Handy Sandy:
analysing the hurricane

When Hurricane Sandy descended on the east coast of the United States and headed inland, it forced the closure of all the nation’s financial markets. Christopher Finger and Oleg Ruben at MSCI thought this was important because, although there are plenty of precedents for natural disasters in terms of economic impact, the storm was singular in forcing the closure of equity markets on Wall Street.

Well and good, but unexpected events such as market closures require some degree of assumption about risk modeling. The authors were driven by the need to find out whether those assumptions lived up to the potential of the havoc Sandy wreaked.

Read the report to make up your own mind.