With two and a half trading days to go before Christmas, this week, instead of looking ahead, we are peering over our shoulders to work out who fared the best and was left behind in the London market in 2008.
Overall, it has been a year of losses: the FTSE 100 is down a depressing 33.6 per cent, while the FTSE 250 has lost over 41 per cent of its value since January. Recession and the paucity of credit have played havoc with stocks across the sectors. But some have managed to weather the storm better than others.
The banks fared the worst as writedowns went from bad to worse to unsustainable and wholesale funding dried up, forcing some of the grandest of City grandees to seek help from the taxpayer or find solace in the arms of a better-funded foreigner.
