12 MARCH 1994, Page 23

The harder they fall

BOND PRICES have come down like an express lift, bondholders (like your bank or pension fund) are feeling queasy, so here come UBS, the brokers, with a message of comfort: 'Market crash adds long-term value.' In other words: you have lost so much money that you must now have a better chance of making some. A friend of mine ran a popular City column on this principle. He got by on two articles, which he rotated: `Shares have gone down, they are cheap' and `Shares have gone up, they are rising.'