The coming depression in pictures

One of the annoying things about writing for the print editions of newspapers is that there is never enough space for graphics. The online edition suffers no such constraints, so I'll air here instead a couple of charts that the desk has kindly drawn up to help me with the column I'm doing on whither the stock market.

Another day, another stomach churning plunge in share prices. Equities look cheap, right, so is it time to buy? Yes indeed they do seem cheap to judge by traditional yardsticks such as price earnings ratios, dividend yields and book value. What is more, relative to bonds, they don't just look cheap, they look incredibly cheap. The graphic below tracks the yield on the FTSE 100 against the yield on 10 year gilts – the so called "yield gap". Read more.......