Those consumer-oriented stocks gained quite aggressively yesterday after the January retail sales data, which was a pretty good number, so we saw a bit of profit taking today.

We're having a pretty good time economically, and what that's saying is the consumer is alive and kicking. Retail is a huge factor in our economy.

Retail sales are expected to be down, but worry about Producer Price Index and Consumer Price Index releases Thursday and Friday could keep any bond market rally in check.

What they've done for consumer-generated video is really quite good.

It's a very good number for January. But should we get carried away with the seasonally adjusted number? No. We still expect a slowdown in 2006, no question about it.

We've seen quite good sales figures from all the UK life insurance stocks. It looks like people are buying savings products once more and the sector seems to be performing relatively well again now after a tough few years.