The US Federal Reserve’s intervention in the fate of Bear Stearns, the Wall Street investment bank, might have marked a “turning point” in the latest financial market turmoil, according to Stanley Fischer, the governor of the Bank of Israel.

Mr Fischer, who as first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund played a central role in tackling the Asian and Russian financial crises in the late 1990s, said that the Fed’s action had calmed the panic in the financial markets.