Dame Clara Furse, as we must now remember to call her, did not need any more bad news. The wind has been against the London Stock Exchange for most of this year. The loss of the contract to update the Doha Securities Market in Qatar, although no catastrophe in terms of the bottom line, must be ranked as another disappointment. Dame Clara had the Qataris on board as a supportive investor, and hopes of working with them in building the local stock market into a rival to Dubai had been running high.

It must be especially galling to her that the loss of the contract stemmed from another perceived failure, the inability in 2001 to reach terms for the acquisition of Liffe, the London futures market.

LSE shares are now back from their scarcely imaginable high of £20 last year to little more than £8. Partly this is the lack of any significant takeover premium. Although the story does the rounds occasionally that Nasdaq, which failed humiliatingly last year, might come back, this is scarcely credible, with Qatar and Dubai holding a third of the shares between them.

The dance that enlivened the generally dull exchanges space over the past couple of years is over, the music has stopped, and the various partners have retired to their respective boudoirs. The New York Stock Exchange is married to la belle Euronext, the successful purchaser of Liffe; its New York rival Nasdaq is bedded down with Scandinavian blonde OMX. London ended up with Milan, a sultry signorina but not perhaps of the first rank.

London has had to face up to some difficult realities. In the spring, monthly statistics showed that the apparently exponential growth in volumes over the past two years has tailed off. It is clear that the various concerns that have set up shop to steal some of London’s lunch are serious. The revived Plus Markets is nibbling away at the smaller stocks. Turquoise, set up by a clutch of investment banks, was derided as “Project Tortoise” for its false start in 2006. But with Eli Lederman, former head of electronic trading at Morgan Stanley, as chief executive, it is confident enough to name August as the date of its first trials before a full launch in September.

At the time of the Milan purchase last year, there was excited talk of exporting its derivatives operation to London and taking on Liffe. But Dame Clara stonewalled questions on the subject at last month’s results briefing. A pity. The LSE could do with some good news.

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