ABN Amro

By Megan Murphy, Justin Baer, Francesco Guerrera, Patrick Jenkins, Jeremy Grant, Martin Arnold and Sam Jones

RBS chief refuses to exclude ABN bid - Sir Fred Goodwin refused to rule out Royal Bank of Scotland as a potential suitor for ABN Amro as the bank boosted its management team in the US. [Financial Times - Financial Services]

ABN Amro has launched a new range of stock market indices, designed to outperform traditional benchmarks with the aid of market timing. The new indices, which will be independently calculated by Standard & Poor's, will be called the ABN Amro Alpha range.

The indices are based on the observation that investors tend to reduce risk in the approach to the end of the month or to public holidays such as Christmas. ABN Amro believes this is because traders usually have to report profits and losses at the end of these periods. They accordingly wish to "lock in" their gains.