Even the glee of Microsoft's competitors faded when they realized they, too, were going to lose billions in market valuation.

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Although the odds-on favourite Frozen Fire took the lead when they eventually quickened up five furlongs from home, he quickly faded.

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Yet Tom Gallagher, an analyst at ISI Group, a broker-dealer, estimates that investors' expectations of yields in five years' time, when such temporary factors will have faded, are no higher than they were last summer.

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