The FTSE-100 is up by a couple of hundred points. Germany’s DAX has added 400 points, and in Tokyo the Nikkei 225 rose by 6 per cent overnight. After the wild trading ever since President Trump announced the imposition of huge tariffs on all of America’s major trading partners, some stability appears to have returned to the financial markets. Is the worst of the slump over? It is far too early to predict that with any confidence – but there are two reasons for thinking it might be.
It remains to be seen how the markets unfold over the next few days. There could well be a bankruptcy or two among some of the hedge funds, one of the crypto currencies may implode, or a bank could run into trouble, and if there are any signs of that kind of stress the market will plunge all over again. For the moment, however, investors have calmed down, and equity prices have stopped falling.

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