quote:
As a test, I just took a look at threads on this board started last August and found a couple of alarming remarks that were fairly accurate and indicated a significant drop that would last months and beyond:

damn JT was borderline prescient.

quote:
Sorry, but even on this board it just doesn't look like this was a black swan, unless we roll the clocks back beyond last year maybe.

I think you don't understand what a black swan is. A black swan is just an improbable event. Taleb talks about how to identify and profit from them in his book. A black swan doesn't mean no one saw it coming, just that its an improbable event.

1 ...

Report Post

Posted by Willie Stroker

Member since Sep 2008

16126 posts

Posted on 11/14/08 at 8:36 am to MileHigh

quote:
I think you don't understand what a black swan is. A black swan is just an improbable event. Taleb talks about how to identify and profit from them in his book. A black swan doesn't mean no one saw it coming, just that its an improbable event.

Got it. I've read the book as well as Taleb's first. But you don't have it pinned down as tightly as Taleb explained it (I'll grant that it is impossible to capture in a brief thread on a message board). This may be a trivial point, but Taleb also emphasized that explaining the occurrence of a black swan depended more on hindsight than on foresight. These economic events were not improbable. They were predicted and it was well documented that they were predicted, but it was more than that. In fact, these events were highly likely. They were predicted with sound reasoning based on cause and effect relationships that are also well documented. The uncertainty about them was not in the magnitude, but in the longevity of the event.

I don't recall Taleb discussing how to profit from them. In fact, I believe his premise is that you shouldn't expect to because you cannot predict them. His premise is actually closer to Pabrai's - low risk, or as he states it, "Heads, I win! Tails, I don't lose that much!"

For shits and giggles, I searched "black swan" on this message board and found this thread: Black Swan

You may notice your own brother uses the phrase, "This is not a black swan"

I guess the out I'll hand you is that perhaps you were referring to a much narrower economic event as a black swan.

1 ...

Report Post

Posted by Colonel Hapablap

Mostly Harmless

Member since Nov 2003

28791 posts

Posted on 11/14/08 at 8:39 am to Willie Stroker

IMO the credit mess was more of what Taleb called a "grey swan". Predictable, but generally unpredicted. A true black swan is something like 9/11.

0 ...

Report Post

Posted by TigerinATL

Member since Feb 2005

62446 posts

Posted on 11/14/08 at 10:55 am to TigerinATL

Speak of the devil

Me yesterday:

quote:
It will take a technological revolution to unseat them. The most likely candidate I see is a shift to a speech recognition computer interface.

Today:

quote:
Google as early as today is expected to introduce a free application for the iPhone that lets you search for information, directions, or virtually anything else by speaking into the handset, eliminating need for the keyboard entirely.

LINK

Now they have speech covered, I don't really see physical gestures being that useful for searching concepts/keywords, so I think Google's position is safe until we start letting the computers jack in to our brains. I'm not sure what that means in relation to their stock price, but I'd say they're a strong business that keeps getting stronger.

1 ...

Report Post

Posted by kfizzle85

Member since Dec 2005

22022 posts

Posted on 11/14/08 at 11:00 am to TigerinATL

quote:
I'd say they're a strong business that keeps getting stronger.

They're great at innovating and improving existing products. Unlike MS, not only do they improve on existing products, they do it in the ways that users want, instead of forcing new garbage down your throats. The stuff they've added to gmail over the past year has been nothing short of astounding. They're about to start cashing in on youtube, they've got all kinds of new stuff to get ad $$ out of that.

Page 1 2 3