There is reasonable optimism still in investors' minds. We are still seeing good support coming through from corporate earnings and there are plenty of mergers and acquisitions rumors and actual which get investors excited.

M&A activity has been the pattern for some time. Whilst we still have a decent macro background combined with low financing costs there's probably more to come. It's probably supportive of a relatively cheap market.

Clearly there are some fears about what exactly the future holds for Iran. The uncertainty there is probably having some sort of bearing and perhaps being used as a catalyst or rationale for profit taking after the very strong run we've seen.

At the start of the year, forecasts generally were for a more subdued year than we'd seen in 2004 so 16 percent is a pretty good year.

The big qualifier on that is that a lot of the price action we've seen in equity markets and earnings expectations are due to that energy price move and higher profit expectations among oil & gas firms.

The government did the right thing in addressing the doctors' concerns,