After ten years of significant levels of monetary accommodation, the Federal Reserve (Fed) has finally announced the long-anticipated unwinding of their $4.5 trillion balance sheet.
It’s been an eventful year for markets and countries around the world. The S&P 500’s small 0.73% loss is its worst performance since the flat return of 2011 and the first negative price performance since 2008.
Markets and the global economy are not too far from the trajectory they were on at the beginning of the year, despite all the international drama.
A Strong Start to the Year The S&P 500 has risen by almost 7% so far in 2012, causing investors to wonder whether the economy is slowly improving or whether this growth was merely the result of the January effect. Global economic news have generally been positive-it included China’s slight drop in fourth-quarter GDP (as