If it's bad for Next, it'll probably be worse of Marks & Spencer.

It's surprising that the private-equity funds seem to think there's upside. It seems quite a full price to pay.

The deal would create an extremely powerful group with both mega-store and warehouse formats that should be the envy of the world.

The area which interests us is the sector that was hit the hardest in 2005, namely the big-ticket household goods retailers. All three have begun to recover and develop promising chart patterns.

There's probably more question marks on this depth chart than we've had the last few years. We've got a lot of young guys that can play but we need to find out if they can get it done at this level.

There's probably more question marks on this depth chart than we've had the last few years.