Black swans

'Black Swans'

Markets have consistently rallied amid those shocks, called black
swan events by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the New York University professor and principal at Universa Investments LP.

Taleb's 2007 bestselling book, "The Black Swan," showed history is full
of events that can't be predicted by trends. The term refers to the belief that only white swans existed -- until black ones were discovered in Australia in 1697.

This year markets have contended with the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, battles between forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and rebels, protests in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen, oil above $100 a barrel, record-high food costs and a magnitude 9.0 earthquake in Japan that killed more than 8,000 people and crippled a nuclear power plant.

At this juncture, global markets are signaling that sustained economic growth will more than make up for Japan's worst disaster since World War II, rising commodity prices and uprisings throughout the Middle East and North Africa.