A Black Swan has Flown and Landed Directly in the Center of Tiananmen Square, Beijing

A black swan has flown and landed directly in the center of Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

In global finance and geopolitics, a black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation that has potentially extreme and severe consequences. Black swan events are characterized by their extreme rarity, high impact, and widespread insistence they were obvious in hindsight. However, a black swan cannot be predicted beforehand.

Black swan events can cause catastrophic damage to the global economy by negatively impacting markets and investments, but even the use of robust modeling cannot prevent a black swan event. Reliance on standard forecasting tools will fail to predict and potentially increase the vulnerability to black swans by propagating risk and offering false security.