A silhouette of US Federal Reserve chairperson Janet Yellen taken ahead of the upcoming meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, which is scheduled for December 15 and 16. There is a strong expectation that Yellen will begin raising US interest rates, which have been held at close to zero for seven years. The implications for South Africa and other emerging markets of this so-called normalisation process is far from clear, with currency, bond and stock markets having come under some pressure recently.