What can ABN Amro do to please institutional investors who should be buying its shares but always find an excuse not to do so? Some say the Dutch domestic market has gone ex-growth and ABN Amro could therefore shed a few thousand more local employees.

They are concerned that it will make a silly and expensive acquisition to break out of its perceived rut. They fret about the bank's mortgage exposure in the American midwest. While there has been some improvement in investment banking and securities trading, the bank is in a cost straitjacket from which it cannot escape. The only reason to buy the shares is for the dividend yield of almost 5%.