In decoupling we trust. It is a distant memory now, but when the US Federal Reserve started cutting rates five months ago, it ignited a global rally.

This was greatest in the emerging markets. The theory was that we were staging a repeat of 1999, when emergency rate cuts made to stave off a crisis (the implosion of Long Term Capital Management) inflated a bubble in sectors that did not need cheaper money. For technology stocks in 1999, read the big “Bric” emerging markets – Brazil, Russia, India and China – in 2007.