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Investing In Catastrophe

It's probably not popular, but it's how many of the nation's wealthy made their fortunes: Investing when you know or suspect that catastrophic circumstances will change the path of the economy.

Here's just one example. From Sprott Asset Management:
https://www.sprott.com/pdf/climate.pdf

Interesting reading, and the .pdf file is encrypted so that I could not copy/cut or paste. What's your opinion of profiting from disaster?

Catastrophe Investing

On a smaller scale, the stock market is a lot about profiting off the disasters and fortunes of companies. When companies are shed in an unfavorable light, their stock drops, and investors buy into them. The expectation is that a rebound will be in sight, and once this occurs, the investors look to gain profit. The concept of investment is built around disasters in the economy. In that light, we don't think about the people that are affiliated with the companies, and this is where the human perspective is lost, which is why I believe this question was posed. If we think about the companies themselves, and forget about the people, then no, profiting from disaster is not immoral. It is when we realize that people's lives and futures are at stake, that is when it gets a little sticky.

Investing In Catastrophe History & Civil Business Politics

That's all true on a very small scale, but these guys are talking about global catastrophes that smart investors can plan ahead for to make a profit.

For instance, if you knew that a particular volcano would erupt within a few months, but it wasn't common knowledge. After all the loss of life, pain and suffering was over, think about the economic consequences of that: land values would drop (you could buy property for a song and hold it until prices rose again), rebuilding would be necessary (construction companies and suppliers would reap huge benefits), and so on.

Perhaps it IS smart investing. I think it's called "opportunism" or "How to Profit from the Coming Hard Times."

Catastrophe Investing

Yes, smart investing is after the catstrophe, and making money on the reconstruction. Always, especially that, reconstruction usually is much better then the construction before the disastor.