In Oliver Stone’s new film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, due to be released in the UK next week, a reconstructed Gordon Gekko gets involved in a 2008 race against time to warn investors of their approaching financial doom. Not to be upstaged, Bill Gross, managing director of Pimco, published a newsletter this week which isn’t as apocalyptic but it comes close.

It argues hedge funds and pension schemes are facing a future of dismal returns, if not occasional oblivion, in the years ahead.