Markets plunge around the world

[projekktor id=’20570′]

If you were trading stocks today, or worrying about your retirement income, chances are, you’ve had a pretty rough day. Markets in Europe and North America plunged in early morning trading, making life tense for investors, both large and small.

The problem isn’t North America, which is good news for the United States, and at least a little bit of comfort for Canada. But while the U.S. economy is showing promising signs of revival, Canada is not as fortunate. In fact at the moment, Canada has one of the weakest stock markets, in the world.

When the NYSE opened this morning the big board was on a downward dive and everyone was being affected. For several months now, there have been worried whispers about China, which is the second largest economy in the world.

“The Chinese economy isn’t exactly crashing, that’s a terrible word to say but the Chinese economy is slowing.” explains Eric Lam, from Bloomberg News.

And that’s especially bad news, for Canada because we export so many raw materials to China, oil in particular.

Lam says the last week has wiped out nearly a year of market gains, but we’re still nowhere near the global recession of 2008.