Whatever happened to the bounce in equities? A week ago the UK's FTSE 100 index, for instance, was in fine fettle, up 450 points from the low and back through 6,000. Then it lost two-thirds of that in three trading days. Some rally.

One explanation may be that too many big brokers - and this column, for that matter - had warned that a bear rally was in order after an atrocious January, but was not to be trusted. So investors believed the second bit and gave the whole thing a miss.