OUTLOOK: Milestone for shares

SO WE'VE finally got back to 5,000. This is admittedly still 28 per cent below the peak the FTSE 100 achieved five years ago, but is still a remarkable rally from the depths the market sunk to immediately prior to the Iraq war. How much further can it go? The consensus opinion for this year was that the FTSE would go sideways, so the consensus nearly always being wrong, it was reasonable to assume shares would surprise either on the downside or the upside. It's still early days, but fingers crossed, it looks very much like being the upside. One note of caution. Beware what happens the other side of the election, when an awful lot of chickens will be coming home to roost.

jeremy.warner@independent.co.uk