A week that has seen the most dramatic upset to world markets for a decade made surprisingly undramatic reading overall.

In the space of 30 minutes on Tuesday, the FTSE 100 index fell nearly 10 per cent. The slide would have been the biggest ever in points terms and the third biggest in percentage terms.

And by the end of the day the index was down more than 10 per cent from its peak of 5,330.8 on October 3rd.

But the blue-chip index bounced off the bottom on Tuesday. It rallied further on Wednesday and recovered a bit more ground yesterday when Footsie ended up 40.4 on the day at 4,842.3.

After five days of wild swings, London's principal stock index was down 2.6 per cent - not encouraging but not the disaster scenario of earlier predictions.

In fact, it was the volume yesterday and not the price performance that told the real story.

At 6 p.m., only 604.5 million shares had changed hands, much less than normal on an average day.

The volumes indicated that, although they have the heaviest cash weightings for years, big institutional investors have been staying out of the market until volatility settles and a clearer direction emerges.

As for the market, it swung around in much the same way it has swung around all week, responding to overseas market moves which have little fundamental influence but a strong emotional impact.