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So farewell Bernie Ebbers, former chief executive of WorldCom, the long-distance phone operator that became America’s biggest-ever bankruptcy case in 2002. Ebbers has died aged 78, having been released on health grounds in December from a 25-year jail sentence for his part in an accounting fraud that concealed the perilous state of WorldCom’s finances, misleading investors after a series of high-risk acquisitions by the bejeweled ‘telecom cowboy’ Ebbers during the dotcom boom. By repute, US justice aims to make examples of high-profile corporate miscreants, starting with the humiliating ‘perp walk’ into court and concluding with harsh sentences and scant hope of parole.

Has ‘Jay’ Powell gone wobbly, or does he know something we don’t? That was the question being asked after the US Federal Reserve, of which Powell is chairman, kept dollar interest rates on hold last week — rather than continuing to notch them upwards as it has been doing for two years — and hinted that the next move might actually be downwards. Trade tension with China, the impact of Donald Trump’s government shutdown and the risk of a no-deal Brexit were all cited as ‘cross-currents’ affecting the decision, but pundits led by Wall Street ‘bond king’ Jeffrey Gundlach declared the Fed to be ‘caving in’ to the demands of the stock market and the President.