Removing a plaster can be done in two ways. One is by a gentle pulling motion, where you wince as the skin comes with it and you take a break from time to time to deal with the pain. The other is a quick wrench, which leaves you breathless and stunned for a while - but knowing the worst is over.

In the months before September 11th, financial markets were pulling very slowly at that plaster. Every day brought information that left us grimacing. Nobody knew how difficult conditions could become. And it seemed to be going on forever. The rest of that plaster was pulled off in the roughest way imaginable, leaving the whole world stunned and the markets absolutely reeling.

Mr Alan Greenspan is more than right when he says that nobody has the capacity to fathom how events will pan out. Despite analysts and commentators continuing to dig deep into their history books to find parallel shocks to the capitalist system, this has been an extremely difficult event to deal with.

Pulling off the plaster meant that all of the corporate worries that preyed on dealers' minds suddenly came to the fore. Stocks of industries that had question marks over them suddenly became poisoned chalices in portfolios; traders were unwilling to make decisions; uncertainty was - and still is - rife.

Despite the fact that dealers like to think they are masters of the universe and can quickly absorb all the information on any subject they need to make a decent call - nobody knows enough about what is to come to be able to put what has already happened in context.

It's true, however, that financial markets tend to react as brutally on the downside as they can be optimistic on the upside. A recent document, which did the rounds of the desks, shows the reaction of the Dow to a range of crises since the start of the second World War.

When Germany invaded France, the Dow fell around 17 per cent. Two months later, it was up 8.4 per cent. At the start of the Cuban missile crisis, it fell almost 10 per cent. Two months later it was up 21 per cent. In the crash of 1987 it fell 34 per cent; two months later it was up 11.4 per cent. The Long Term Capital Management debacle knocked it down 11 per cent; two months later it was up almost 25 per cent.

Clearly, each crisis and tragedy has its unique features but the bottom line is that the market always rebounds. As regular readers know, I've been pessimistic on prospects for the world economies for quite some time (I was, of course, pessimistic too early, which is a cardinal sin in trading!) But pulling that plaster off so quickly has made a difference to the outlook.

Not that I'm jumping on the bandwagon that says things will turn the corner really quickly. There are still problems. But the scope of them and the response, which had been drip-fed until now, has been compressed into a couple of weeks instead of a couple of months.

A lot of liquidity has been brought to the US markets recently - between additional spending and the airline rescue package, we're looking at around $55 billion (€60 billion), not including the $38 billion tax refund last July and $20 billion for the city of New York, as well as the daily liquidity from central banks.

One thing you can say about the monetary authorities in the States: when they want to act they can act quickly. Which is why, despite the current crisis, the US markets are still down to a lesser extent from their January 2000 highs than European ones.

The fact that Europe isn't seen as an attractive option for investment should surely worry its leaders, but it probably won't. Confidence in the US economy will probably rebound quicker than confidence in Europe and that's a terrible indictment of policymakers on this side of the Atlantic.

Nevertheless, despite the money being pumped into the US, the outlook is still uncertain. It's uncertain because people are uncertain and people are uncertain because none of us can get inside the mind of a terrorist.

There's no doubt that a whole raft of struggling companies will be unable to deal with current circumstances. Everyone is looking at airlines and insurance firms as the most high-profile losers, but the situation is difficult for many others that were already looking at consolidation and layoffs.

So although we might look to the markets for a rebound, there will still be a lot of people out of work in the foreseeable future.

It's the unforeseeable future that's the problem. All of us make plans for our daily lives based on what we've come to know and expect. And although we're often told to expect the unexpected, there are some things that are too difficult to even contemplate.

It's probably the fear of further attacks that will do the most to deter investment, both by individuals and by corporations in the United States. And at the moment it's difficult to separate the fundamentals from the fears. Since the way we look at the fundamentals has probably changed too, it's even difficult to assess them with any great degree of confidence.

But people do get on with their lives, markets do rebound, profits continue to be made - even in the darkest of circumstances.

Usually when the professionals tell us not to panic I become very cynical. It doesn't help them when people want to exit their funds or sell their shares and drive the market lower.

It is impossible to know what will happen in the next few months. But all of the bad economic news has been more than discounted at this point.

Since many executives have expressed a desire not to fly anywhere in the near future, it seems that the prospects for video-conferencing companies are looking stronger. For years, the technology people have been trying to tell us that we can soon meet our colleagues anywhere in the world without ever having to leave our desks. That day might be coming ever closer. When things start to pick up, that damned technology sector might be in the lead again.