For stock markets around the world, August has been a wicked month. After successfully shrugging off the Asian crisis since autumn, the dying days of summer saw investors succumb at last to the steady drip-feed of bad news from the Far East and Russia and panic, sending stock markets around the world southward as they fled equities for the safer havens of government bonds.

Even Ireland, with its much-vaunted sound economic fundamentals and its lack of exposure to many of the world's trouble spots, did not remain immune to the downturn in global stock markets.

Although the warning signs had been there since the middle of August, it took the Russian central bank's decision of August 27th to suspend foreign currency trade on the main exchange and rumours that President Boris Yeltsin had resigned to really rattle investors and send equity markets into reverse.

On Wall Street, the Dow plunged by more than 350 points, dragging European markets, including Dublin, in its wake. The ISEQ plunged to its lowest level for six months as nearly £2 billion was wiped off the value of shares. "It was pretty savage," one dealer noted on the day.

However, brokers and bankers reported no real sense of fright among private clients. "There has been very little panic compared to 1987 or the Gulf War," said Mr Trevor Cullen, director of BCP Stockbrokers.

Like many other brokers, he said he had an extensive list of purchase orders from private investors, keen to buy into the market when the dust settled.

But there were some individual stories of hard financial choices to be made. "I had one client who was purchasing a house and the sale was about to close. He had envisaged selling some of his shares to pay for it but the shares were worth 20 to 25 per cent less than a month ago," one broker reported.

However, dealers were quick to point out there were two sides to every trade and every story. "For every guy crying at the moment, there's one who is delighted he sold two months ago," one trader noted.

Dealers said one reason investors remained relatively calm was that many had seen the gains of the first half eroded but were still sitting on sizeable profits clocked up in the rally of the last three years. Investors notched up gains of up to 50 per cent last year alone and to undo that would require the market to continue sharply downward in a straight line.

Strong interim results from the likes of AIB, CRH, Kerry and Kingspan also reassured investors while the less positive out-turns from Waterford Wedgwood, Independent and Smurfit had already been priced into those shares, dealers said.

Brokers said there was some concern about the structural and technical issues facing the Irish market - including the fact that many domestic institutional investors are set to scale down their holdings of Irish stocks in favour of European equities ahead of the introduction of the euro. But traders said the impact of this issue was likely to be limited for the moment by the good value offered by certain Irish stocks.

By general consensus, Friday morning provided the most nerve-wracking moment of the recent crisis in the Dublin market.

The Irish bourse closed on Thursday before the full scale of Wall Street's fall became evident and the Dow's sufferings were reflected in Dublin early on Friday as leading shares like CRH and AIB plunged by more than 5 per cent within minutes. "There was a sense of panic in the Irish market for the first time since the Far East and Russian crises began. It was all very reminiscent of October 1987 for a while," said one dealer.

Although the market later recovered, hauled off its lows by bargain-hunters, it closed more than 3 per cent lower with some £1.5 billion wiped off the value of Irish shares. Some dealers continued to look on the bright side, however. "I prefer markets like this," said one trader, late on Friday. "It's better to get all your pain over in one go than have a bear market drip-feeding through for two years."

By Monday evening, he may have changed his mind, however, as Wall Street nosedived, losing more than 6 per cent in one of its biggest falls since the 1987 crash. Dublin shares plunged by 2 per cent, followed by a 5 per cent drop on Tuesday, which left the market down almost 26 per cent from its April 21st all-time high and worth £11 billion less.

Since then, markets have been having a bit of a rollercoaster ride. "It's been very volatile, very choppy, very hard to stand over prices from one moment to the next," said one dealer.

Although many institutional investors have been in the market to pick up certain stocks at the lower levels, the collapse has sent many back to the drawing board and some are coming to the conclusion that the global equity rally may be over at last. "There is nothing in the world that would make us terribly optimistic right now. The economic picture is darkening by the day," said Mr Pat Woods, investment manager Ireland at Standard Life. "There is a debate going on about the direction the global economy and stock markets are going. But I am leaning more to the view that the bull run in equities may be over."