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I am tired of this pandemic being described as a “black swan”. Scenarios with decades of warning, billions spent on plans and agencies to react to them, and sev
by wrs 7y ago
I am tired of this pandemic being described as a “black swan”. Scenarios with decades of warning, billions spent on plans and agencies to react to them, and several real-world near-misses are not black swans!
- 55555 7y agoRelative to all the other stuff that happens, this is pretty close to a black swan. Most business contracts did not explicitly account for this risk, but rather mostly just covered it in a force majeure clause.
- krmmalik 7y agoNassim Nicholas Taken echoed your point in an interview recently. He said this is actually a White swan event because it was inevitable.
- justforfunhere 7y agoHi, Could you share the link please? Thanks.
- will_pseudonym 7y agoNot sure this is the exact interview mentioned above, but this is an interview on Bloomberg with Taleb on 3/31/2020 that seems to line up with the description: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2020-03-31/nassim-taleb-says-white-swan-coronavirus-pandemic-was-preventable-video https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2020-03-31/nassim-tale...
- ComodoHacker 7y agoNassim Nicholas Taleb
- Hydraulix989 7y agoProbably iOS autocorrect.
- krmmalik 7y ago*Taleb. Android autocorrect. Apologies
- karpierz 7y agoWhy isn't Taleb a billionaire if he's great at predicting events that are surprising to the market (IE, aren't priced in)?
- vidarh 7y agoIt'd make no sense to price this in because while a pandemic eventually is inevitable, the timing is wildly uncertain.
- alexmat 7y ago"Aug. 30, 2015 8:54 am ET - The recent market rout caught some star Wall Street traders by surprise. But not a hedge-fund firm affiliated with “The Black Swan” author Nassim Nicholas Taleb, which gained more than $1 billion on a strategy that seeks to profit from extreme events in financial markets." https://www.wsj.com/articles/nassim-talebs-black-swan-fund-made-1-billion-this-week-1440793953 https://www.wsj.com/articles/nassim-talebs-black-swan-fund-m... "April 8, 2020, 11:28 AM EDT - Nassim Taleb-Advised Universa Tail Fund Returned 3,600% in March" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-08/taleb-advised-universa-tail-risk-fund-returned-3-600-in-march https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-08/taleb-adv...
- short_sells_poo 7y agoThe Universa figure is extremely misleading, and it's either some appalling marketing job or appalling journalism. Universa is not a traditional fund, it is a so called "premium spend" structure. With a traditional fund, you give them money, and they try to make some profits. At a later time, you can retrieve the profits and original investment. With Universa, you give them money as you would to an insurer, that is, you cannot back that original investment back, you only get the profits they make on it. It is literally insurance premium. This is a very important distinction because when returns are traditionally quoted, they are not based on the premium the fund spent buying financial instrument, but the total capital invested. In the case of Universa, their assumption is that you'll spend 3% of your capital with them as insurance premium. It is therefore much more clear to quote the returns based on the capital insured, which results in a much more modest (although still great) 120%
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]