As expected, but disappointingly, US Federal Reserve did not raise interest rates on Wed. The reasons for my pessimism for the current economic conditions are explained in What Have We Got After 8 Years of Easy Money? Unless we see evidence of coordinated fiscal stimulus from governments around the world to increase aggregate demand, more liquidity via easy monetary conditions will only lead to more value destruction as we have seen so far. Given the precarious investing environment, I have been gradually taking money off the table and building up my defences, before everyone else starts to rush for the exit. Based on the experience of the last 12 months, I believe the exit might be narrower than most people expect.

12 months is not a long time. However, over the same period, we have had at least 3 market declines, namely: