With the hedge funds getting restless (they own 30pc of LSE shares) and Nasdaq adopting a laid-back posture (it owns 25.1pc), you might think that the London Stock Exchange was between a rock and a hard place.

Nasdaq, it seems, is quite prepared to sit out the next six months, whereupon it can withdraw its £2.4bn ($4.49bn) offer and make a lower bid for the LSE. This leaves the hedge funds champing at the bit, while the large profits they came in to claim are receding over the horizon.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Chief Executive Clara Furse, now apparently supporting an independent, British LSE, is looking eastwards for a possible takeover target. The Singapore Stock Exchange is being mentioned, even though Hong Kong is larger. Maybe Chinese regulation doesn’t appeal.

Furse probably has around five weeks to stitch up a deal or announce her intentions. Whatever happens, Clara knows she’s in for a bumpy ride.

Nasdaq is increasing the fees it charges listed companies, sending a frisson of fear through users of the London Stock Exchange.

British companies are now wondering whether Robert Greifeld will use a fee hike to recoup costs if Nasdaq takes over the LSE. Fees at the American exchange rose by 22pc for smaller companies and 27pc for larger ones.

On Nasdaq, annual fees start at £16,000 ($30,000) rising to £51,000 ($96,000). In London, the equivalent range is £3,600 ($6,768) to £35,000 ($66,000).

That’s the cry uttered by Alex Brummer, the UK Daily Mail’s excellent City Editor on the parlous negotiating position of the London Stock Exchange.

In a rallying exhortation to the Great and the Good of the Square Mile and beyond, Brummer duffs up the instigators of the current situation :

That the LSE should have become a pawn rather than a knight in a fight to unify the world’s bourses under global brands is madness. It ought to be in the driving seat of the consolidation.”

This website says Amen to that.

Consider for a moment the advantages currently possessed by the LSE. It’s Europe’s largest cash market. This week it overtook New York in cash raised for IPOs. In AIM, it owns the most vigorous enterprise market in the world.

Brummer writes : “London’s acceleration away from all its rivals post Big Bang in 1986 and Britain’s emergence from the shadow of euroland is one of the great success stories of the 20th century. … The latest trading statement underpins the case for keeping the LSE independent and British-owned.”

With the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, and Treasury Secretary, Ed Balls, seeming to climb aboard the bandwagon, Alex Brummer is surely right to say :

“We must Save our Stock Exchange.”

Today the handcuffs come off in Nasdaq’s bid to take the London Stock Exchange. With 25.3pc of LSE shares, the American exchange can bid for the rest at £12.43 per share.

However, sources close to Nasdaq say it can’t afford to buy at that price, so is likely to sit out the next six months. The New York-based company is already heavily in debt and may refuse to gamble, especially as it is now known the British Government intends to legislate to protect London from the onerous American Sarbane-Oxley rules and may pack off any bid to the Competition Commission.

The Times (London) reports : “… there were signs at the weekend that some investors were taking the view that, in the short term at least, the LSE share price could fall in the absence of a bid or an agreed deal. About 12 per cent of the shares are the subject of stock borrowing, a technique that is often used to go short in a share in the expectation of a fall.”

Speculation grew that Clara Furse may seek a deal with a Far East exchange.