By background I'm both a Quaker and a Yorkshireman, which I like to call double jeopardy.

I hate gold. It does not pay a dividend, it has no value, and you can't work out what it should or shouldn't be worth," he said. "It is the last refuge of the desperate.

The stock market is overpriced. Everything is overpriced. Junk is king.

The world is using up its natural resources at an alarming rate, and this has caused a permanent shift in their value. We all need to adjust our behavior to this new environment. It would help if we did it quickly.

Equities are boring; bonds are disgusting.

I would say that financial markets are very inefficient, and capable of extremes of being completely dysfunctional.

Ridiculous as our market volatility might seem to an intelligent Martian, it is our reality and everyone loves to trot out the 'quote' attributed to Keynes (but never documented): 'The market can stay irrational longer than the investor can stay solvent.' For us agents, he might better have said 'The market can stay irrational longer than the client can stay patient.'