Looking at the wild swings and staggering volatility in the world's equity markets, as investors panic out of everything except gold, you might think so. More poor economic data from the US has added to the negative feeling that despite all efforts to kick start the global economy, it just isn't working.

We could be heading into a bear market however, but whatever the terminology is, if you are not holding gold or silver, or maybe Autonomy shares (takeover poss by HP, up 75% this morning )you could be nursing a huge loss.

The fear this time is that there is not that much left in the box of tricks that can help and we have both Europe and the US staggering along with flatline growth, while Japan recovers from the devastating effects  the tsunami has had on it's economy.

Banks are in for special treatment, with UK banks not alone in suffering losses of over 16% in a two day selling frenzy,yesterday and at opening today, as the spectre of a Bank transaction tax proposed once again, by France and Germany still hangs over all banks.

The feeling is that any Bank tax needs to be world wide or Banks, as Barclays have already hinted recently, will move to where they are not taxed, so a fine line is being walked here.

There are better industries to be working in at the moment.