Leigh Harrison: A canary in the coalmine for financial services?

SLOW MOTION COLLAPSE

Threadneedle's head of UK equities Leigh Harrison considers the latest bout of eurozone optimism and suggests investment banks' travails may have wider implications.

The slow motion train crash that is the disintegration of the eurozone had a pause at the start of August as hopes rose again that fragmentation can be arrested or reversed if only enough shock and awe can be unleashed by policymakers. While the politicians fiddle, the process of disintegration continues slowly but surely and the job of arresting or reversing the process gets ever harder. The focus on liquidity misses the point that this is a solvency issue whichever way you look at it, and the Germans have it bang to rights when they re-iterate that short-term liquidity fixes only re...