IT IS one of finance’s odder rituals: every year come springtime around $100 billion in European shares goes on a little holiday. In the days running up to annual dividend payments of listed companies, many long-term shareholders, such as pension funds, lend their holdings to a third party.

WHERE is growth in the developed world going to come from? Growth is vitally needed to bring down unemployment and to reduce the burden of debts incurred in both the private and public sectors over the past 20-30 years. But rich-world economic growth in the 21st century has so far been sluggish compared with previous decades.One problem seems likely to weigh heavily on growth: it is fairly certain that, in the absence of mass immigration, the absolute number of workers in many European countries will fall over the next 20 years.

IT HAS been a strange few days for those who follow France’s banks at a respectful distance. On May 3rd BNP Paribas announced a 45% fall in first-quarter profits. Its share price shot up by 5%. On May 7th Société Générale said profits were down by 50%. Its shares positively levitated. When Crédit Agricole revealed the same day that its earnings had risen as much as Société Générale’s had fallen, its shares barely stirred. French bankers often claim to be misunderstood.

It’s being built, but will they come? THE glass-clad skyscrapers are reaching ever higher into Riyadh’s dusty sky. The first tenants are due to move to the King Abdullah Financial District in the Saudi capital’s north-west later this year.