It’s an ill wind and all that. Apparently, we ‘squeezed shoppers’ (who knew?) spent less on prezzies this year and turned instead to comfort-eating as food sales went up a bit. However, a number of hedge funds bet around £3bn, as long ago as July that the shares of some UK retailers would be hit by a Scrooge-like Christmas. The good (if you think hedge fund managers are rich enough already) or bad (if you’ve got money with them) news is that they got it wrong with Morrisons and Next, who’ve done OK. Not so M&S and Majestic. If only we’d known we could all have bought another couple of bottles of Baileys to help them out.
