Stock market roller-coaster

Stock markets bounced back on Friday with record rises following the US “rescue plan”, which involves the government taking on the mass of bad debt, backed by “assets” – in reality, land, that is worth substantially less that the money advanced in loans. We said then that the Paulson scheme did not sound convincing and predicted that the enthusiasm was likely to be followed by a sober reappraisal. Two days on, the enthusiasm has evaporated and the stock market indices and the dollar are tumbling.