Hellish week leaves all but one dazed, confused and treading water

There are growing fears that the one shiny spot in the global gloom - China - is starting to look a little tarnished. Could the Chinese dragon's insatiable appetite for our iron ore and coal be, well, satiable after all? The mere posing of that question sent the resources segment of the S&P/ASX 200 index streaking down 7.4 per cent.

Unable to resist such celestial forces, our racers were scattered to and fro. The market more broadly tanked 2.4 per cent after the banks only subsided slightly.

Resident moon unit Doreen Daze was the best performer of the week, losing a mere 1 per cent of her pile. AFR associate editor Philip Baker lost some ground on the leader but did enough to stay in silver-medal contention. With one week to go, does Phil dare to dream?

Lawyer Amy Dobbin had a dismal five days of trading, dropping from third to sixth. Amy has a volatile mix of stocks, which blew up in her face this week. Central Petroleum was up 14 per cent, but four other small resource companies went the same distance in the other direction.

That let Richard Pritchard step up to third and - whoa! What was that? Pottsy has left the other racers spinning as he explodes out of the basement and up four spots to be just outside medal contention.

Reader John Wyatt was looking good until BlueScope Steel yo-yoed back down again.

Luckily for John, musician Jason Contos couldn't capitalise after Green Rock Energy lost a full quarter of its market capitalisation.