Global markets caught in a correlation breakdown

By Dhara Ranasinghe and Vikram Subhedar LONDON (Reuters) - Financial asset prices are moving in step less than at any time in more than a decade, as economic and monetary policies diverge and political risks grow around the world. Unusually loose central bank policy after the global financial crisis drove so-called cross-asset correlations to record highs, meaning prices of stocks and government bonds often moved in tandem in the "risk-on, risk-off" environment that dominated financial markets.