For Irving Kahn it was the start of his career. He worked on Wall Street at the time of the stock market crash in 1929.

But as he recalls, he was one of the luckier ones."I got my pay cut to 60 dollars a week. And I remember my rich employer saying to me 'Why are you smiling?'. And I said 'I thought you were going to fire me'."

At the age of 103, Mr Kahn may be the oldest working financial analyst on Wall Street.

He is chairman of Kahn Brothers, a New York investment firm, and still goes to the office every day searching for undervalued stocks.

So what does he make of recent events?

Mr Kahn warns against drawing close parallels between what the US went through then and the present financial problems.