A month after raising rates, Fed faces darker global economy

"People are just scared right now," said David Wyss, a former Fed staff economist and now an economics professor at Brown University.

Europe hasn't solved its problems, we have geopolitical risks in the Middle East and in the United States there is a lack of confidence in the political parties and the candidates.

The country's decelerating growth has shrunk global commodity prices and the emerging market countries that have supplied them to China.

Many see the Fed's December rate hike as a key factor in the stock market's tumble.

Some now see the falling stock prices as the correction that they had forecast would occur after the Fed started raising rates.

The rather inept handling by Chinese authorities of the stock market troubles in that country has really bothered global markets.

"The Fed will probably acknowledge that global economic conditions have deteriorated since the December meeting, but they will balance that by saying U.S. economic conditions have not changed," suggested Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at the Martin Smith School of Business at California State University.