Fooled By Randomness

[s0Lo]

"Take 1000 pennies and throw them up in the air. Remove all the ones who landed tails, and throw the remainder in the air once more. Repeat until you only have two or three. Are the odds higher that these coins will throw heads again? After all, they've done that several times in a row already."

nicely put

 

[taigong]

Quote from TGregg:

I liked the book, although I did not care for the writing style. I'd start with some impression of the theme of the title. Like:

"Take 1000 pennies and throw them up in the air. Remove all the ones who landed tails, and throw the remainder in the air once more. Repeat until you only have two or three. Are the odds higher that these coins will throw heads again? After all, they've done that several times in a row already."

Admittedly, it's not perfectly on target with the theme of the title, but it's in the same country.

That's what I took away from the book in general. But I think that's also where he misses the whole point as it relates to trading.

If you think that traders are like coins being tossed in the market, than sure you will find a few remaining lucky ones out of 1000. However, if you think (as I certainly do) that a trader is the one tossing coins. True, the outcome of a coin toss is random, but we all know in trading that the value of an outcome may not be fixed. Even though the trader cannot entirely attach or control the value of the outcome of the coin toss, he can choose whether to continue in the coin-tossing game. That's the difference!

But I like the book, nonetheless--it helps to keep us humble.