Northern Rock and Deutsche: A position or an investment?

As Northern Rock’s shares continued their descent towards oblivion, Deutsche Bank announced it had built a sizeable stake in the company.

This, it said, was a trading position. In reality, the stake is likely to have been bought on behalf of prime-brokered clients, but I couldn’t resist sending an email to Zar Amrolia pointing out the position was obviously not a very good one. No doubt, like many of my punts, it will be soon classed as an ‘investment’.