man you are just embarrassing yourself; quit while you are ahead, just a run of the mill idiot, you are competing for the bluestreak award with these types of comments.
I've not read all of this thread but will answer this point. "tactically" accept losses extended over a potentially entended period expecting a longer term gain is perhaps understandable. The "perhaps" pertains to a sensible overarching strategy that makes money in the short, medium and long term. So, in the greater sense, losses are never acceptable and I think Taleb knows that and so keeps his argument(s) deliberately simple.
Hey Rod, last time I noticed you were getting battered by a bunch of cops on TV! Or is this a different RK? If you're the real deal, you've battled back well! As for learning anything round here...you're being too optimistic. I'm with you on that.
OK Atticus, here's my point. Taleb's "success" is only swallowed by novices, but there is no proof of any trading success. Paloma colleagues say he was removed from trading to research, and the only evidence of his subsequent fund's "voluntary" wrap up is on a "Troubled" companies forum showing Empirica Kurtosis' wrap up. Sure that doesn't prove anything, but it puts the onus on Taleb to stop the B.S. and produce some verifiable results, since he has absolutely zero street cred. Then there is Taleb's "disclosure" mumble swerve in public forums: "Empirica LLC, which owns interests in hedge funds, and operates a research laboratory in London, Empirica Laboratory Limited, and a Hedging operation (no, it is not a "hedge fund" in the common accepted sense as the bulk of the business consists in portfolio protection packages. We only called it a HF in May-October 2001)." So what is Taleb saying (B.S. ing)? He is parsing and redefining "common accepted sense" as in depends on your definition of "is". Taleb claims that Empirica's "fund" was only called that in 2001, yet the wind up of Empirica Kurtosis occured in 2004. Instead of a track record, he produces hot air. The onus is on Taleb to prove he is more than an empty suit when it comes to trading.
Whether the fund lost money or not despite being reported on a site for "troubled" companies is one issue, but it is not the only issue. When public utterances including dates and representations such as you weren't running a hedge fund in the "common accepted sense" do not track with documents, those are serious red flags.
Ummm, from what I understand he took a "hit" from being long the Thai market, but what "carried him out on a stretcher" was being short S&P futures puts in the last week of October, 1997. I know this, because a good friend of mine made $45 million for the Deutsche Bank equity-derivatives desk that Tuesday when Vic's puts went dramatically in the money and his clearing firm starting buying them back in massive quantities. It was the classic "vulture" trade, and a trader at DB by the name of Mike Goodwin ( now owner of Bluefin Trading ) sold the living hell out of those puts knowing full well that if the market just stabilized for a day or two he would make a fortune from the vol coming in. I believe that he may have taken up to roughly half of the "other" side of Vic's clearing house liquidating his trade. The market literally bottomed that day. And Niederhoffer had to have a "garage" sale at his estate in Weston that generated a little over $2.5 million shortly thereafter to raise cash. http://dailyspeculations.com/about_us1.html http://www.dailyspeculations.com/wordpress/