Black Swans Should Be Unexpected

Andrew Butter submits: The concept of a Black Swan was created by Nasim Taleb to describe the danger of “tail risks”. Those are defined as things that happen very infrequently outside three standard deviations from the mean.

optionMONSTER submits: By Chris McKhannNassim Taleb literally wrote the book on the "Black Swan," but the fund that he advises may have helped to create one, according to this great story in the Wall Street Journal.

Greenbackd submits: As I foreshadowed last week in The New World, I want to explore Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan in some depth.

Wall Street Cheat Sheet submits: Nassim Taleb hit the jackpot on timing his book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. However, the book is more theoretical than practical insofar as actionable advice.

Unexpected disasters like rogue traders, product recalls, hurricanes, earthquakes and shoddy risk controls can sink investors.

Roger Nusbaum submits: The catalyst for this post is a similarly titled post from Cam Hui at the Humble Student blog.

Market Folly submits:Today we wanted to highlight an intriguing presentation from Vitaliy Katsenelson at ContrarianEdge.com. Katsenelson is the Portfolio Manager at Investment Management Associates, Inc. and he outlines the possibility that China is the mother of all black swans. His presentation focuses on the notion of late stage growth obesity and other factors.