STORRE

First paragraph: Marketers are supposed to be inventive folk – and attempting to interpret their thinking can sometimes invite a descent into the futility of literary criticism. Even so, Halifax’s decision to build its latest mortgage-lending campaign around Top Cat deserves attention, as it might just tell us something about the changing terrain of the UK home-buying landscape.

First paragraph: The explosive issue of banker bonuses refuses to go away – and not just because of the Bank of England’s controversial new “clawback” measures, which will defer bonuses for three to five years. President Obama recently played his part in relighting the fuse when he used a radio interview to claim bonuses still encourage Wall Street traders to “take big risks” that might imperil economic stability.

It came as no great surprise when David Thorburn announced this week that he was stepping down as chief executive of the troubled Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks. Having joined Clydesdale in the 1970s as a graduate trainee and been chief executive since 2011, he described it as “the right time” – and nobody disagreed.

Drawing on a unique data set of daily portfolio holdings for Turkish mutual funds we investigate the relationship between mood and institutional herding on the premises of various established mood proxies (weekend effect; holiday effect; Ramadan; sunshine). Results indicate that fund managers in Turkey herd significantly, with their herding growing in magnitude as the number of active funds per stock rises and appearing stronger on the buy- than the sell-side. Although the relationship of moo...