But these factors put us in the best position to ride through this particular event, even if it does get worse. Stepping back from the immediate issues, a final question worth posing is: what lessons might we take away from watching the travails in Europe? One is that vulnerabilities can remain latent for a long time, then materialise very rapidly.
Markets can happily tolerate something for an extended period without much reaction, then suddenly react very strongly as some trigger brings the issue into clearer focus.