Lucky Bastards
To offer a counterpoint to Talebs notion of luck being the arbiter of all success a piece called what Lucky People do Different
Taleb
A bit of a chat with Nassim Taleb – the author of Fooled by Randomness and Black Swans. I have never really been one of Talebs fans since Fooled by Randomness seemed to be a long series of self justifications as to why he couldn’t trade. The central undercurrent of the book seemed to be…
DetailsHow do you spell BUBBLE
Anyone who has been to Vancouver will attest to the fact that it is a magnificent city – one of the few places where you can go sailing in the morning and skiing in the afternoon. In recent years it has been in the grip of a ferocious property bubble that puts the ones seen…
DetailsPredicting the Improbable
Excellent paper by VoxEU.org on behaviour around what are considered improbable events. Predicting the improbable Claus Bjørn Jørgensen Sigrid Suetens Jean-Robert Tyran 22 April 2011 Japan’s trio of tsunami, earthquake, and nuclear disaster has left the world stunned. As this column points out, even the experts were shocked. But while these events were highly unlikely,…
DetailsOn Being Wrong
Trading is a profession that is founded upon being wrong but still being profitable despite this.
Explainations
I always find it intriguing that fund managers have to go to such lengths to justify their stance on issues – the interesting point is most of it seems like after the fact rationalisation. This is an example of such long winded thinking, unfortunately it also contains that the use of rational economic thinking to…
DetailsSheep
Someone dropped this wonderfully insightful image into my inbox this morning. Apparently it dates back to 1908 – my interpretation of this is that sheep, be they those who just follow or those without a committed opinion get run over by those that do when markets begin to move.
How To Cock It Up
Golf is like trading – it is won by the person who makes the fewest catastrophic mistakes. In managing to achieve this you need to know when to leave well enough alone. This is an example of not knowing when to leave things as they are, put your ego in your pocket and live to…
DetailsWhy Are People So Friggen Stupid?
Last night I had the misfortune to catch some of the evening news whilst wandering in and out from the BBQ. During one of my kitchen runs I heard that housing in my area had suffered a MASSIVE 6% fall. This news was of course delivered by a dolly bird with a bra size bigger…
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