When Chinese shares first started their free-fall in mid-June, vapourising $US3.5 trillion in the space of a month, the hope was that the impact on global markets could be limited; the Chinese sharemarket, like its internet, is walled off substantially from the outside world. Now, there are global concerns that the once high-flying Chinese economy – widely credited for helping shepherd economies like Australia's through the global financial crisis – instead poses a threat.

The Australian government has been urged by a leading real estate developer to scrap stamp duty to help first home buyers enter the market. The demand was made by AV Jennings Chief Executive Peter Summers who joins the heated housing affordability debate about eliminating the tax on property transfers, which was supposed to be scrapped when the Goods and services Tax was introduced a decade ago.

U.K. commercial and residential property values are in bubble territory again and vulnerable to any tightening in credit markets, according to Mike Prew, an analyst at Jefferies Group LLC.