The Year of the Horse brought catastrophic international air accidents, brutal terror attacks, global political upheaval, a resurgent Ebola virus and war -- and, in Hong Kong, large-scale civil unrest.

But fortune tellers in the southern Chinese city are heralding a more docile Year of the Sheep -- though volatility is still in the air, with warnings of more woes for the global property markets, and an "explosion of bacteria" leading to new and resurgent diseases.