After trillions of dollars of quantitative easing, is it really possible deflation could be back on the agenda? Amid all the selling, one number that has attracted surprisingly little attention is the US government deficit, which came in at 2.8% of GDP in the year to end-September 2014. This is the world?s largest economy?s narrowest deficit since before the recession.

Kully Samra, managing director of stockbroker Charles Schwab UK, says regardless of the reasons given, markets were overdue a correction. Most of the economic data, he says, continues to be quite strong and the government deficit is falling because of an improving economy.

Barclays Stockbrokers? top ten ETF purchases for the week ended 17 October shows most investors had a contrarian take on developments. The most popular fund was the iShares FTSE 100 UCITS ETF (ISF) as people bought the dips. TheETFS FTSE 100 Super Short Strategy (Daily 2x) GO UCITS ETF (SUK2) came in a distant sixth and is down 17% year to date.

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Issue Date: 23 Oct 2014