Opinion | 7 economic narratives from the Sevens to make us glad we live in Hong Kong

The first Hong Kong Sevens in the new Kai Tak Stadium was a success except for the rule that forbade outside food and drink to protect the concessionaires – who then ran out of, er, food and drink.

Despite these privations, three days in a small seat surrounded by thousands of people allows for deep introspection with neighbours. In between loud cheers for Hong Kong’s victories in both the men’s and women’s Melrose Claymores, the dominant narrative was geopolitics.

Good investment forecasts are not made from a single narrative, such as inflation or interest rates. Investment expectations are driven by a coincidence of the timing and strength of different sub-narratives which cause events to occur, as with the alignment of the holes in slices of Swiss cheese.

Each slice is a narrative that together makes investment forecasts multidimensional. Imagine the multiple factors involved in the chain of events that led to the mid-air collision of two aircraft at Reagan Washington National Airport in January.

My Sevens neighbours came and went, each bringing decades of multidimensional experience. Never before have I spent so much time speaking to so many people about so few topics – mostly the lack of US policy coordination demonstrated by the flip-flopping between harsh and mild tariffs which makes the Trump administration look like a one-move chess player ignoring the Law of Unintended Consequences.