Posts tagged as:

Black Swan

The trade that broke the market's back

May 11, 2010

In a thoroughly ridiculous analysis, the WSJ is trying to pin Thursday's crash on a single options trade. Conveniently, the trade was made by Universa, the fund advised by black swan devotee Nassim Taleb. The body of the article uses phrases like "contributed" and "along with likely dozens of other trades", but the title's unanswered [...]

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Yet more risky testimony

September 11, 2009

Nassim Taleb and Chris Whalen also participated in Wednesday's House hearing on risk management. The full text of their remarks are available here (Taleb) and here (Whalen). Taleb's thoughts are familiar, consisting largely of his well-known opinions on VaR and financial regulation. Whalen, however, provides an excellent quote: The problem is not with models themselves. [...]

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CNBC thinks Taleb is a bad trader

June 17, 2009

More on Taleb: CNBC is running a piece called "Swan Song: Why Nassim Taleb is Still Wrong." The crux of the argument seems to be this paragraph: Arguing against Taleb is a little embarrassing; who among us wants to side with the plodders when for the price of a paperback you can join the elect? [...]

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