Things started out on a slightly less frantic note this week but it was downhill all the way after that. Last week had brought a rush of economic data, especially from the US, which gave us the minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting, the National Association of Purchasing Managers' survey and the non-farm payrolls numbers, all of which were enough to have markets more jittery than a litter of cats on some hot tin roofs.

This week the US kindly gave us Independence Day, which meant that markets were closed on Monday leading to a quieter than usual afternoon, while the rest of the week was light on major numbers too. Of course, I suppose we should be grateful that there was a Monday afternoon at all - had the predictions of Nostradamus come to pass we would have been vaporised at midnight on Sunday and the long bond would have disappeared into oblivion.

However, Nostradamus obviously made a slight error in his days, or we misread his predictions, or he was basically just the same as Irish psychics or whoever it is that you can ring for a confidential and personal reading at something like a pound a minute. Oh well, you get geared up for Armageddon and it fails you yet again.

In a lot of ways the markets have been staring Armageddon in the face yet again for some time now. The Fed's rate hike sent a few players scurrying for cover but, in the end, the Dow went up again and US bonds, while seeing some selling, haven't absolutely collapsed. However, European markets just don't know what way to turn and are in dire need of a soothsayer to get them out of the slough of despondency which envelops them.

Bonds stutter higher, get a nosebleed when they realise that they've gone up and then stagger all the way back down again, helped on their downward journey by a variety of bond-unfriendly rumours and comments from people who should know better.

There was what is coyly termed a relief rally" after the Fed hiked rates by 25 basis points and announced a neutral bias for US rates in the future, but everyone knows that 25 basis points is not enough to cool the rampant US economy.

And the economy is still rampant - the NAPM index confirmed that. Since everyone had, therefore, expected the Fed to announce a tightening bias with another rate hike in August, they've been caught off balance again. Of course nothing is stopping the Fed from tightening again in August anyway, but Fed watchers are on the back heel a bit now.

Meanwhile, in Japan, things are looking up a little. Its major economic report, the Tankan survey, showed slightly more optimism than people had expected which led to the Bank of Japan having to intervene in currency markets to sell the yen for around the fifth time since the middle of June. Japan's aim seems to be to keep the yen above 120 to the dollar so that there isn't a knock-on effect on its export markets.

But Europe is still gloomy and although there's been a slight improvement in business confidence the euro continues to languish at its lows, making trips to the US too darn expensive this year, despite the fact that almost everything you buy in the States is miles cheaper than in Europe. Maybe that's why the European Commissioners have had to hold their most recent bean feast in Marbella . . . I suppose that Irish punters are far more concerned about their holdings of Telecom Eireann shares than anything else in the market at the moment. Banks have lent so much cash for a flutter on the phone system that anybody trying to borrow money for anything else has hit a dry well.

It's a far cry from the days when it took two months to get a phone. There's nothing I can say about Telecom that hasn't been said already, since the newspapers have burnt down a couple of rain forests to analyse and counter-analyse the savvy or recklessness of people who've borrowed hundreds of thousands of pounds to actually get a few hundred shares. Suffice to say that if the privatised Telecom brings out a wall-phone where the cord doesn't end up so curled and twisted that when you lift up the receiver you end up banging your head on the wall, I'll be happy.

I'm very happy to report that Clearway signs have appeared on Commons Street beside the car-park. My sympathies go out to the people who used to park there, but honestly, the whole thing was becoming like a spin on the dodgem cars. There is nothing more difficult or frustrating than trying to see around a bright orange people carrier on one side and the exit of a Range Rover on the other in the certain knowledge that there's also a JCB lurking around the corner.

But I'm less happy to read that the new Department of Health drug refund scheme will mean more expense for people with asthma. I don't know how the scheme works exactly and I'm sure, like everything else, I won't be entitled to claim anything under it, but I would like to point out to the Department of Health that asthma is actually a long-term illness whatever it thinks. My own asthma doesn't stop me doing all the things I want to do (except drink red wine which always makes me wheeze) but that's because I use my preventative inhaler, which is twice the price of the relieving inhalers.

To buy the very effective drugs you need to control asthma can cost anything from £15 (€19.05) to £50 a month. I'm lucky that I can afford to pay it (although it's very irritating to spend that sort of money on an assortment of sprays) but it's a big burden for people who can't.

By encouraging the use of preventative inhalers, the Government would naturally save a lot of money as it's significantly more expensive to treat someone in hospital than for them to take two puffs of an inhaler morning and evening.

I had intended to trek to the local UCI to see the movie Rogue Trader at the weekend, but circumstances prevented me. I've heard mixed reports on the film, but so far anyone I've met who works in the markets thinks it's awful and anyone who doesn't is a little more enthusiastic. While there's no doubt that Leeson was a menace in Singapore, it is, of course, the erstwhile Barings management which should take the rap. His job was to trade. Its job was to stop him.

I wonder if Nostradamus predicted that one?