Greece, China and monetary policy

To say that 2015 was not a good year for stocks would be a bit of an understatement - even Wall Street, aided by a recovering economy and several years of massive monetary stimulus, has not performed while for the Straits Times Index, the loss was a sobering 14.3 per cent.

The main themes of 2015 were the threat of a "Grexit'' or Greek exit from the eurozone in the first six months, a drastically slowing China economy in the second half that sent its over-valued and over-leveraged stock market into a tailspin, and the divergent monetary policies of central banks - the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates last month (its first hike in seven years) even as the People's Bank of China and European Central Bank moved in the opposite direction.

At its peak in June the Straits Times Index gained about 9 per cent for 2015, but all of this and more was wiped out by the end of the year as rising geopolitical risk, worries about rising interest rates and an aversion to all emerging markets set in.