Generally used to refer to a widespread contagious disease situation. WHO (the World Health Organization) defines pandemic levels. In such a situation the primary concern is with health issues, and with understanding the disease and with stopping the transmission of the disease.

From a business perspective, pandemics can have many impacts. They may devastate or temporarily incapacitate a population. If you are a hospital you will have one set of issues. Drug manufacturers another set. Businesses which need to keep operating will have to deal with other issues. There are many different possible impacts.

A theory in finance, that identifies that a portfolio that has several uncorrelated holdings will generally have lower total risk than any of the individual holdings.

Not to be confused with Risk Portfolio