The book “The Black Swan” was written by former Wall Street trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb to describe rare, outlier events that can’t be predicted beforehand, but that have potentially huge consequences. The phrase “black swan” has been used to describe any number of financial events, such as the 1987 stock market crash, and the 2008 financial meltdown in the housing market. The thing to remember about black swans is that by their very nature, you never know when they are going to pop up. Although the oil markets have been hit by virus-induced demand fears in the past, such events are black swans. Currently, the spread of coronavirus in China — the world’s largest oil consumer — is a black swan that has the oil markets reeling. Oil fundamentals looked fair a month ago, but now all bets are off. Oil prices have shed nearly 20% in four weeks, […]