Although you’d be hard pressed to believe me given that, as of the time of writing, the FTSE 100 in London is down 3.4%. It has fallen below 6,000 and is at a low for the year.

Markets all over the world are still suffering from jitters caused by a shaky housing market in the US. There tends to be a domino effect — a dip in the US markets causes falls in the European bourses, which in turn hits Asian stocks; and so the cycle continues. The decline has actually been more marked in the smaller Asian markets: the Philippine benchmark is down 6% and the Indonesian 7.7%.

The consistent 200-point falls on the Dow Jones over the last two days are worrying — and demoralising — but as is always the case with stocks we will have to wait and see if this is an abhorration/correction or the beginning of something more serious.

True, billions have been wiped off the value of the markets, but they are still up (a little) on 2006 and (a lot) on 2005. That may be a whole year’s progress gone down the tubes but it just requires us to take a longer-term view of the situation.

While a rally is unlikely for at least another week, it will come, slowly at first and then building as investors take advantage of weaker stock prices.

It’s not the end of the world, just a very bad few days at the office.

by