IT WAS AN inauspicious start to the week of October 6: Hank Paulson had finally got his Troubled Assets Relief Program and yet there was no relief to the sell-off in stocks – far from it. US stocks sold off the previous Friday despite Congress finally agreeing to contribute to the administration’s $700 billion begging bowl. Could it be that the bowl was not big enough?
Waking in the wee hours in New York – as is the way for the traveller from London – the early morning news programmes were fevered in tone. Worse was surely to come given London’s awful opening, hardly a surprise given that the price action from Asia was so bad: in Japan the Nikkei was down 511 at 10427 while the Hang Seng hung low at 17090, off by 593 – the UK’s Footsie was to end that day 391 points lower....
