Back during the dark days of the Asian Financial crisis, the sell-down in Straits Times Index and other regional bourses was relentless. Investors watched in horror as the value of their portfolios got smaller and smaller with each passing day. When the STI hit 800 points on 4 Sept 1998 – from 1,700 just six months ago, a panic-stricken remisier came up to his head of equities research and said: “Oh no! We only have 8 days to go before we hit zero!” The logic was that, if the STI continued to fall by 100 points a day, there would only be eight days left of the market.

It sounds funny now when the story is recounted. But at that time, that was a very real fear of investors, market participants alike. The numbers on the screens represented one’s wealth. Every point of decline in the index would translate ...