The year 2016 saw an appalling start on the bourses as last year's headwinds spilled over this year with deepening woes. This is especially true as the world's second largest economy is not showing any sign of reviving anytime soon and the global oil market continues to be overloaded. These two issues have been thwarting global economic growth and raising threats of deflation (read: 5 ETF Plays for a Bear Market).

In fact, both the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) downgraded their projection for world economic growth. The World Bank cut its growth forecast to 2.9% for this year from 3.3% while IMF expects the global economy to grow 3.4% this year, down 0.2% from its previous estimate. Moreover, IMF warned that the global economy is on the verge of another financial meltdown. The World Bank stated that persistent weakness in China and a worse-than-expected slowdown in Brazil and Russia have worsened an already bleak global economic outlook.