There was a lot of macroeconomic news last week, but probably the most influential on our share list was the decision by the US Federal Reserve to reduce its federal funds rate, which determines what interest rate banks charge each other for overnight loans, to between zero and 0.25 percent.
What the significance is of going for this range, as opposed to precise figure, for interest rates isn't clear. It could just be a cosmetic move to try to limit the number of "0%!!" headlines, but obviously it's now virtually free to borrow money.
This doesn't solve the liquidity problem, however, as what banks are most worried about is not that they won't get sufficient interest from each other, but that they might never see the money they've lent out again.
This was reflected in the Dow and NASDAQ indices, which were both initially boosted by the news, then dropped back when everyone had got over the excitement and business as usual resumed. Most of our list followed or slightly underperformed the market, showing modest falls last week.
