China

From where we sit at the half-way point of the year, it seems that to advocate an argument on whether the market is bullish or bearish is as finely balanced as it has been for a long time.

It has been a challenging year for investors in global mining and energy markets.

The market lows of early March were followed by a swift turnaround in risk appetite, fuelling a sharp rally in equity and credit markets in April and May, ahead of some profit taking in June.

The current economic recovery could just be a pattern that will repeat itself for some time. A plan to escape the malaise is needed

Positive macro data in Q4 could prompt another significant spell of outperformance in emerging markets, says Bryan Collings, manager of the Ignis International Hexam Global Emerging Markets fund.

Pre credit crunch, the Chinese economy had been expanding at a tremendous rate; China's GDP growth in the mid-teens combined with booming housing and stock markets clearly signalled a case of overheating.

The Dow Jones has risen 35.52 points (0.44%) to 8199.12 as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted worldwide economic growth will recover to 2.5% in 2010.

The Bric concept has lost momentum according to emerging market managers in Standard & Poor's annual Global Emerging Markets review.

Bric economies have enjoyed a strong rebound since markets started to recover, but for markets to move decisively upwards from current levels, we will need more evidence of bottoming out of developed world economic data and for upwards revisions to start...

By building up demand, government stimulus packages focusing on infrastructure are continuing to play a significant role for commodities around the world. China and the US are leading this trend.