You try and tell the kids of today about the days of double figure interest rates and they look at you as if you are mad.
Many of them cannot even recall the days of whole integer interest rates – though to be fair, many of them are not inclined to try – but we could be returning to those days soonish judging by clues in the minutes of the most recent meeting of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC).
The MPC voted unanimously to keep the benchmark lending rate at 0.5%, where it has been for more than six years, but a number of policy makers expressed unease about the possibility of inflation rising back above 2%, and it was only the special circumstances caused by the situation in Greece that persuaded the antsy element among the MPC to stick to the status quo.
Foreign exchange dealers were in little doubt what the minutes meant; sterling rose against the dollar and the euro – that holiday in Greece has just got even cheaper, people!
Buy-to-let operators are probably not panicking just yet, and savers are certainly not rushing out to buy a bottle of fizzy pop to celebrate, but journalists who have the phrase “the MPC is expected to keep interest rates unchanged” stored on a macro might have to set up a new one.
An Apple story a day keeps the advertising manager at bay' has been a maxim for years now, resulting in a level of media coverage that the Cupertino coverage could well afford to pay for, but does not have to.
For once, however, the media blitz is not on some trifling item such as the superiority of the cellophane used by Apple to shrink-wrap its products; today's coverage is about the iPhone maker's disappointing results, released last night.
The company saw US$66bn wiped off its stock market value – that's about two-thirds of the size of the latest EU bailout for Greece – even though its earnings beat analysts' expectations.
The slump was attributed to less-than-stellar projections of future sales of the iPhone, which remains the company's flagship product and primary cash cow.
Sales of the iPad are tailing off, while, as expected, no details were released about the sales performance of its recently launched watch.
Apple, a master at news manipulation, has hinted that sales of the Apple Watch are going very well and we may see the shares bounce back when trading resumes stateside today.
Coincidentally, Apple's impact on the smartphone market was amply demonstrated by Microsoft's results, which were also released last night.
The Seattle-based firm announced its biggest ever quarterly loss (of US$3.2bn), as it took massive write-downs largely related to its purchase of Nokia's phone business, which looked like a high-priced last roll of the dice to keep the Windows operating system relevant in the smartphone market.
Apple's disappointing sales projections have cast a shadow on chip-designer ARM Holdings (LON:ARM), which has risen to prominence in the era of mobile devices.
The Cambridge-based firm released its second quarter results this morning, which showed a 32% increase in normalised profit before tax from the year before.
Some of that gain can be attributed to increased royalties derived from sales of the iPhone, so although ARM's numbers look good, the share price moves down in line with Apple's.
It is not a day when small caps are likely to gain much attention, so let's finish with the spotlight on a tiddler and a story that is racking up the clicks on a well-known stock market news site.
Dual listed 88 Energy (LON:88E, ASX:88E) has raised A$12mln from a placing of shares.
The proceeds are earmarked for the upcoming drill programme at Project Icewine, on Alaska’s North Slope, and seeing as the placing was strongly oversubscribed, it can be assumed that the project is one that has oil & gas investors excited..