The danger that exit strategies pose to markets

THE Year of the Horse seems determined to go out bucking and rearing and doing as much damage as it can before galloping off for another dozen years. Enter now the Year of the (more docile) Sheep or Goat promising, if we believe the Chinese zodiac, calm to markets shaken by recent events.

If only it were all so simple and predictable.Truth be told, we may be entering a year that could make even the highly-strung Horse look like a kitten.The Chinese Horse year is ending not with a whimper but a bang (to reverse poet TS Eliot's famous line) and it is understandable to wonder why.

All is supposed to be going relatively smoothly and according to plan on the economic front. The US economy is recovering after a strong and apparently successful dose of monetary easing, Japan is taking the same medicine while the European Union appears ready to begin a similar course.