Is a wall of Chinese money about to hit global markets? On Friday regulators prised open the window and gave mainland investors their first opportunity to invest in foreign equities – raising the prospect that China will start decanting $4,400bn of bank savings into overseas markets.

That is some way off. Beijing has lifted restrictions on investing up to half the existing quotas for overseas investment – dubbed qualified domestic institutional investor, or QDII – in equities. That implies potential outflows of just $7bn-$9bn. Hong Kong’s bourse, the obvious first port of call, can turn over more than that in a day. And even that amount may not be unleashed immediately. The attractions of, say, Hong Kong stocks pale when contrasted to the domestic market, up 48 per cent this year in local-currency terms.