the tide going out has to end. Premature talk of a market bottom, as occurred in March this year, has no merit or relevance to the utter reality that the tide has nowhere near finished going out.

Imagine arriving at Southend for the first time ever and standing on the promenade. Seeing where the sea is you wonder if the tide is coming in or going out. You ask a local and he tells you that it is still going out, adding that when it has fully ebbed, you won't believe how far out it goes. That is the analogy that you must carry in your mind's eye and all extraneous news should be examined through that prism of knowledge.

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