Andrew Busch, Global FX Market Strategist for BMO Financial Group’s Investment Banking Division, recently published a book, World Event Trading (John Wiley & Sons, 2007), that explores the markets’ reactions to various natural and manmade disasters — everything from the Black Plague and the 1918 flu epidemic to Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina.

According to Busch, "three-tailed events" (market moves of three standard deviations) present enormous profit opportunities for traders who have done their homework and have a game plan in place — and who are willing to take on these anomalies.