On either side of the Atlantic, the stock market has rarely looked less welcoming for publicly quoted companies in need of fresh capital.

HBOS, the retail bank long regarded as one of the safest investments in the UK, went cap-in-hand to its shareholders and asked last week for £4bn ($8bn, €5bn) to bolster its balance sheet. The vast majority said no. Also last week, in New York Merrill Lynch’s sale of assets worth $8bn including its stake in Bloomberg, the financial information provider, was taken by some as a sign that banks were running out of options to raise funds.