People In The Know

The first trading day of 2016 on the Chinese mainland stock market closed earlier than expected, after a 7 percent slump triggered the newly-introduced circuit breaker mechanism, bringing trading to a halt. The sharp falls in China have been blamed on the contraction of the country's manufacturing sector.Globally, Wall Street continued the trend, with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 closing down more than 1.5 percent, and Nasdaq down 2 percent.Other Asian markets also fell, while in Europe, the FTSE 100 closed down 2.6 percent and Germany's Dax index dropped 4.3 percent.Meanwhile, news that Saudi Arabia had broken off diplomatic ties with Iran sent oil and gold prices higher.So, was this stock market turbulence unexpected? Is this a sign that concerns about the Chinese economy are not yet over? And what's the outlook for global financial markets in 2016? PIK speaks with Julian Evans-Pritchard, China Economist at Capital Economics, an economic think tank based in Singapore, Victor Gao, chairman