What produces brilliant trades? It is a question that has triggered endless debate among bankers, but produced little consensus on the secrets of success.

One line of thought suggests that great trades tend to occur when somebody realises that the tectonic plates of the world's political and economic systems are shifting - and is brave enough to put the unthinkable into action on their fault lines. That implies that great traders need not only to be financially savvy, but also brilliant political scientists - or amateur anthropologists with guts.