Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jurgis Bekepuris who wrote (38588)	7/23/2010 3:57:46 PM
From: Spekulatius	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78673

Jurgis, i don't think you are doing Taleb's thoughts justice. Taleb is not a random walk guy nor does he believe that all money managers are just distinguished by luck. He just claims that based on their track record alone , it's impossible to tell if a manager is really good or just a lucky monkey. That's why he evaluates a money manager not based on their track record but on their methods and the risk they are taking to make those gains. He does not talk in his book about what he does for a living other than his firm is set up to bet on unlikely events and will loose a little money most of the time but get a big payoff every once in a while. I think he does use macro and probability analysis to make his bet's. One of his most interesting thoughts is that the most successful traders in the recent past are very likely to be just monkeys and are very likely to blow up. the reason being that they have a style that matches the current market characteristics (which makes them successful for a while) but if this market changes they will very likely keep doing things the same they have been doing them in their career and blow up. FWIW, based on Taleb's ( and snippeds in Lewis book confirm that), I think Bill Miller has been a just lucky monkey, just to name one prominent example.