While many financial commentators were optimistic about the global economy coming into this year, major risks are revealing themselves, says Jay Pelosky, principal of J2Z Advisory, an investment consulting firm.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, he cites three troubling factors that "indicate that the global economy could be in danger of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory."

The three are "simultaneous liquidity withdrawal by the Federal Reserve and China, a U.S. stock market on a knife's edge and emerging markets in disarray," Pelosky explains.

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The Fed's quantitate easing and China's record credit expansion were important in allowing the world to cope with effects of the financial crisis, he says. "Now these two wellsprings of post-crisis liquidity and economic activity are drying up at the same time, with no growth-model replacement or policy at hand."

As for the stock market, it swings from worries of too much economic growth, which would force interest rates higher, to worries of sluggish growth, Pelosky notes.

In emerging markets, their response to their financial problems "could push the world economy to a tipping point where hopes of a synchronized global recovery evaporate," he adds.

Editors at The Economist see a collapse in emerging markets as unlikely. It starts with China, they write.

"It remains more likely that China’s growth is slowing rather than slumping. The government has the capacity to prevent a rout; and the recent bailout suggests it is willing to use it," the editors say. "If fears about a hard landing in China are exaggerated, then so are worries about a broad emerging-market collapse."

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