A matter of days ago you'd be forgiven for thinking markets were collapsing around our ears. Headlines screamed of stock market falls not seen since the last recession and every index around the world appeared to be plummeting in sympathy with China's stock market crash.
But after two days of high drama, China stepped in to cut rates and European markets picked up. Commentators are calling this rout an opportunity rather than a disaster and fund managers are seeing this as a time to hunt for value.
China's ticking time-bomb finally went off this week, unleashing the crash that many have been anticipating for some time. With everyone on holiday, the impact of China's surprise decision to devalue the yuan on 11 August in a bid to prop up its ailing economy had a particularly vicious impact. By lunchtime on Monday 24 August the FTSE 100 had fallen by more than 4.5 per cent, wiping in excess of £60bn off the index, and it continued to fall throughout the day. In the US, the Dow Jones also plummeted in early trading, losing more than 1,000 points almost immediately when markets opened – the worst drop in a day since 2008.