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 (38662)	8/2/2010 3:44:03 PM
From: Spekulatius	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78666

re Taleb - i did not find him pompous in this book - maybe a little bit too scholarly at times. i also thought that his buddy Victor Niederhoeffer comes off very easily in his book (the fact that he recommended Taleb's book certainly helped) but the weaknesses matter not as much as hist strength. I thought the claim that the track record (in particular one that is short and does not include different market conditions) does not prove superior skill per say and methodology is more important is very valuable. The strong impact of survivorship bias on result is another one. One very valuable insight is that most money managers and Wall Street have incentive to bet on the most likely outcome, not the most profitable one. If this weren't so, the financial crises may never happened. I found a lot of connections with Michael Lewiss book "The big short", which clearly shows the connection between incentives and the root cause of the financial crises. in addition one of the hedge funds that made it big (Cornwall) was specialized on betting on unlikely events (in this case that AA CDO tranches could default). Taleb also wrote the "Black Swan", very timely this was published in 2007. Like him or not, i don't think he is an idiot.