Have we seen the worst? That's the question bankers, issuers and investors are asking after the spectacular recoveries in several emerging stock markets and the reopening of various sectors of the bond and equity markets.
In emerging markets, equity indices have regained much of the ground lost since the beginning of the year. Even where investors are still concerned - for example in Brazil - equity markets have stabilized. The panic that has characterized emerging market investment is slowly subsiding and a number of US money managers are now launching new emerging-market funds to take advantage of low prices.
More generally, the blind stampede into only the safest-haven paper seems to have subsided. Bond market commentators have been pointing out for some time that if investors keep shunning spread paper then we are simply swapping one asset price bubble for another. Buyers have heeded the warnings and profit takers have cashed out. Treasury yields now look more sensible.
In Europe, NTL reopened the high-yield market - true most of the buyers were US-based and, also true, the company paid nearly 300 basis points more this time than it did just months earlier, but for a market that even its greatest proponents were saying would be closed for months this is good news.