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

That is the funniest shit ever- too bad i had to survive a whole day without reading it!

Taleb... errr... Jean Paul .. whatever... too fucking funny.
 
Taleb is a smart man. He is a decent writer, has a better proof reader/editor than some and has a good marketing vehicle behind him.

I don't agree with his opinions about the market or the economy because I am of the opinion that if you can read chart specific price direction and strength then "Black Swans" can not exist. Solid accurate fundamental analysis should compliment solid accuate technical analysis NOT contradict it. Nothing within any chart environment should come as a surprise.

"Black Swans" can exist in environments where the charts are chaotic, choppy, inconsistent, noisy, cluttered and seemingly untamable. We are historically creatures of habit and when it comes to trading or investing . . . at times . . . we are our own worst enemy.
 
I like and respect Taleb....a lot.

But that right there is some funny ass shit. :D

Quote from Equalizer:

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...

------------------------

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”

---------------------------------
More...
 
For high net worth individuals, his fund is great for diversification

Most 'hedge funds' are actually high correlated with world markets.

His fund actually is not
 
Quote from Equalizer:

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...

------------------------

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”

---------------------------------
More...

Funniest thing I've read in a long time. THANKS
 
Quote from TraderZones:

Do you think people in Zimbabwe...
More...

I don't live in Zimbabwe.

Gold is selling for ~30% of its inflation-adjusted peak. If you want to cherry-pick an arbitrary starting point to justify your "strategy" - hey, it's your money.
 
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