The runaway train that is the US stock market has now been rattling along so far and so fast that some investors are wondering whether they can hop off without breaking a limb.
It is a tricky manoeuvre. As key markets hunker down for a long weekend, the S&P 500 index of blue-chip US stocks has wrapped up the first quarter of this year with a gain of 10 per cent, on top of the 11 per cent climb in the final quarter of last year.
A few European indices, such as Germany’s Dax and Italy’s FTSE MIB, can match or even beat that in local currency terms, and Japan remains in go-go mode. Even the UK’s FTSE 100 is edging to its own record high, with all the grace of Mr Bean on ice skates, in a force 10 gale, carrying two bowls of custard, in the dark. A win’s a win, but at more like 3 per cent, first-quarter gains there are much more modest.