Two theories to explain the year-to-date global dumpathon. The first is that it's all local issues - no single macro story explains the depth of the sell off. Some examples (and why they are individually no big deal):

+ Turkey is facing big domestic political/economic problems – it’s no surprise that some of the ‘air’ is coming out of the currency, bonds and equities that were so recently loved. All in, Turkey is now cheap – one should buy this dip.

+ South Africa is facing labor issues. This explains the drop in the Rand. This is not a ‘contagion’ story. It’s an isolated case.

+ Brazil is temporarily suffering from some weakness in other ... Read more »

Nick Brown does not look like your average student. He's 53 for a start and at 6ft 4in with a bushy moustache and an expression that jackknifes between sceptical and alarmed, he is reminiscent of a mid-period John Cleese. He can even sound a bit like the great comedian when he embarks on an extended sardonic riff, which he is prone to do if the subject rouses his intellectual suspicion.

A couple of years ago that suspicion began to grow while he sat in a lecture at the University of East London, where he was taking a postgraduate course in applied positive psychology. There was a slide showing a butterfly graph – the branch of mathematica ... Read more »