This book examines the dynamic linkages among the federal budget deficit, interest rates and the stock market for the United States from 1960 to 2006. Topics discussed herein include the strategic risk assessment techniques that can be applied to investment and trading portfolios in emerging financial markets, such as in the context of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) stock markets, as well as Africa's emerging capital markets and the financial crisis and whether the theory of periodically collapsing speculative bubbles can explain the dynamics of East Asian emerging stock market returns.