New year brings same old fears for sluggish financial markets

“Nothing changes on New Year’s Day,” the U2 song says, and this certainly has been the case in financial markets during the first week of 2016.

Old worries about the slowdown in the Chinese economy and sluggishness of global growth, weighed heavily on risk appetite.

World stock markets suffered heavy losses, with chaotic and truncated trading on Chinese equity markets which fell by 10% in the week.