Earlier this month, I received a sobering e-mail from a senior, recently-retired banker. This particular man, a veteran of the credit world, had just chatted with ex-colleagues who are still in the markets - and was feeling deeply shocked.

"Forget about the events of the past 12 months . . . the punters are back punting as aggressively as ever," he wrote. "Highly leveraged short-term trades are back in vogue as players . . . jostle to load up on everything from Reits [real estate investment trusts] and commercial property, commodities, emerging markets and regular stocks and bonds.