Jumping but jumpy

If ever there was a year in which, as the saying goes, “to sell in May and go away”, this was surely it. Spooked by tales of wrongdoing and corporate excess, the equity markets did what comes naturally when confidence drains away: they dived. From the beginning of May, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood above 10,000, it slid to a low in July of 7,702. The broader S&P 500 index and London's FTSE 100 followed similar routes south.