Crisis? What crisis? As far as some stock markets are concerned, the credit squeeze is over. The MSCI emerging markets index is at an all-time high, having erased the losses it suffered during the summer correction. That looks like a return to risk-taking as usual.

But the performance of larger companies in the developed markets suggests a different dynamic. The Russell Top 50, covering the biggest US companies, briefly set a new high for the year on Friday and has strongly outperformed the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies over the summer. In Europe, Dow Jones’s Stoxx large-cap index has also regained its high for the year, while small stocks are lagging.