On September 1st 1859, astronomer Richard Carrington observed what turned out to be a coronal mass ejection from the sun, which released a significant amount of plasma into the solar wind. The resulting geomagnetic storm, known as the Carrington Event, was so severe...

In July 2007, the equity market was forecasting strong earnings growth with the S&P 500 breaking new highs. More importantly, credit markets were signalling that credit risk had largely been conquered. The credit default swap for Greece was just over 4bp compared to...

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes Mark Twain is often quoted as saying. When it comes to the credit cycle and the stock market, the ups and downs most definitely rhyme. The challenge for investors is to be in equities in the upswing of the cycle,...

On the ground floor of the Richelieu wing of the Louvre Museum is an obelisk which depicts the recorded minutes of a government’s credit policy decision from over 4,000 years ago. The Manishtushu Obelisk, written in cuneiform, denotes that the interest rate for...

In December 1978, the cargo ship MS München, carrying steel across the Atlantic to Savannah, Georgia sank. At the time the cause of the tragedy was unknown. Although the ship was ploughing through a winter storm, the significant wave height predicted by the Rayleigh...

Liberal democracies force individuals to have moral opinions about the world we live in. Every few years, as the economist Joseph Schumpeter put it, citizens decide which elite best represents their point of view via the ballot box. Therefore, it is natural for voters...