That’s already toppy and defensive stocks are unlikely to lead any stock market recovery. Unilever shares, down 21.5p at 509.5p, look to have run their course. Sell.Close BrothersRemember the days, not that long ago, when private investors were wading into the stock market, filling their boots with the most obscure small-cap stocks, and sploshing about excitedly in all the paper wealth being created?They were boom times, too, for Winterflood Securities, the market making arm of Close Brothers which specialises in trading these small shares. Yesterday, it was time to measure the bust: a 76 per cent slide in profits for the year to July, with the unit making practically no money at all in the past six months. Profits will be zero in the next six months, too, since the market slump is hardly inspiring investor confidence.It all added up to a fall in Close Brothers’ group earnings for the first time in its 26-year history.

Overall, profits dipped 35 per cent to £94.2m.Of course, that means the non-Winterflood businesses grew profits by 28 per cent, as the company was keen to point out. The corporate finance unit is grabbing new clients, even though the time it takes to do deals is lengthening. The asset management division still had £3.1bn of funds under management at the end of July, despite the bear market, since bonds and offshore savings flourished even as equity markets tanked.There was a robust performance, too, from the banking division, a staple of Close Brothers’ profits. Its business of loaning companies the cash to pay insurance premiums should benefit as insurance costs rise in response to the US terror attacks but otherwise the economic outlook is less clear.

Provision for bad debts rose a little to 1.7 per cent, and remains the biggest unknown away from the Winterflood’s roller-coaster ride.The stock is still one to avoid, since persistent break-up rumours have kept it from sliding to truly cheap levels and there is no imminent catalyst for a re-rating. Last night it rested on a forward p/e of 13 times its broker’s forecasts, the shares having jumped 62.5p to 547.5p on relief that things were not any worse. They could still be.Oxford GlycoAnother shuffle along the road for the biotech firm Oxford GlycoSciences yesterday, with news that its Vevesca treatment for Gaucher disease is effective in long-term trials.Gaucher, which inhibits the body’s ability to store sugar, affects mainly Ashkenazi jews and is currently treated by a replacement enzyme, the most expensive treatment in the world Vevesca could have sales of up to $140m a year. That depends on getting regulatory approval and investors should take a look in a fortnight, when the first smoke signals emerge from the Food and Drug Administration in the US.OGS, which reported an interim loss of £7.2m, is spending money researching new proteins and the shares dipped 12.5p to 450p on disappointment that it had no antibody discoveries to report Break- throughs in this area could trigger a rebound.. You can never see the bottom until it’s past, goes the old stock market adage, but the sense of relief in the stock market yesterday as equity prices steadied and then rallied was palpable. After the panic selling of last week, a semblance of calm returned.

This may not be the bottom, but the near universal gloom of the weekend press seems to have convinced investors that things may not be as bad as all that. You can never see the bottom until it’s past, goes the old stock market adage, but the sense of relief in the stock market yesterday as equity prices steadied and then rallied was palpable. After the panic selling of last week, a semblance of calm returned. This may not be the bottom, but the near universal gloom of the weekend press seems to have convinced investors that things may not be as bad as all that.
Whatever it was that helped steady nerves, we can be pretty sure it wasn’t the announcement from HBOS, the recently merged Halifax and Bank of Scotland, that it was ceasing all equity stock lending with immediate effect. Stock lending is an integral part of short selling, since few brokers are prepared to sell short without the certainty that the client can deliver the stock. Most big organisations that hold shares engage in it to some degree, and then split the fees so earned between themselves and the owner of the underlying securities.HBOS is a tiny player in this market and its statement yesterday that the profits made from stock lending “are dwarfed by the damage that short-selling activities are inflicting on the life savings of ordinary investors across the UK” was, in the circumstances, a touch over the top and sanctimonious.