"A minor question about your (our!) Top 10 portfolio and some of your observations: There has recently been a swing towards Japanese equities as an investment, and having looked at the JPM Small co's Trust (JPS LN) graph, I was impressed with its potential. Would you say it is (was) well managed, and are there other Japanese Trusts (UK) which would be worth looking at?

David Fuller's view You can check the relative performance of UK-listed investment trusts for Japan by searching the Library under 'Japan' and also 'Japanese'.

I have not studied their relative performance closely but my overall impression is that there is not much difference. Japan is not a Fullermoney theme but it may have catch-up potential, once the yen weakens sufficiently to give the export sector a boost. If this also lifted the Japanese economy out of its deflationary slough and boosted consumption, the stock market could do quite well.

However, Japan may have lost some of its laggard appeal as other stock markets experience corrections. I would only consider nibbling on weakness in the current environment but may prefer a more robust alternative, such as a pan-Asian emerging market IT.

Meanwhile, the Southern European sovereign debt crisis (Greece, Portugal, Spain & Italy) will weigh on investor sentiment until yields are seen to have peaked. This is clearly not the case today although yields are acclerating at an unsustainable rate. Wall Street remains edgy over regulatory proposals. Additionally, yesterday's 10-minute meltdown - perhaps due to a 'fat finger' but certainly aggravated by algorithmic trading programmes - looks both dangerous and farcical. It would be surprising if some funds and banks were not holed beneath their waterline by this event, although confirmation of these losses may not surface immediately.

This is a scary passage for investors who are experiencing profit erosion. Without meaning to be flippant, stuff happens, to coin a phrase. The good news is that indiscriminate, albeit understandable, selling of assets which have little to do with Southern Europe or Wall Street creates additional buying opportunities in favoured investment themes. Lastly, these events are not without an element of black humour. CNBC's background music for the US edition of Squawk Box this morning was from the Schwarzenegger epic, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.