Do you, too, sense that HSBC has gone off the boil? The bank that has swept all before it for more than a decade and, as an 'asset gatherer' is rivalled only by Citigroup, has suddenly become very subdued.

The bank's urbane chairman, Sir John Bond, who likes to claim 'there's no personality cult here', but seems to give more magazine interviews than David and Victoria Beckham, appears to have gone off the air.