“Imagine if a mysterious figure had approached you in December 2019 with news of the future,” he said. “In this future, a virus sweeps the planet and in response to the rising death toll, governments all over the world would mandate their citizens to stay at home and businesses to close.

“Government budget deficit in the UK will hit 15% of GDP and unemployment figures will be 5%. Many companies will record zero revenues for months. These conditions remain in place for all of 2020 and much of 2021, depending on the location.

“Given this information, the mysterious figure then asks you to predict the return of global equities for 2020 and 2021.

“With all this information, could an investor genuinely pick returns of 15% for both years? Yet this is what has transpired.”