So even when you see a fund manager with an impressively consistent record, you may be seeing luck, not skill or insight.And if you buy funds that have already had lucky strategies, you’ll likely find that you got in just in time for luck to run out

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s warned on Thursday that the euro zone crisis was entering a “stubborn phase of subdued growth” in what it says is a new stage in the region’s economic crisis.

 British American Tobacco PLC Wednesday said revenue in the first nine months of its financial year grew by 2.4% at constant foreign-exchange rates, as it raised its tobacco prices, but said that in sterling terms it was hit hard by the strength of the pound.

On 18 September, the FTSE/JSE All Share Index closed at 51 547. Over the next month it headed steadily downwards to reach a close of 47 836 on Friday 17 October. That is a drop of 7.2% over that 30 day period. Overall, the index is 8.4% off its highest close of 52 242 achieved towards the end of July.

For months analysts and market commentators have warned that the local market is overvalued and that a correction may be on the cards. Since its peak the JSE All Share (Alsi) has pulled back by roughly 10%

Old Mutual announced in a statement this morning that it had priced the OM Asset Management IPO at $14.00 per share, with the offering expected to close on October 15. The shares are scheduled to start trading today on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol ‘OMAM’.

Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science & Technology Co. (002506), the first company to default in China’s onshore bond market, got a guarantee to help make repayments from a state-backed fund that buys bad debt.

Bloomberg News  Oct 8, 2014 

Stagnation in Europe and a weaker-than-forecast recovery in Japan has led the International Monetary Fund to again cut its global growth outlook, according to forecasts released Tuesday. The IMF sees a 30% chance the euro area will re-enter recession.

The Federal Reserve may go from moving the goal posts to removing them altogether when it comes to setting interest rate expectations. Under the new approach, the Fed will not be dictated by a specific data set or two but rather by the larger economic picture.

European Markets were sucked into the storm before the ECB’s monthly policy meeting where pressure is intensifying on it to launch an aggressive government bond purchase programme. Markets in both China and Hong Kong had been closed for public holidays but sustained civil unrest in Hong Kong is also weighing on investor confidence