James Thompson

So what does that tell us?

I think it tells us a couple of things.

One is that there was a lot of short selling on markets.

And, you know, a lot of people betting that markets would go down.

Now they're being forced to cover those short bets and that helps push markets up.

There are some numbers out there that particularly in the US that shows not a lot of actual buying's being done at the moment.

It's a lot of it is short selling.

The other thing is this rally is very narrow in the US.

The proportion of stocks hitting all 52-week highs during these last 10 days is as low as it's been for one of these types of rallies in the last 30 years.

So we are seeing junky stocks run really hard, but we're not seeing low-volume and quality stocks run very hard.

So again, another sign of maybe a bit of underlying fragility.

And the other thing, Anthony, is this a lot of relief.

Investors are an optimistic bunch.

They want markets to go up.

They're always looking 12 months ahead.

And throughout this crisis, they've been looking 12 months ahead.

They want this to be over.

But that, to me, it doesn't mean it is over.

I mean, clearly, it's not over in Australia.

The fires rammed that message home.