Friday of last week, you almost certainly knew, was the 20th anniversary of the Black Monday stock market crash of 1987. Seemingly the entire financial media – the Financial Times included – reminded investors of this with extensive coverage of the day when stock market falls across the globe ended with a record 22 per cent fall for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

How did investors respond this time? They sold. The world again saw a succession of sell-offs, with the Dow and the other major US indices down 2.5 per cent. Not another Black Monday, but the worst day in many months.