Outlook Is it good or bad news that inflation is proving so resilient? The good news is that the deflationary threat, which only a few months ago seemed as if it might plunge the world into a second Great Depression, is now receding fast. The downturn is slowing and may even be reversing.

Outlook: Would Barclays be disposing of Barclays Global Investors (BGI) at all, let alone at this stage in the cycle, were it not for the banking crisis and the need to raise more capital? Probably not, John Varley, the Barclays chief executive, admits candidly.

Outlook Government bond yields around the world are soaring as inflationary expectations rise and debt management agencies struggle to fund record peacetime fiscal deficits. Both in the US and the UK, 10-year yields are back above 4 per cent, a level not seen since October last year. This is a complete reversal of the situation of just three months ago, when to many it looked as if the world was about to be engulfed by deflation and a second Great Depression.

Outlook West Bromwich Building Society seems to have won a reprieve. By persuading holders of £182.5m of subordinated loans to convert their debt into instruments that would qualify as core tier 1 capital, West Bromwich hopes to avoid enforced merger with someone else, or the even more unpalatable end of falling victim to the Government's shiny new special resolution regime, the fate that befell its sister building society up in Dunfermline.

Outlook All of a sudden, the green shoots of economic spring seem all around us. Some of them may even be turning into smallish shrubs, if not quite yet fully grown bushes. According to estimates published last night by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, which is second to none in the accuracy of its forecasts for the UK economy, March marked the trough of the recession, with the economy actually growing in April and May.

Outlook Nobody is going to disagree too much with the four directors appointed yesterday from the Court of the Bank of England to the newly created Financial Stability Committee. Roger Carr, Sir David Lees, Mark Tucker, and Harrison Young all no doubt make worthy guardians of banking stability.

Outlook Ofcom's efforts to force BSkyB to make its sport and other premium content available to rival pay TV providers on a wholesale basis have been so long drawn out that whatever the eventual outcome, it will come too late to save Setanta, the sports broadcaster which is threatening to collapse into administration under a mountain of unpaid bills. Setanta stopped taking new subscriptions yesterday. Not that there were many anyway, but it would seem to be the beginning of the end.

Outlook Well there's a thing. The mystery bidder for Bramdean Alternatives turns out to be none other than Nicola Horlick herself, the "super-mum" who already manages the fund.

Outlook So farewell then Cheltenham & Gloucester, whose high street brand dates back to the mid-19th century but, like so much else, is now falling victim to the relentless march of "progress" – in this case the cost-cutting integration of Lloyds TSB with Halifax Bank of Scotland.