Invesco Perpetual's Barnett: The biggest risks to equity investors

Mark Barnett, head of UK equities at Invesco Perpetual and manager of the Edinburgh investment trust, analyses the growing pressures on listed companies from a number of sources.

The month of August witnessed a significant sell-off in equity markets that grabbed the headlines. The market weakness was attributed to heightened fears over the impact of the Chinese slowdown and the fragility of elements of China's financial system. To that extent, this is nothing new - it is well known that China's economy is not growing as fast as the 7% official target. In fact, dissecting real GDP growth rates slightly misses the point. China's sharp deceleration is best seen as a combination of the fall off in output growth and the collapse of inflation in both consumer prices...