A Whiff off Panic

But Wall Street has the last laugh

For a brief period last week it looked ominously as if the bottom were about to drop out of stock markets around the world. But looming doom proved a sucker's bet. In one of the dizziest roller-coaster rides of recent times, stock markets in Tokyo, London, New York and elsewhere slumped and surged and careered wildly down and up. Yet when the dust settled, share prices in most cases were pretty much back to where they were before the week began, and in New York, they were up...