The financial milestones were flashing by yesterday: $1,000 gold, $110 crude oil, a 1 cent yen and parity between the dollar and the Swiss franc made it a bumper day for those who see meaning in the passing of benchmarks and toppling of records. The stress in credit markets is producing seismic changes in the currency and commodity markets.

Gold’s appeal is no surprise. It is regaining its reputation as a safe haven from inflation and the weedy dollar and basking in the fact that, unlike any other security, it does not rely on anyone’s promise to pay, an enticing characteristic in an era when no one’s credit is entirely trusted.

There may well be a long way to go in the gold bull market, but the difficult bit for investors is knowing when to get out. Gold yields nothing and has been a terrible long-run investment. Investors will crystallise their notional gains only by selling and moving back into asset classes they currently hate.

Which brings us to the dollar, which seems almost as shunned as the Zimbabwean version. Hot money is scared off by expected US interest rate cuts, stickier money by worries about a US recession. Japan and the eurozone will soon be screaming for respite since their exporters have to work harder to compete against rivals in America and other countries with dollar pegs. But while the credit crunch persists and US house prices keep falling, these trends look well established.

The good news for Britain is that sterling seems stuck in the middle, strong compared with the dollar but very weak against the euro. Competing with the US is going to be hard, but if ever there were an opportunity for British companies to snaffle customers from the French, Germans and Italians, this is it.

patrick.hosking@thetimes.co.uk

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