Most people are under exposed to global assets, including foreign stocks, bonds and currencies.

Most people are under exposed to global assets, including foreign stocks, bonds and currencies.

As a whole, investors should welcome attempts to safeguard the integrity of markets. You need very clear rules applied to markets.

Investors have to ask themselves two questions. How much can we grow our investments? And, can we afford our mistakes?

Once you start moving [market] lower, then you trigger of all sorts of things. You trigger people who have to sell because they're over-levered. So they sell their winners and their losers. They're just trying to raise cash. So, what you then get is spreading malaise throughout the global markets.

As we spend more, and as companies are pushed to invest, they say, "Hey wait a minute! There's more demand in the system. Let's invest more."

America's downgrade may serve as a wakeup call for its policymakers. It is an unambiguous and loud signal of the country's eroding economic strength and global standing. It renders urgent the need to regain the initiative through better economic policymaking and more coherent governance.