... Standard Chartered’s view that the Chinese yuan is going to appreciate by 9% steadily against the dollar over the year. As for sterling, my old mate HSBC-mucker Paul Day, who is now at the small Swiss-based MIG Investments, reckons that it could plunge towards parity against the euro. This looks a little extreme – it quotes to a level of 1.9600 in old GBP/DEM, but Paul’s calls (or should that be puts) have been quite good over the past couple of months. Hopefully if the move does take place, it will happen after I’ve got my house in France redecorated.