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Comment and analysis from Thursday’s FT,

Nightmare for UK plc (1): Editorial Comment
The credit crunch has caught up with corporate Britain. Two examples on Wednesday show how far the impact has spread beyond the banking sector. Shares in Taylor Wimpey lost almost half their value after the UK’s largest housebuilder failed to secure a cash injection, and Marks and Spencer saw its share price plunge on a profit warning. Their news is part of a broader bleak picture. It’s a moment to send shivers down the spine of UK plc.

Nightmare for UK plc (2): Lombard
Stock-picking is usually like betting on a marathon, separating the fastest from the least fleet of foot. But as of yesterday, UK plc resembles more a disaster scene, with investors engaged in the desperate task of triage, distinguishing the dying and near-dead from the severely injured and the walking-wounded. It’s natural that they’re running out of patience, and logical that they should now admit only the most deserving cases to intensive care.

Short View, video: Prospects for ‘Chindia’
The world’s inflation problems mean it’s too early to see retreat in Chinese and Indian equities as a buying opportunity, says John Authers. Text version here.

Insight: George Magnus: The forces of deleveraging
Normal business cycles are self-correcting. Deleveraging cycles are self-reinforcing, because the destruction of debts and assets feed on one another until excess leverage has been eliminated. The current deleveraging is unleashing two major deflationary forces, writes Magnus, senior economic adviser at UBS.

John Gapper’s blog: Don’t annoy the IRS
The subprime crisis has cost UBS dearly. Now the Swiss bank lurches into another crisis over how it allegedly helped US citizens to evade taxes

Lex: European investment banks
For Europe’s investment banks, the days have darkened into summer. The second half begins on a dismal note. JPMorgan sees a 13 per cent overall headcount cut in European banking this year, with the bulk — UBS aside — yet to be announced. There will be blood.

Analysis: (Japanese) dividends to reap
The rise of western-style shareholder activism in Japan was initially greeted with disdain, write Michiyo Nakamoto and Kate Burgess. But the persistence of some foreign funds in seeking better corporate governance - and the growing support of Japanese investors - have awakened managements to the need to engage with their shareholders, if only to ensure that otherwise valuable investors do not side with the agitators.

View of the Day - Tobias Levkovich, Citigroup
The next 25 years could prove “far more interesting and more challenging” for investors than the past 25, according to Levkovich, chief US equity strategist at Citigroup. But, he says, there are also reasons for optimism.

Comment: Europe needs a sharp rise in interest rates
The 25bp rise in interest rates that the ECB is expected to announce Thursday is nothing more than a token move, writes Ciaran O’Hagan, fixed income strategist at Société Générale. Luckily, investors currently see the ECB’s inflation-fighting credentials as credible, and the Bank should reinforce that credibility and raise rates by far more than the market expects.