One of the traditional push backs against attempts to predict “black swan” events is that they are by default unpredictable, rendering the entire exercise moot. However, for the second year in a row, Nomura’s Bilal Hafeez has found a loophole, or rather loop-animal: the grey swan.
As Hafeez writes, while he would like to be able to predict black swans, by definition that is impossible. “However, its close cousin the grey swan can be foreseen. These are the unlikely but impactful events that, in our opinion, lie outside the usual base case and risk scenarios of the analyst community. So as we did last year we have put on our creative hats and have come up with 10 potential grey swan events for 2018.“
For the purpose of this exercise, Nomura avoided the more widely discussed – and more probable scenarios such as the Italian elections, US Impeachment risk, North Korea conflict, which it covered in its event risk radar series, and has instead selected topics that have not been as widely discussed.
“Needless to say, none of them are our base case, but we think it is better to be prepared than not.”
So without further adoNomura’s potential grey swan events for 2018 include:
…also from Zerohedge:
“They Are Sleepwalking Into A Major Correction”: One Trader Expects A Violent Move In Bunds
