"A sad chapter in the history of American business," intoned William Donaldson, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, last week as he announced that 10 of the biggest names in US investment banking were coughing up $1.4bn (£871m) for publishing research they knew was wrong.

A sad chapter it may have been, but it is not the end of the story. The final chapter in the extraordinary narrative of the 1990s internet boom is still being written. It will not end until the prison gates slam on at least some of the participants. But we can already begin drawing the morals of the tale.