30 JANUARY 1988, Page 19

Illumination

TIMES are now so hard in the stock market that a broker friend buys his light bulbs one at a time, in the Earl's Court Road. There he has found illumination. The dollar and the United States trade balance, he says, are past their low points. His evidence is his light bulb — of no known brand, selling on price alone, but marked with its place of origin: MADE IN THE USA.