But slower growth will mean lower returns than we have been used to. That will not necessarily be a slow-growth world and certainly not a no-growth world, despite what has happened in Japan. As a matter if fact, a “sin portfolio” with heavy weighting in armaments, tobacco and alcohol, would have done very well through these tough times.Above all, investors have to prepare for a slower-growth world. But I do suspect that in investment terms “sin” will remain “in”. Of course tobacco may not be quite as good an investment in the future as it has in the past and we cannot easily invest in the burgeoning cannabis empires that our government has just encouraged. The bid costs are still refunded on successful bids but expenses have to be taken up front, denting profits in the early phase of a bid.As Carillion said, after 2004, as the bid costs are reimbursed, £6m will be added to operating profit for the next few years.

The rule change means that companies have to take initial bid costs (before preferred bidder status is granted) as an expense through the profit and loss account – instead of capitalising these costs on the balance sheet. This trading update was enough to provoke more selling, with the shares closing down a further 17.5p yesterday at 151.5p (down from 227p since April).The jittery market ignored the fact that the company said that earnings per share figures were unaffected, meaning 15 per cent EPS growth is still expected this year.UITF 34 concerns when and how companies account for bid costs, which are considerable for the Private Finance Initiative projects that Amey and Carillion are engaged in. Expect the Chancellor to confirm this at next week’s Comprehensive Spending Review and spell out the tens of billions worth of infrastructure projects pending. The Government has abdicated all “public expenditure” to the private sector through the PFI, ie all roads, schools, hospitals etc will have to be built and maintained through the PFI. But canny investors should use this as a buying opportunity.The reason is that PFI is going to continue to be a huge growth market Carillion said yesterday that its order book stands at £5bn. That should end the panic, though you wouldn’t think so from yesterday’s share price reaction.

Many hedge funds, by contrast, are at least managing to protect their client’s capital and some are doing very well indeed Most of them have achieved this by shorting the market In a bull market you make money by buying shares. Few fund managers can say that.Every time you look, the traditional “long” funds seem to have lost another so many per cent of their value. Harvey McGrath, chairman of Man Group, a specialist provider of alternative investment strategies, or a hedge fund operator in other words, claims to have attracted $1bn of new funds over the past three months with demand still strong both from retail and institutional investors. But at least the company won’t now fall to the vulturous intentions of Philip Green and the veritable army of other chancers that were circling the floored retail behemoth just three years ago.Hedge fund mayhemFund management as an industry may be down on its uppers, but for some the present bear market is like manna from heaven. He’ll struggle to achieve the record £1bn in annual profits achieved during the glory years of Sir Richard Greenbury Those sort of margins are almost certainly gone for ever. Smoking may be risky, but investing in tobacco certainly hasn’t.I suppose the message here is that if you can identify products and services for which there is a really reliable demand then you will prosper.