Australia is only one of two countries in the world along with South Africa that feels a rise in interest rates poses a huge risk to global markets in 2015, according to the CFA Institute.
The CFA Institute’s 2015 Global Market Sentiment Survey showed Australia differs from its global counterparts when it comes to the importance of interest rates, world GDP and emerging market economies.
CFA Society of Sydney president Anthony Serhan said the view on interest rates indicates the importance of US markets and the question of what will be the consequence on financial assets when rates go up in the market.
“Global annual inflation rates continue to remain low and leading economists have suggested that falling bond yields and lower levels of global growth may instead produce the reverse, a risk of deflation,” he said.
The global survey of over 5,250 CFA-member investment professionals showed Australia is also less optimistic on global GDP growth compared to the world, predicting a global and domestic GDP growth of 1.6 per cent, compared to global predictions of three per cent.
Respondents to the survey also saw weakness in the emerging market economies as the biggest threat (33 per cent), and Serhan said this was understandable given Australia’s dependence on China.
He said Chinese equity market performance was the top performer (nine per cent), second to the US (33 per cent).
