It probably won’t last; I expect Wall Street to be back to its usual arrogance within weeks if not days.

As far as we can tell, it used the market for derivatives — complex financial instruments — to make a huge bet on the safety of corporate debt, something like the bets that the insurer A.I.G. made on housing debt a few years ago.

This system gave us half a century of relative financial stability. Eventually, however, the lessons of history were forgotten.

No loopholes, no exemptions, no exceptions, no compromise, no ambiguous language. Until Congress reinstates it, moral hazard governs and the losers will be the Americans taxpayers. History will keep repeating itself unless politics and money are taken out of the equation.

Standard Chartered said developers’ concerns over the property market were reflected in data showing residential investment hitting the wall in April, growing just 4% during the month, compared to a 15.1% year-on-year rise in March.

Cash flooded into Britain; more than 140 billion euros was deposited in four big banks alone. The UK benefits from its position outside the eurozone and its Asia-focused banks HSBC and Standard Chartered are seen as particular safe-havens. Other banks to see big inflows included Barclays, Germany’s Deutsche Bank, Switzerland’s Credit Suisse and UBS and Russia’s Sberbank and VTB.

Bankia SA, the country's fourth-largest lender, saw its shares fall as much as 27 percent during trading in Madrid after the El Mundo newspaper reported the bank was hit with more than €1 billion ($1.27 billion) of withdrawals since the government announced the takeover.

Greek president Karolos Papoulias warned party leaders during unsuccessful coalition talks that about €700 million ($898 million) in deposits have flown out of Greek banks since the May 6 elections, according to a report from Greece's central bank governor, George Provopoulos

the interest rate on Spanish 10-year bonds stood at a worryingly high 6.29 percent. It has risen sharply from below 5 percent in March and is edging toward the 7 percent mark that is considered unsustainable in the longer term.