By Christopher Werth

This week markets around the world suffered their biggest drop since 9/11, as fears of a U.S. recession brought turmoil to global share prices. The U.S. Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut of three-quarters of a percentage point buoyed markets in Asia, but did little for those in Europe, where fears of what’s to come won the day. Newsweek’s Christopher Werth spoke with Roger Bootle, Managing Director of Capital Economics, a research consultancy in London. Excerpts:

What, currently, is the outlook for the markets?
I suspect that they’re probably going to fall a fair bit further over the next few months.

What projections can you make on how bad things might get?
I think that recession will be only narrowly avoided on both sides of the Atlantic, if at all. Probably still, the most likely thing is that the US doesn’t fall into recession, but the chances of it are growing by the week.