If controls go, will confidence falter?

“If you’re not positive, then you’re in the wrong business,” boomed veteran broker David Chua at the gaggle of nervous young traders as they waited for the lift in their Kuala Lumpur tower block. Fear of local carnage in the aftermath of Wall Street’s bloodbath in mid-April was in the air. In an echo of three years ago, one dared to reply with an over-used Chinese mantra: “There’s opportunity in crisis”.