Nassim Taleb

  • 15 Mar 2013 at 11:46 AM

Senate Subcommittee Feasting On Whale Today

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When I got the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report on the London Whale last night, I did what any sensible human would do: I ctrl-F’ed for my name and the names of my friends and enemies, gloated briefly, and then set to work rationalizing not reading the rest of it. After all, it’s ridiculous for the Senate to investigate a basically legitimate trade that, though it lost some money, did nothing to destabilize JPMorgan or the financial system as a whole. And we’ve heard all the important Whale stuff before, including in JPMorgan’s own Whale autopsy, and even then it was old news.

But then I started skimming the executive summary and after underlining every sentence in the first ten pages I figured I’d have to give it a closer look. It’s an amazing, horrifying read.

What was the Whale up to? I don’t think you’ll get a better explanation than this, from a January 2012 presentation by the Whale himself, Bruno Iksil (page 74):

Mr. Iksil’s presentation then proposed executing “the trades that make sense.” Specifically, it proposed:

“The trades that make sense: Read more »

  • 19 Nov 2012 at 5:18 PM

Nassim Nicholas Taleb Became The Chiseled Adonis You See Before You Through A Strict Regimen Of Picking Up Rocks And Lying In Bed For Two Years

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Have you ever gazed upon classical Greek philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb and thought to yourself, “That man has a body from the gods. I could never hope to match him in brains, but what about brawn? If only I could obtain the details of his diet and fitness regimen”? Well, friends, today is your lucky day. Despite still being on his second tour of self-imposed quiet time, Taleb granted several interviews to publications reviewing his new book, “Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder,” and, naturally, the topic of his physique came up, specifically the various ways he keeps it in such enviable shape. (He also touches on the exercises that led to him having a brain three times the size of the typical astrophysicist, though please note that these should be appreciated but not be attempted by average humans, who could hurt themselves quite badly.) Read more »

  • 21 Aug 2012 at 2:25 PM

Poker Is Not Gambling, Jury Still Out On Investing

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Because this is Dealbreaker: A Place For Finance And Sometimes Poker™, I figured some of you would be interested to know: poker is now legal!

Sort of. Basically a fellow named Lawrence Dicristina was running a poker room in Staten Island. He was arrested by the Feds and charged under the federal Illegal Gambling Business Act. He was convicted by a jury and asked a federal judge, Jack Weinstein, to throw out the jury verdict because he ran a poker room and poker isn’t gambling. Today Judge Weinstein agreed: under federal law, poker isn’t gambling. So Dicristina is free to go.

The opinion is here and it is 120 pages; the important don’t-try-this-at-home headline is that this opinion “does not undermine the holding that poker is gambling as defined by New York law” and therefore probably illegal in New York. It’s just not federally illegal, which I suspect means that Lawrence Dicristina may follow in Sergey Aleynikov’s footsteps to state court. And this is just the opinion of one judge in one district, so consult your lawyer before you restart your online poker business/Ponzi scheme/other scheme that is not technically a Ponzi scheme: the online poker crackdown is unlikely to stop just because of this.

Nonetheless it’s a nice win for the forces of poker. The decision basically turns on whether poker is mostly a game of chance (gambling, bad) or skill (not gambling, okay). For this the court looked at the testimony of two experts, defense expert Dr. Heeb, “a respected economist, statistician, and player in national poker tournaments,” who argued that skill predominates, and prosecution expert Dr. DeRosa, an econometrician who “neither has any personal experience with poker, nor has he independently analyzed the game,” and therefore felt comfortable saying that it’s mostly a game of chance, which, okay, nice intellectual honesty prosecutors.* Given that – and, the fact that, y’know, poker is a game of skill – it’s not surprising that the judge came out for the defense.

Even if you’re not one of our readers who comes here for the gambling tips, you still may enjoy this opinion just for its recapitulation in miniature of the efficient markets hypothesis. Here is the defense expert’s money chart: Read more »

  • 30 May 2012 at 10:47 AM

If You Must Know, Nassim Taleb Is Actually Kind Of Looking Forward To The Break Up Of The Euro

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Nassim Taleb, author of “The Black Swan,” said he favors investing in Europe over the U.S. even with the possible breakup of the single European currency in part because of the euro area’s superior deficit situation. Europe’s lack of a centralized government is another reason it’s preferable to invest in the region, said Taleb, a professor of risk engineering at New York University whose 2007 best- selling book argued that history is littered with rare events that can’t be predicted by trends. A breakup of the euro “is not a big deal,” Taleb said yesterday at an event in Montreal hosted by the Alternative Investment Management Association. “When they break it up, there will be a lot of fun currencies. This is why I am not afraid of Europe, or investing in Europe. I’m afraid of the United States.” [Bloomberg]

Update: NNT says he’s not looking forward to a Euro break up at all actually, and that a “tawdry” Bloomberg reporter took his words out of context.

  • 08 Nov 2011 at 11:33 AM

Nassim Taleb Predicts The Next Black Swan: Bankers Getting Bonuses Of Any Kind

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Earlier today, we discussed the upcoming bonus season and the fact that, for those who are employed by banks, it’s looking to be something of a disappointment. Numbers are estimated to be down 20-30 percent on average from last year, with fixed-income being hit the hardest. For many, it’s cause for some preemptive JO&C’ing at the desk this morning and some curling up into the fetal position this afternoon. According to Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb, however, you drying those eyes, picking yourself up off the floor and thanking your lucky stars you’re getting anything ’cause if he were in charge? You’d get no-thing. Read more »

  • 18 Jul 2011 at 3:55 PM

Nassim Taleb Knows The Soviets Would Never See A Black Swan Coming

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At this point, Nassim N. Taleb has explained many times (1) what caused the financial crisis and (2) what will cause the next one. This is actually pretty simple stuff and as he’s sick of repeating it, we’ll summarize:
(1) the Nobel Prize Committee, and
(2) knowing things.

We learned the second part when Taleb dropped by the U.S. Congress last week to warn them away from the dangerous trap of setting up an Office of Financial Research to collect statistical data from banks and try to analyze it to reduce risk. Taleb’s prepared testimony included some polite objections to this plan:
Read more »

  • 14 Jul 2011 at 3:21 PM

Nassim Taleb To Unload Infinite Wisdom On G-20

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Though his schedule is extremely packed, Nassim Taleb, who knows everything there is to know about risk while Ben Bernanke knows nothing, has agreed to co-author a paper with the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets department “for the G-20 to develop ways to apply his method for identifying tail risks, or the chances of low probability, high-impact event.” Topics discussed will presumably include but not be limited to destroying the Nobel prize before it can destroy us.

  • 02 Feb 2011 at 4:20 PM

Caption Contest Wednesday: Does Anna Chapman Have An Appointment With Two Doctors Of The Economy?

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“With Nassim Taleb in Moscow. Dr Black Swan and Dr Doom,” Dr Doom tweets, referring to himself in the third person. Read more »

  • 12 Nov 2010 at 10:49 AM

Nassim Taleb: Ben Bernanke Doesn’t Understand Risk

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“Did Ben Bernanke see the crisis?” Nassim Taleb asked on Bloomberg TV today. “No,” Taleb answered himself, “He was flying the plane and he crashed the plane…[Bernanke] reminds me of the LTCM people. They had brilliant people with great academic records and they blew up the fund and almost blew up Wall Street…Bernanke is someone who talks about returns without talking about risk. It’s identical to a pilot who is talking about speed — not talking about safety. The measures he is using, this quantitative easing, may work but should it fail the risks are humongous.” Read more »

  • 08 Oct 2010 at 3:23 PM

Nassim Taleb Identifies Real Villain Of The Financial Crisis

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Over the last several years, people have been obsessed with determining who truly caused the financial crisis. Was it Alan Greenspan? Was it the banks? Was it the mortgage lenders? Evil short sellers? People who bought homes they couldn’t actually afford? Jimmy Cayne drug dealer? It’s up for debate and no one has yet to be unanimously, definitively blamed. Today in London, Nassim Taleb revealed the true villain, who’s been hiding in plain sight. Read more »