What does "sneeze" mean in?

Question

Sure, there is political risk. That's the kind of sneeze that can send the market crumbling.

Answer 1

There are sayings such as 'When America sneezes, the whole world catches a cold', meaning 'When something bad happens to the American economy or a bad political event occurs, world-wide trade is damaged and other countries economies do badly, people lose their jobs, share-prices take a nose-dive, currencies collapse, etc.

There are other sayings of the same form 'When X sneezes, the whole world catches a cold'. e.g. when Wall Street sneezes, etc.

In the example you give 'political risk' might be government interference in business, something like 'there is political risk investing in russia'. Yukos executives were locked up by the government and other oil company shares and the whole russian stock-market went down. 'That's the kind of sneeze that sends markets crumbling'.

Answer 2

aahchoo!