When will the oil price start to cause true macroeconomic pain? Once it does, it could create stagflation – something that is still not with us, given enduring strength in US manufacturing and growth in the emerging world. It will also, probably, reduce demand for oil and hence start to push the price down.

Other commodities have gone off the boil, with the S&P GSCI non-energy commodity index falling 13.5 per cent since mid-March while the energy index has gained 22.6 per cent. So attention now focuses on oil.