The investment banker finishes the last forkful of his fish, leans back in his chair, plants his fists on the table edge and, gazing into the middle distance, appears to reflect. "I probably shouldn't tell you this," he says after a short pause, "but this firm had its best day ever for sales commissions yesterday. Not its best day this year," he hastens to add. "I mean the best day in its history."
Ten days have passed since the destruction and mass murder at the World Trade Centre in New York and in many small ways the natural order in the financial world is starting to reassert itself. Investment bankers are competitive, ruthless and driven by the desire to make money. Rather than panicking because world stock markets have fallen sharply since the attack - the same markets that they were encouraging investors to buy into until recent months - equity traders are delighted to be earning commissions on huge volumes in share trading as those same investors scurry to get out.