'It’s a bit early yet to speak of a serious downfall in the global economy, at least because even the world’s leading economists and central banks aren’t able to come up with any adequate statements yet,’ Unicom Partner Investment Company’s Asset Management Director Sergei Kaliberda said to UrBC, relating to the recent lowest-ever decrease in Russian stock markets’ indices (MICEX index lost 4.29% and RTS index dropped by 4.41%).

'I believe, however, that a certain slowing down of global economic growth is to be expected, and the current situation is grave enough. The root of the evil lies in the badly coordinated policies of the world’s largest central banks and the ‘buy now and pay later’ principle that has become so popular with the developed countries. As these countries’ populations were thus able to spend much more than they earned, the global markets ended up with numerous financial ‘soap bubbles’ that are bound to explode,’ he explained.

'The U.S. mortgage lending market is one such ‘soap bubble’ - one of the many that started to explode last year. This trend is likely to continue. Given that unlimited consumption and easily obtained loans were the driving force behind the economies of both the U.S. and a lot of Asian countries (whose marketing outlets are largely based in the United States and Europe), the crisis is certain to affect the whole world’s economic growth,’ Mr. Kaliberda said.

'As for the shares of large Russian companies, I am inclined to think they are most likely to plummet. We have been ignoring the bad news from the West for too long, and this bad news is way too serious. For the time being, I’d say RTS index is not likely to drop below 2,100 points,’ he noted.