My $.02 on NT: I own 2 of his books (swan and fooled), and in my mind he deserves plenty of credibility for being a sound thinker, a competent articulator and interesting analogist. I am sure that some of his net worth comes from book sales. I am also fairly certain than he made some jack in â87. $50M sounds ridiculous. Maybe for First Boston, but not for himself. I guess he hit is big on a large ootm call position on the Eurodollar when the fed opened up the floodgates in lateâ 87. That must have been one big position⦠I think he had a clear view of some of the things that were going wrong with risk management, good insight into human nature and how we fool ourselves. Last, but not least, he had a good idea of the plausible extent of the fallout, once the leverage/risk shoe dropped. Many of us had the exact same thoughts about risk, the âupsideâ versus âdownsideâ of being a bank, and the âenvelope of serendipity,â as he so nicely put it. However most of us (and I think this includes NT) werenât able to get the timing right on it this last go-round. I think NT admits himself that you can be 100% right on an issue and still blow up because you enter your position too early. Anyway, I would be interested to know the name of the Fund that he supposedly made billions for in 2008. P.S.: Iâve read pieces of his vanilla options work, and thereâs no doubt that the man can apply some mathâ¦
I'm not sure about your definition of black swan. Having actually taken several lectures from him at NYU, I'm pretty sure he meant black swans as improbable events that are usually too remote to hedge, not un-imaginable. His point is, I believe, before you actually see a black swan, you have little basis in believing that it exists; It's that information barrier that he's concerned about, not whether some one thought it might exist.
per the article, the fund is named "black swan fund" i chatted with NT couple years ago. he advised that he bought so many books he single handily supported a borders store--- tongue in cheek im sure, but funny none the less...
Yeah, but how about as a trader? After all every theory is just as good as it can be used in real life....
He made bank before he wrote his books as an options trader. Then, he had his hedge fund which did fairly well. So, it's hard to call him a hack judging by his performance. Unless you narrowly define "trader" as someone who has to trade every few minutes to make a living, it's hard to make a case that he isn't a decent one.
I'm reasonably sure that his strategy wasn't to just buy otm put. Sorry, his hedge funds shut down because of poor performance? that's news to me: http://lawandmore.typepad.com/law_a...ans---talebs-hedge-fund-up-65-to-115-oct.html Furthermore, I'd hesitate to call his book a strategy book. It's more of an intersection between portfolio management, theoretical statistics, and epistemological philosophy. No where in his books (or his lectures, or talks) did he say "you should trade like so and so"
i am certain there is a plethora of investors who didnt get what they expected in empirica, so they come here spreading innuendo and rumours of falsehoods with no proof of their own statements. suggest paying them no mind and sticking to facts.... surf
Hottest Thinker in the World http://tr.im/l8ea .. . Man Who Saw Tomorrow http://tr.im/l8er .. . What's not to like?
Is a spectacular fall from grace in the cards?? NT is making the VN ego appear downright puny. As they say about hubris, back to the beach, carry on.... surf