StatsGuru: In a new year, new worries and risks

It has been a turbulent first week of 2015. As Table 1 shows, the shake-up in several emerging markets has been sizeable. In fact, some other financial markets have also shown similar movements. As Table 2 demonstrates, currency movements have been stark. The dollar has gained against most major currencies - the rupee being one key exception. But most interesting perhaps have been the government bond markets over the past week. US treasury bills, shown in Table 3, have seen a sudden drop in yield - meaning that there has been a marked increase in demand for T-Bills.

In some ways, these movements in the first week reinforce movements that took place over 2014. As Table 4 shows, the dollar has strengthened for much of 2014. And Table 5 demonstrates that, in most cases, bond yields have been falling. (For a relatively stable economy, India has higher bond yields than most countries which can be partially but not wholly explained by higher inflation, shown in Table 6.) But the question that many are asking is: Does a sharp increase in demand for government debt suggest concerns among investors about the risk in the world economy? Certainly, gold price movements over the past few months - reversing a decreasing trend, as Table 7 reveals - suggest there's something to them.