The debut of Alibaba.com on the Hong Kong stock exchange has already set a record, even before its initial public offering on Tuesday. Expected to raise $1.5bn (£720m, €1bn), the listing attracted unprecedented levels of interest during investor roadshows last month. Demand in Hong Kong for the $375m retail allocation of shares was an astounding $58bn, while there was $160bn in orders for the $1bn worth of shares allocated to global institutions.

The website is China’s fastest-growing online business-to-business marketplace, But the optimism surrounding its IPO is due mainly to gravity-defying equity markets and booming corporate activity across Asia, which has prompted some cheerleaders to suggest that the region’s economies are “decoupling” from those of the west – and in particular the US, traditionally the world’s economic locomotive.