Nassim Taleb's `Black Swan' Investors Post 50% Gains as Markets Take Dive

[infolode]

Quote from robbie380:

the writing has been on the wall for awhile.

Most have a blind eye toward information that doesn't align itself with their mindset.

The square root of this, are predisposed perceptions.

How many opportunities do we choose not to take simply because we don't recognize them as such?

If we had the ability to extract information without bias and utilize the results, focusing on what we are best at, our results would be phenomenal. Our minds , however brilliant , are not as dynamic as the world around us and we tend to cling to static systems that no longer perform.

This might explain why a trader, artist, athlete, actor, etc. is no longer "hot".

 

[robbie380]

Quote from infolode:

Most have a blind eye toward information that doesn't align itself with their mindset.

The square root of this, are predisposed perceptions.

How many opportunities do we choose not to take simply because we don't recognize them as such?

If we had the ability to extract information without bias and utilize the results, focusing on what we are best at, our results would be phenomenal. Our minds , however brilliant , are not as dynamic as the world around us and we tend to cling to static systems that no longer perform.

This might explain why a trader, artist, athlete, actor, etc. is no longer "hot".

ok well they need to work on their mindset and be more open minded to different possibilities. any freaking successful person in the world knows this. you act as if it is that insanely hard to view the world without bias and recognize your own flaws and improve on them. it's just a matter of thinking about things. it's not genius.

 

[infolode]

Quote from robbie380:

ok well they need to work on their mindset and be more open minded to different possibilities. any freaking successful person in the world knows this. you act as if it is that insanely hard to view the world without bias and recognize your own flaws and improve on them. it's just a matter of thinking about things. it's not genius.

I don't recall stating it was genius. Interesting how you perceive things robbie360.

 

[robbie380]

Quote from infolode:

I don't recall stating it was genius. Interesting how you perceive things robbie360.

others like to call his books genius...sorry for implying that you did. it just drives me crazy when i hear people praise this guy for stating what i think is for the most part obvious.

 

[Equalizer]

Quote from stock777:

If Taleb's a wanker, then what would you call the British banks that had to be scraped off the floor?

Super Wankers?

Who gives a shit? They're in a league of their own. Does that preclude him from being and acting like a complete and utter wanker? Hmm... lets see.. doesn't take a phucking genius with his Levy stable distributions to figure that one out.

BTW, someone on nuclearphynance took exception to Taleb's self-entry into wikipedia, and adapted it for our laughs here:

http://www.nuclearphynance.com/Show Post.aspx?PostIDKey=96426

{Full text below - for the lazy arses}

Enjoy...

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Nassim Nicholas Taleb (b. 1960) (alternative spellings of first name: Nessim or Nissim or Nossim or Nussim or Karim or Jean-Paul) is a writer, trapeze artist, poet, professional ballroom dancer, stand-up comedian, and practitioner of good table manners. As a pioneer of complex break dance moves he had as a "night job" a lengthy dancing career in New York City's SoHo bars, before he reduced his night time activities to start a second career as an epistemologist of rare medium-sized birds and focus on his large collection of stamps. Taleb's literary approach is to provide a modern-day brand of philosophical tale by mixing narrative fiction, often semi-autobiographical, with scientific commentary, always apocryphal, in a style similar to Walt Disney or Ahab Hickmar-Tholens (whose long lost works existed only as a figment of imagination and were made famous by 1981 classic motion picture The Raiders of the Lost Ark).

Biography

Taleb originates from Amioun, Lebanon, whose Greek Orthodox Levantine food saw its prominence and importance reduced by the McDonald Invasion which began in 1985 and sparked what today is remembered as the Yom Kebab war. He is the son of Dr. N. Taleb and Dr. N. Taleb, making him the second person in human history being both father and son at the same time and the first being father, mother and son at once (this phenomenon is known as the Taleb Trinity). Both sides of his family were prominent in the Lebanese Greek Orthodox mythology: on his mother's side, his great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather and his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother were both co-authors of the Bible; on his father's side, his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather was actually in the Bible and, even if Taleb himself doesn’t confirm or deny it, there is strong evidence that he played the part of the fruit of knowledge himself. On an aside while his grandmother is a folk heroine in Lebanon and is known as the inventor of the falafel, he also has a cousin who works part time as a nanny in Beirut.

As a trader, Taleb has said he took a skeptical, anti-mathematical and almost racist approach to risk and uncertainty and had a severe distrust of models and actresses and a strong contempt for plumbers.

Taleb considers himself far less a dancer than an epistemologist of randomness who used lap dancing to attain his independence and freedom from authority, as he writes in his book, Fooled by the Black Swan, which became a cult book on Akmanirec Street (Amioun) after it was first published in 2001. It was translated into 198 languages, mostly by Taleb himself, and got him the admiration of tens of followers, known as the Talebans.

Taleb, a polyglot, has a literary fluency in English, French, Arabic, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Latin, Telebian, Martian, Aramaic and Hebrew, as well as being able to speak to lions, wolves, turtles and occasionally dolphins (although it remains unclear if they actually talk back or even understand him)

Taleb calls himself a "skeptical empiricist", while people call him “wanker”, “pud slapper”, “knob gobbler”, “spunk monkey”, and “ass clown”. He believes that scientists, economists, historians, housewives, policymakers, businessmen, and bus drivers overestimate the value of past wikipedia entries, and underestimate the prevalence of unexplainable drivel on that website. He follows a long lineage of self important delusional heroes, including Nero, Saparmurat Niyazov and Alexey Vayner.

When not busy impersonating Ben Bernanke at parties, Taleb focuses on being a researcher in ornithology, with emphasis on a peculiar species of swan which is colored in black and which he calls "black swan”. He believes that most people ignore "black swans" because they are difficult to spot in the dark.

Major Writings

* Dynamik Edging: Managing Vaniglia and Exotik Otions. New York : John Wiley & Sons, 1997.
* Fooled by Black Swans. 2nd ed. New York : Random House, 2004
* Black Swans for Dummies. 2nd ed. New York : Random House, 2005.
* Black Swans Explained 3rd ed. New York : Random House, 2006
* The Black Swan Redux New York : Random House, 2007.

Memorable quotes

“I saw a white swan and I want to paint it black”

“This is not a falafel”

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[Dan44]

The Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman proposed the inclusion of Taleb's name among the world top intellectuals, citing "Taleb has changed the way many people think about uncertainty, particularly in the financial markets. His book, The Black Swan , is an original and audacious analysis of the ways in which humans try to make sense of unexpected events."

And Kahneman is from Israel, so Taleb must be doing something right

 

[TraDaToR]

Quote from Equalizer:



“I saw a white swan and I want to paint it black”

“This is not a falafel”
---------------------------------

Awesome...ROTFLMAO

 

[zdreg]

Quote from Capablanca:

He makes up to 110% from 5% to 10% of the time but breaks even during the remaining 90% of the time.

Isn't that roughly a 10% return?

you are a virgin 95% of the time. is that roughly a 5% return.

 

[TraderZones]

Quote from Random.Capital:

It takes all of 30 seconds looking at a chart of inflation-adjusted gold prices to see that's been a losing trade for 25 years running.

Your proof was overwhelming.

10 years ago, gold was under $300 and has now tripled.

You cannot cherry pick a date and expect it to have meaning. Most people trading now have been doin so recently, and gold has gained nicely since then

Do you think people in Zimbabwe, with million percent inflation would be worrying about profit on gold, or being happy they weren't ruined?

And it is one of the few thing that bulwarks wealth against catastrophe. You are insuring wealth with gold, not just trying to make a profit. During the Depression, only gold assets continuously grew in value.

So, how much profit have you made from your insurance policies? Or so you get it for protection, like the rest of us?

 

[stock777]

phuck gold. Why is gold wealth?

Why not diamonds or the pubic hair of Brittany Spears?

You can't eat it, drink it, it won't keep you dry in the rain.

That's gold not Brittany.