The next financial bubble is hidden in the shadows. Is it about to pop?

It is lightly regulated. The size of the exposure is often unknown. And many of the loans are of remarkably low quality.

It remains to be seen whether we are in the middle of an epic financial bubble or not. We will only know for sure once we have the benefit of hindsight.

And yet, one point is becoming increasingly clear: if we are, it is not a soaring gold price or the crazy valuations of anything connected to artificial intelligence that will bring it crashing down to Earth. It is the murky world of shadow banking – and the signs of stress are already becoming alarmingly obvious to anyone who cares to look.

With sharemarkets hitting record highs, and with the price of gold and its digital equivalent Bitcoin soaring, there are plenty of signs that the markets are going through a phase