Remember all that talk of “decoupling”? That was the idea that the stock markets of fast-growing economies, particularly in Asia, would no longer be beholden to Wall Street’s every move. They would better reflect the attractive characteristics of their home countries and soar – while western markets drowned in a soup of huge debts, worsening demographics and burdensome regulation.

Decoupling is indeed happening, but not quite in the way originally imagined. In the land of the free – where a giant debt clock in Times Square chronicles the inexorable growth of America’s indebtedness and bickering politicians can’t even agree what day of the week it is – the main stock index is up 14 per cent so far this year. Most emerging markets lag way behind this and some are even down on the year so far – Brazil has slumped 20 per cent.

What’s going on? Several things. One is that China is transitioning to a slower rate of economic growth based on internal consumption, rather than frantic construction and exports. That’s bad news for any country whose economy depends on exporting raw materials to China – most obviously Australia, but also countries such as Brazil, Russia, Chile and parts of Africa.