The stabilisation in global bond markets has not been long lived with the selling of longer duration maturities resuming with some passion. Global markets are again being weighed upon by the poor performance of the European bond markets. The implications are wide – and stretch as far as Australian bank stocks.

One of the themes that came up a number of times during the range of meetings during my recent trip to North America was about where the next crisis was most likely to come from. In particular there was focus on how the banking industry was likely to cope during some future financial crisis.