Data & financial journalist covering global economics and policy
IMF issued its steepest downgrade for the U.S. among advanced economies, citing rising tariff-related uncertainty and a heightened risk of recession. Global economic sentiment has dimmed, with the IMF now projecting a 37% chance of a U.S. downturn—up sharply from 25% just months ago.
Covid-19 has many unknown factors which, like most pandemics, can impact the willingness to spend, invest and take risks. Uncertainties usually bring economy to a halt due to complete shutdowns of small businesses, production losses and increased unemployment.
Brexit may come at a huge cost to many of the trading nations of Britain. Furthermore,Brexit and its complications can spread to international markets. Britain will vote on June 23 to reach a decision on whether it wants to be a part of European Union or not.
For long, geopolitics seemed to have started playing an important role in deciding the destiny of global financial markets. 2015 has seen contrasting developments, where nearly every market affected the other, irrespective of how much contribution one made to the other’s GDP. The reason could be that globally financial markets remain highly interconnected and if not through investments then through trade, the influence remained inevitable. This article highlights four important economies that could make a difference to global financial markets.