Yet another case of the Friday colly-wobbles as stock markets tumbled in fear of yet another end-of-week sell-off on Wall Street. It was all in response to a Thursday night fall in the value of the Dow, after the American bluechip index had posted three successive 100-point gains after the uncertainty of the previous weekend.
After the Federal Reserve and the Bundesbank did the decent thing and left interest rates unchanged, there was hope that the previous Friday's 3 per cent fall in the Dow and 2 per cent fall in the FTSE were just two of the occasional aberrations that afflict stock markets in the dog days of August when volumes are usually low and key market players are on holidays.
The fact that London was heading into a long weekend also unnerved the suits in the City, with few willing to take any strong positions in the expectation of a weak opening on Wall Street. Weaker US treasury bonds and a weaker dollar were the main factors driving the uncertainty, but many feel that even these factors cannot justify the type of volatility that has characterised Wall Street over the past week.
Meanwhile, Ulster Television's membership of the Irish Stock Exchange and a component of the ISEQ Index means that there is more than the usual interest in recent events at the television station, where the directors - headed by chairman, Mr John McGuckian, are involved in some shadow-boxing with potential predator Scottish Media Group.
After Scottish Media's dawn raid the previous week, where the Scots built up a 15 per cent stake, Ulster's management showed that they are not willing to allow the Scottish to dictate the pace of any potential takeover bid.
The decision by the board to bring forward the half-year results, with the promise of a share buyback or special dividend, was a strong message to shareholders that they might be better served by sticking with the management rather than selling to Hoare Govett when the London broker went into the market looking for more Ulster shares.
The fact that Mr McGuckian put up more than £8 million sterling of his own money to bring his stake in Ulster to 9 per cent (and become second biggest shareholder after Scottish) is seen as a message to the Scots that, if they have any intentions towards Ulster, then they would be better off dealing with the Ulster board rather than engaging in any hostile action. Scottish Media's response to the directors' share buying was to go into the market and buy more shares to take its stake to more than 18 per cent.
The question now is whether Ulster will use part of its £12 million cash pile for a buyback or a special dividend.
Given that a buyback would automatically increase the Scottish Media stake, the Ulster board may be tempted towards paying shareholders a special dividend. The precedent for such a payment is there - Ulster paid £10.5 million to shareholders in April last year.
Shareholders might be well advised to hold their Ulster shares and resist the temptation to sell at the current high.
