According to Mark Burgess, Chief Investment Officer EMOA and Head of Equity market at Columbia Threadneedle Investments, the European earnings outlook does not look immediately compromised by events in Greece, although this will depend upon the impact on consumer and business confidence and the credit channel remaining open for creditworthy borrowers in Southern Europe...

We are living and investing in extraordinary times. Investors face a ‘perfect storm' of risks which are correlating and affecting markets. The largest headlines are being generated by the movements in energy markets as Brent crude oil has fallen by 45% so far this year in US dollar terms.

Global risk assets have had a testing week last tweek; at the time of writing, the S&P 500 is more than 8.5% below the record high it achieved just a month ago. So why are markets rattled?