Spare a thought for Dealwise, a hard-working firm of stockbrokers in Britain which has stopped taking on new customers because they are "manically busy".

Dealwise is one of the largest no-advice brokers in the UK. It said this week it could not cope with any more customers after tripling the number of brokers it employs in a year.

The company is owned by the Skipton building society. Its decision to stop taking on new business follows two months of frenetic activity at the executiononly stockbrokers. They have seen the number of share deals by investors more than double since November.