EASY MONEY ENDS

WORLD BRACES as an era of easy money draws to an end. With the Stock plunge a very solid remainder that global market still takes its cues from U.S. economy.

Mere days ago, in what feels like a different era now, the biggest thing that people in control of money appeared to fear was complacency.

Stock Markets in the United States were surging, enthralled by the regulation-slashing, tax-shrinking predilections of President Trump. Every major economy in the world was expanding.

THE WORST that could happen, the money masters averred, was that investors would be lulled into reckless investments, taking on too much risk in the belief that the dangers of the marketplace had been tamed.

As it turns out, the dangers were already at work.

A decade-long era of easy access to money engineered by central banks in Asia, Europe and the United States was ending, opening a new chapter in which-

Corporations would have  pay more to borrow and ordinary people would have to pay more to finance homes, cars and other purchases.

To digest the wild swings in stocks and bonds from New York to London to Tokyo is to absorb this uncomfortable realization taking hold.

Investors concluded that interest rates would rise faster than they had anticipated , almost certainly in the  United States, and perhaps eventually in Europe and Asia, too.

They yanked their treasure out of stocks and entrusted it to safer repositories of wealth like bonds and cash.

A wave of selling commenced in New York on Friday, writes Peter S. Goodman,  continued in Asia and Europe on Monday and then completed its transglobal journey with a sharp drop where it had all started.

While a global rout continued into Tuesday, anxiety subsided in the United States, with a Standard & Poor's 500-stock index up 1.7% at the close.

No degree in finance was required to divine the lesson of the moment :
 
Markets go down as well as up, a reality often drowned out by a euphoric celebrations to greet one record or another being shattered.