The weekend was a clear illustration of the value of experience over all else - it was a Bank Holiday so the weather was awful despite the fact that it's June; and, in the sporting arena, the two French Open Tennis champions have been around so long that the media had written them off as not serious contenders.

It's very interesting how much of sport is mental. Martina Hingis completely lost the plot as the title receded from her grasp and Andre Agassi - playing like a rubber duck at the beginning of his match - just needed to get a few shots on target before experience began to take hold.

So a couple of ancient 29-year-olds have managed to make their sponsors very happy. Adidas has stuck with Steffi Graf throughout her career though there must have been times when it wondered about allying itself to an athlete who, lately, spent more time recovering from injury than actually on court.

Now, though, with so much media comment on the fact that she's - gasp - "nearly 30" Adidas will be able to market those three stripes to anyone who can still manage to put on a pair of trainers. And it needs the boost, its shares - which reached a high of €103 (£81) last month slipped back to their January 5th levels of €92.50 (£72.85) after it announced a 38 per cent fall in profits for the first quarter. Nike, Agassi's sponsor, has seen its market share fall over the past couple of years from the heady days where almost everyone was wearing at least one piece of clothing with its logo. All the same, it has significantly outperformed Adidas. On January 5th, Nike's class B euro-denominated shares were at €34.5 - it's now just off its high of €58. It's certainly been the better share to hold, but I've noticed a resurgence of Adidas in the gym lately so maybe better times lie ahead for the German company.

Markets, whether they are commodities or financial, are so caught up with psychology that it's sometimes hard to distinguish between what happens because it's justifiable and what happens simply because people are being herded into a particular frame of mind. Which is why so many people at the beginning of the decade switched from Adidas to Nike or Reebok. It's also why so many people are negative on the euro and why - if the currency changes direction - it'll charge in the opposite direction very quickly.

I can't really see that happening at the moment, though, especially with minds focused on the next FOMC meeting at the end of the month. The last three moves from the Fed were down and they were more in response to the global situation than the domestic economy. However, the most recent data on the economy is certainly pointing to a pickup in inflation.

Consumer prices rose faster than expected in April. Manufacturing grew for the fourth month in a row in May and new-home sales exceeded forecasts again last week. The net result is that the long bond is nudging 6 per cent and the Dow has struggled to make gains lately and is nearly 5 per cent off the highs it made last May.

The market wasn't too fazed by the news that Alice Rivlin, the Fed's number two, will resign next month. Ms Rivlin was generally accepted as being a "dove" on inflation and always went along with the consensus view. She won't attend the FOMC meeting even though her resignation doesn't take effect until July 16th, but that's not expected to alter the balance of power on the Fed board much as a number of commentators told us breathlessly that there might be a shift towards a more hawkish stance. Given that the Fed has already announced a tightening bias, they're not exactly telling us anything new. At least, though, the Fed speaks with one voice. And that's where the experience tells in the market place and why participants listen to what emerges. The ECB has been plagued with too many spokesmen (usually German) who have dropped differing gems of wisdom among the financial markets and waited to see what would happen.

The Germans just don't seem to be able to cope with the fact that, in saying they wouldn't like to see the euro go any lower, it still continues to drift. Back in the good old days when the Bundesbank ruled the roost, a few well chosen words by Herrs Tietmeyer or Welteke were enough to slap the wrists of any forex dealer brazen enough to sell the deutschmark. But the market knows that the ECB is a body divided and Wim Duisenberg hasn't been able to silence the men who were used to their word being as strong as Alan Greenspan's. They can't take the support of the market for granted, much as they might like to.

And you take any market for granted at your peril. British Airways took its customer base for granted when it decided to do away with the Union Jack on the tails of its aircraft and paint them in a more multiracial style to appeal to its overseas customers. However, BA forgot what a patriotic bunch its domestic customers were and has steadily lost market share ever since. (The share price has fallen from its high of £5.53 sterling to £4.60 sterling). Meanwhile, Richard Branson daubed a painting of a woman carrying a red, white and blue banner on the side of a few Virgin Atlantic planes and has been doing very nicely ever since. An expensive (£60 million sterling) little foray into dizzy colours for BA's shareholders but chief executive Bob Ayling doesn't seem overly perturbed.

Trying new things has always been the prerogative of management but when it goes wrong it's the shareholders that pick up the tab. Kellogg's did its best to turn the disaster that was renaming Coco Pops as Choco Krispies into a PR exercise when it gave consumers the chance to vote for the name they liked best. Why did they even bother? It was quite obvious that Coco Pops would win the day and it did, hands down. (I have to admit to rather liking Coco Pops as an occasional breakfast cereal much to the disgust of the man in my life. But I also like those chocolate covered Rice Krispie squares. I leave the reader to decide whether it is the rice or the chocolate that appeals so much!) Kelloggs announced a 15 per cent fall in Q1 earnings (its fourth drop succession) and its share price is exactly where it was at the beginning of the year.

Anyway, the bottom line is that consumers will only accept change on their terms and they don't like being dictated to. Neither does the market. Neither do top class tennis players. Tried and trusted might be boring, but sometimes boring is exactly what you want! Putting all that experience to good use is what it's all about. As Steffi and Andre will confirm.

Sheila O'Flanagan is a fixed-income specialist at NCB Stockbrokers