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Larry Fink Sees Markets Falling 15% Without Fiscal Action

Larry Fink Sees Markets Falling 15% Without Fiscal Action

Larry Fink Sees Markets Falling 15% Without Fiscal Action
Laurence “Larry” D. Fink, chairman, chief executive officer and co-founder of BlackRock Inc (Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Laurence D. Fink, who runs the world’s largest asset manager as chief executive officer of BlackRock Inc., said markets may fall 15 percent if governments don’t take aggressive fiscal policy actions and there are aberrant results from referendums in Europe.

Fink said he is more pessimistic than the markets at the moment. If governments move to spur their economies, then markets could go in the other direction and rise 10 percent, he told Erik Schatzker Thursday on Bloomberg Television.

The CEO said anger worldwide is growing as persistently low interest rates hurt savers and pension plans, while people with capital are benefiting from the environment. Fink expects that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in December.

"This is one of the big reasons why we have such anger in the world," he said.

Fink said uncertainty from Britain’s decision to leave the European Union is getting worse. He said chief executives in the U.K. aren’t incrementally hiring and are holding off on investing until there is more political clarity.

“We are in more dangerous water in Europe than we have been in years,” said Fink. He pointed to the upcoming referendum in Italy where voters will decide on constitutional changes proposed by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to limit the power of the Senate, the upper house of parliament.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sabrina Willmer in Boston at swillmer2@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Margaret Collins at mcollins45@bloomberg.net, Vincent Bielski, Alan Mirabella