Markets plunge into 2016

Markets fell heavily last week amid anxiety about global growth exacerbated by persistant Chinese renminbi devaluation.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index plunged 6 percent last week, the biggest decline since September 2011 and the worst start to a year over five days on record.

Elsewhere, China, the biggest contributor to investors' anxiety last week, saw its Shanghai Composite Index plunge 10 percent, while in Europe, the STOXX 600 Index lost 6.7 percent for its biggest decline in four years.

While financial markets have been sent into turmoil by the negative signals coming out of China, Nobel-prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz thinks that China is facing "a slow process of slowing down" but "not a cataclysmic" one.

Indeed, a survey of economists by Bloomberg showed that the country that is expected to do worst in 2016 is Venezuela, where the economy is forecast to contract 3.3 percent.