Finally, I've got the hold of Nassem Taleb's book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, and read it. There were a lot of expectations associated with this book for me. This book is quoted so much in the wake of the GFC, that I thought it's a purely stock market or investment book. Well, I was wrong. While I think 'The Black Swan' is a good read for financial people, it's also a good read for every curious mind.
The book is well written, with some humor in it, but to be truthful, I sort of got lost in the middle of my reading. I found the book a bit repetitive, rather tedious and taking a long time to make a point.
The main point of this book is:
- We can not possibly know everything
- The future is uncertain and dynamic and has many possibilities.
- Aftermath, there are many who tell you "I told you so", they actually had not.
- Nobody knows what's going on
- What we don't know can be more important than what we think we know.
- Most financial traders are 'picking pennies in front of steamroller' exposing themselves to the high impact rare event yet sleeping like babies, unaware of it.
- Information is BAD for knowledge
- Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut, and don't ask academic if what he does is relevant.
- Financial analysts, experts, strategists, portfolio managers generally don't posses much knowledge about the market, but general public listens to their opinion
- Many "experts", like economists, are no better at predicting than regular people.
No comments:
Post a Comment