We’re at that point of the festivities when you’re cornered by that conspiracy theorist uncle, brother-in-law, or colleague who’s somewhat worse for wear. You know the conversation: outrageous Illuminati prophesies interspersed with hiccups and blue humour.
Don’t dismiss conspiracy types completely, though. Some of them had their fingers on the pulse 10 years ago before populist anger helped sweep Donald Trump to the US presidency and the United Kingdom out of the European Union.
Asking yourself ‘what if?’ is a wise part of the investing thought process. Turning to sensible commentators, no one expected a global pandemic when Ranu S Dhillon, Devabhaktuni Srikrishna and David Beier wrote in the Harvard Business Review that it was a risk for which society was ill-equipped (‘The World Is Completely Unprepared for a Global Pandemic’, Harvard Business Review, 15 March 2017).