In the latter part of 2008, the value of world trade plummeted as availability of trade finance evaporated at the same time that global economic growth slowed drastically.

Its not fundamentals that are driving equity markets and responsible for the current weakness. Fundamentals were bound to weaken once the first round of inventory restocking had taken place and the benefits of cost cutting had been realized. The world economy is still weak, but in a recovery phase, and conditions have returned to normal,

  Debt levels as a percentage of GDP:

Having attended various lectures by academics, regulators, central bankers and investors in the opening weeks of 2010, and being surprised at the diversity of views among the experts, I thought to look back at the 2008 credit crisis in a bit more detail to see what I missed. I tried to look back at the

The equity markets have been weak on the sovereign risk scares in Greece, Spain and Portugal. As much as this, employment numbers in the US have now come in below forecast in the last 4 weeks. People out of work tend to stop their efforts in December as the year comes to a close because