According to figures uncovered by the National Audit Office the Treasury paid £107m of taxpayer cash to City firms for their assistance over the past two years. Although it expects the banks to pay back £100m of the fees, it admits that, so far, not a penny has been reimbursed. The NAO indicated that the Treasury may not have secured the best price for the advice, and could have wasted money with overly generous contracts.

Laszlo Birinyi, the president of Birinyi Associates has warned investors to stay away from emerging markets. “There’s still an awful lot of liquidity. That’s why you see these rallies after a piece of bad news: because too much money is sitting on the sidelines,” he said.

Private equity firms are returning to the practice of using junk bonds and leveraged loans to take money out of the companies they own. According to Bryan Krug, portfolio manager of the Ivy High Income Fund, there is a lot of cash chasing all asset classes, and it is allowing sponsors to opportunistically take advantage of the market.