Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Chaos theory tenant- large events increase the chances of large events.

I have been fascinated with chaos theory for years, not only in investment sense but also for a broader understanding of other closed end systems. One of the tenants of chaos theory I remember reading was that a large event- be it a traffic jam, flood, earthquake, or market crash- increases the likely-hood of another large event.

With that in mind, I was reading an article on the April 11, 2012 Indian ocean quake and the breakup of the Indo-Australian crustal plate. The article, which is an interesting read, can be found here. What sparked my interest was the following passage.

 the 2012 quakes likely were triggered, at least in part, by changes in crustal stresses caused by the magnitude-9.1 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake of Dec. 26, 2004 -- a jolt that generated massive tsunamis that killed most of the 228,000 victims in the Indian Ocean region

Since 1999, the financial markets have exhibited more and more "black-swan" events. Maybe these events are all related. If so, what large event to they foreshadow? 

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