HSBC's Stephen King Outlines "Economic Nightmare"

HSBC's respected Chief Economist Stephen King, sporting spiky hair that would land him in jail or worse in Iran, penned a much discussed economic report that reads like a horror novel but points to important analysis that is hard to ignore.

Stephen King: Economy is like Titanic except without lifeboats

King’s nightmare takes place on a Titanic-like economic ocean liner that is headed for an iceberg except this fragile ship doesn’t have lifeboats.

In his research piece titled “The world economy’s titanic problem: Coping with the next recession without policy lifeboats,” King notes it has been six years since the last recession. Without specifically saying it, those who follow quantitative market probability note that bullish stock market environments last,...