There may be trouble ahead

The beginning of October was a tough time for the global stock exchanges – indexes across Europe fell to their lowest levels for six months and in some cases even for the last two years (including the London FTSE, the Paris CAC, the Spanish IBEX and the Italian FTSE MIB). The reason for this could be found in the US, where concerns about the rising cost of money have been casting a shadow over investors and prices have been plummeting. This prompted the US president to launch a tirade against the “crazy” Federal Reserve for putting interest rates up. This rise is certainly not good news for the global exchanges, but it will also have an affect on the economies of developing countries, especially in South-East Asia and South America, which mainly help to finance the US dollar. Any increase in interest rates and debt servicing costs is only going to hinder the growth of these economies. When the weakening Chinese economy (a condition that could also spread to its neighb