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71 von 74 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
Enjoyable explanation of why (nearly) all mathematical models of financial markets are wrong
As a PhD student in Economics interested in financial markets I have read NN Taleb's book (The Black Swan), then Riccardo Rebonato's (Plight of the Fortune Tellers: Why We Need to Manage Financial Risk Differently, 2007) and Benoit Mandelbrot's ((Mis)behaviour of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward, 2005). All books contain the same message: the assumptions...
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27 von 30 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
An interesting start...
...that does not live up to expectations. I have to agree with reviewers in German, although it is a shame that people who can't read German will miss them and just read the praiseful reviews written in English.
Let us begin with the fact that Nassim Taleb's ideas are not that all innovative. Not even in Physics. He also lacks an understanding of some...
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71 von 74 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
Enjoyable explanation of why (nearly) all mathematical models of financial markets are wrong, 5. Oktober 2008
As a PhD student in Economics interested in financial markets I have read NN Taleb's book (The Black Swan), then Riccardo Rebonato's (Plight of the Fortune Tellers: Why We Need to Manage Financial Risk Differently, 2007) and Benoit Mandelbrot's ((Mis)behaviour of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward, 2005). All books contain the same message: the assumptions underlying modern risk management models are wrong (and yes, this has something to do with the financial crisis). All books are worth reading, but if you know one, you know the others. Which leaves you with the question of which book to read.
Here is my recommendation: For economists and people with a mathematical background, I would suggest Mandelbrot. The story is very nice, and his explanations original. He was the first to suggest that stock prices resemble fractals, and not random walks. Since he had a co-author, the book is a good read, given some prior knowledge. For those without some intermediate knowledge of Economics or mathematics or both, I would suggest Riccardo Rebonato's book. It has a clear structure and is easy to understand. Still, it does the job and gets the point across. Now, for those who think they know a bit of philosophy, economics, mathematics and the universe in general, it's "The Black Swan" that I would recommend. Taleb is getting at the subject from a philosophical point of view, of course based on mathematics, and the story unfolds in a hilarious way. Taleb is smart and has a lot of knowledge of things that matter and things that don't. It's funny to see him bark at different groups of scientists (economists, philosophers,..). I have found no instance where his disappointment at people/theories is misplaced. Being outside the scientific establishment has its advantages.
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27 von 30 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
An interesting start..., 30. Januar 2009
...that does not live up to expectations. I have to agree with reviewers in German, although it is a shame that people who can't read German will miss them and just read the praiseful reviews written in English.
Let us begin with the fact that Nassim Taleb's ideas are not that all innovative. Not even in Physics. He also lacks an understanding of some fundamental laws of the univers which in fact, favour the idea that unforeseen events have major impacts. One of them being the second law of thermodynamics also explains some of his babbling about our perception of time. It even explains why engineering can ONLY predict forward in time, and not backward (he has a very bad example with an ice cube).
Now, if you want my recommendation, find yourself another book on the subject, he is, after a while, just going on and on about the same, and complaining, showing you how good he is, and why every other social scientist is a sucker. Mind you, I personally wouldn't disagree about social scientists that try to use regressions to make predictions about the future, of economists which assume humans make ration choices, but wheter I'd exclude Nassim Taleb from that circle, well...
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30 von 34 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
Interessanter Anfang und dann viel Polemik, 23. November 2008
Eigentlich beginnt das Buch relativ interessant. Es erklärt die Grundidee der Theorie, dass Menschen nicht besonders gut darin sind bestimmte Ereignisse zu berücksichtigen (z.B. sehr unwahrscheinliche Ereignisse bzw. sehr extreme Ereignisse).
Auch zu Beginn kritisiert Taleb, ganze Wissenschaftszweige dies zu spät oder nicht ausreichend in Ihrer Forschung berücksichtigen. Vor allem Betriebswirtschaft und Volkswirtschaft sind seiner Meinung nach gar keine richtigen Wissenschaften. Am Anfang des Buches wird die Kritik noch mit Studienergebnissen belegt. Später werden sie einfach so hingestellt.
Ab der Mitte des Buch kann man aber mit dem Lesen aufhören. Die grundsätzliche Idee hat man verstanden wird aber gebetsmühlenartig wiederholt. Außerdem kritisiert er ab da nicht mehr die Argumente und Ideen, sondern zieht über einzelne Personen oder Institutionen her. So etwas fände ich in einer Kolumne oder einen vergleichen Rahmen angemessen. Allerdings habe ich in einem Buch erwartet, dass er versucht mit Argumenten zu überzeugen und nicht einfach andere Sachen schlecht zu reden. Man dann den Eindruck, dass Taleb sich beschwert, dass sein Genie nicht anerkannt wird und lauter Ahnungslose aber die Oberhand haben und auf ihn herabsehen. Das zeigt auch die Wahl seiner Vorbilder. Mit wenigen Ausnahmen Personen, die nicht zum Mainstream ihrer Zeit gehörten und später "Recht bekamen". Wir werden sehen ob dies beim Autor auch so sein wird.
Inhaltlich: Er schießt sehr stark gegen die Vorstellung der Menschen, dass alle Ereignisse normalverteilt seien.
Es geht zwar aus zahlreichen Studien (übrigens durchgeführt von den Uneinsichtigen Wirtschaftswissenschaftlern) hervor, dass Menschen intuitiv die Welt oft zu sehr vereinfachen. Andererseits ist dies in einem professionellen Umfeld nicht zwingend der Fall. Z.B. ist schon lange bekannt, dass Renditen auf Kapitalmärkten nicht normalverteilt sind. Das gleiche gilt für bestimmte Risiken, die z.B. Rückversicherer absichern sollen.
Zusammenfassung: Die ersten Kapitel lesen. Theorie ist gut erklärt. Bei der Mitte aufhören. Die Polemik und Enttäuschung des angeblich verkannten Genies kann ich einfacher in jeder Tageszeitung und schlechten Privatfernsehsendern sehen.
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14 von 16 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
Exposes the Flawed Assumptions of the Bell Curve Nudists, Those Who Always Decide by Using Normal Distribution Models, 13. August 2007
Do you agree that being hit with a tsunami has a totally different effect from a normal high tide? If so, you'll be glad that Professor Taleb has decided to point out that all tsunamis (low probability, high impact events) need special attention, even if they occur infrequently. His advice: Minimize exposure to large potentially harmful events while taking maximum exposure to large potentially helpful events.
I was particularly thrilled to see that Professor Taleb points out the foolishness of economists in preparing theories without checking the data to see if the theories work in practice . . . the greater foolishness of the Nobel committee granting prizes for such work . . . and the greatest foolishness of relying on the advice of such economists.
Why all the fuss? Many phenomena display high predictability and the differences from the average usually don't make all that much difference to you and me (that quality is captured by a statistical display called a bell curve where most cases cluster near the average and vary symmetrically from the average). But in some cases, there are rare events that change the reality so strongly (like a tsunami can do on the negative side or a selection as an Oprah book of the month can do on the positive side) that it would be the height of foolishness to ignore the possibilities.
When it comes to assets, wealth, book sales, athlete pay, and lots of other places where there is lots of competition, there are geometric rewards for a few while the mass do poorly. These are long-tail events (the way statisticians talk about lots of variation from the norm). But almost all human decision making assumes that there is little variation from the norm.
The book concentrates on helping you understand why such a potentially harmful bias exists (brain structure plays a large role). We also assume a continuance of what's in front of us, even when there's obvious evidence to the contrary.
I was pleased to see these descriptions. I constantly run into the same problem with executives who are subject to stalled thinking and don't see opportunities right under their noses to accomplish 20 times as much. I liked Professor Taleb's points about overcoming our ignorance of antiknowledge . . . our tendency to discount what we haven't experienced or measured. I frequently see executives estimate that the best anyone will ever do at a level that someone already exceeded in 1880. In fact, in many important areas such as herbal health remedies, our actual knowledge is receding very rapidly, turning into antiknowledge.
To help break you free of how you think now, he uses a metaphor (a black swan -- is that really a swan?) and new terms (Mediocristan -- where the bell curve is the right way to think about things and Extremistan -- where powerful in effect black swans lurk). I found this tendency to be both helpful and not. It made it clearer to me what he was talking about the first time, and then made things seem muddier after that.
I suspect that for most people, the metaphor itself will be the biggest problem. Do you really care about black swans, per se? I don't. I think Professor Taleb would have done better to use two metaphors (one positive -- perhaps like formation and attraction of wealth to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and the foundation's effects on world health, and the other negative -- perhaps like a tsunami) than to focus on one that is mostly about definitions (black swan).
If you agree with Professor Taleb's main points, you will probably want to get lots of advice about how to do so. He's specific only in regard to two areas (wealth management and book publishing opportunities). That's a shame. Perhaps he will write a future book that will go more into solutions.
I was surprised to see that the book pretty much ignores the scenario work that many organizations use to identify the large impact, unlikely occurrence events and to devise strategies that work better under all possibilities. If that subject interests you, I suggest that you read books like The Art of the Long View and Inevitable Surprises by Peter Schwartz, Scenarios by Kees van der Heijdan, and The Irresistible Growth Enterprise by Carol Coles and me.
I was pleased to see that Professor Taleb also feels that many black swans can become "grey swans" by employing new prediction methods (although we cannot predict specifics, we can often predict up or down reasonably well in some situations). That has been my experience is seeing that Modern Portfolio Theory makes no sense in unsettled market conditions while more refined methods built stock-by-stock can be quite predictive over the short run in identifying over and under performers, even during unsettled market periods.
Check your models before you use them each day. Otherwise, you've just checked into work without your brains intact.
Keep your eyes and ears open whenever you are away from bell curves!
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15 von 18 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
too full of himself..., 10. Februar 2009
The central message of the book valid and amazingly relevant these days. Unfortunately, though, the author is just too full of himself and of his self-appointed role as a great intellectual and fighter against the establishment. This completely spoiled it for me. I found this a very, very tedious read.
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13 von 16 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
Gute Fragen, keine Antworten, 22. April 2009
Der Autor stellt sich die Frage, warum es so schwierig ist, Unvorgesehenes einzuschätzen. Wer wird der nächste Bestsellerautor, Musikstar oder Spitzensportler? Das sind oft eben nicht die Favoriten.
Auf diese zweifellos spannende Frage findet der Autor leider keine Antwort, sondern plappert imerzu vor sich hin.
Aber lassen wir ihn selbst zu Wort kommen, auf Seite 12 schreibt er "I had already read (or read about) the works of Hegel, Marx, Toynbee, Aron and Fichte on the philosophy of history and its properties... I did not grasp much, except that history had some logic... This sounded awfully similar to the theorizing around me about the war in Lebanon."
Das ist der Stil des Autors.
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9 von 12 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
Exposes the Flawed Assumptions of the Bell Curve Nudists, Those Who Always Decide by Using Normal Distribution Models, 13. August 2007
Do you agree that being hit with a tsunami has a totally different effect from a normal high tide? If so, you'll be glad that Professor Taleb has decided to point out that all tsunamis (low probability, high impact events) need special attention, even if they occur infrequently. His advice: Minimize exposure to large potentially harmful events while taking maximum exposure to large potentially helpful events.
I was particularly thrilled to see that Professor Taleb points out the foolishness of economists in preparing theories without checking the data to see if the theories work in practice . . . the greater foolishness of the Nobel committee granting prizes for such work . . . and the greatest foolishness of relying on the advice of such economists.
Why all the fuss? Many phenomena display high predictability and the differences from the average usually don't make all that much difference to you and me (that quality is captured by a statistical display called a bell curve where most cases cluster near the average and vary symmetrically from the average). But in some cases, there are rare events that change the reality so strongly (like a tsunami can do on the negative side or a selection as an Oprah book of the month can do on the positive side) that it would be the height of foolishness to ignore the possibilities.
When it comes to assets, wealth, book sales, athlete pay, and lots of other places where there is lots of competition, there are geometric rewards for a few while the mass do poorly. These are long-tail events (the way statisticians talk about lots of variation from the norm). But almost all human decision making assumes that there is little variation from the norm.
The book concentrates on helping you understand why such a potentially harmful bias exists (brain structure plays a large role). We also assume a continuance of what's in front of us, even when there's obvious evidence to the contrary.
I was pleased to see these descriptions. I constantly run into the same problem with executives who are subject to stalled thinking and don't see opportunities right under their noses to accomplish 20 times as much. I liked Professor Taleb's points about overcoming our ignorance of antiknowledge . . . our tendency to discount what we haven't experienced or measured. I frequently see executives estimate that the best anyone will ever do at a level that someone already exceeded in 1880. In fact, in many important areas such as herbal health remedies, our actual knowledge is receding very rapidly, turning into antiknowledge.
To help break you free of how you think now, he uses a metaphor (a black swan -- is that really a swan?) and new terms (Mediocristan -- where the bell curve is the right way to think about things and Extremistan -- where powerful in effect black swans lurk). I found this tendency to be both helpful and not. It made it clearer to me what he was talking about the first time, and then made things seem muddier after that.
I suspect that for most people, the metaphor itself will be the biggest problem. Do you really care about black swans, per se? I don't. I think Professor Taleb would have done better to use two metaphors (one positive -- perhaps like formation and attraction of wealth to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and the foundation's effects on world health, and the other negative -- perhaps like a tsunami) than to focus on one that is mostly about definitions (black swan).
If you agree with Professor Taleb's main points, you will probably want to get lots of advice about how to do so. He's specific only in regard to two areas (wealth management and book publishing opportunities). That's a shame. Perhaps he will write a future book that will go more into solutions.
I was surprised to see that the book pretty much ignores the scenario work that many organizations use to identify the large impact, unlikely occurrence events and to devise strategies that work better under all possibilities. If that subject interests you, I suggest that you read books like The Art of the Long View and Inevitable Surprises by Peter Schwartz, Scenarios by Kees van der Heijdan, and The Irresistible Growth Enterprise by Carol Coles and me.
I was pleased to see that Professor Taleb also feels that many black swans can become "grey swans" by employing new prediction methods (although we cannot predict specifics, we can often predict up or down reasonably well in some situations). That has been my experience is seeing that Modern Portfolio Theory makes no sense in unsettled market conditions while more refined methods built stock-by-stock can be quite predictive over the short run in identifying over and under performers, even during unsettled market periods.
Check your models before you use them each day. Otherwise, you've just checked into work without your brains intact.
Keep your eyes and ears open whenever you are away from bell curves!
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19 von 28 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
Great book!!, 5. August 2008
I recommend this book without restriction to every conscious reader. Having read his first book "Fooled by randomness", I must say that this book is not as concise as the previous in making his point. This book has a more personal touch, where more of his character shines through. With respect to his first book, this one seems more mature as far as the formulation of his thoughts is concerened. I have the feeling that he wrote everything he wanted to write, whereas in the first, I had the feeling that he just rushed through the material. I do not want to write a short summary, because his ideas may have a big impact to everyone. In fact, everyone should have read this book. For its ideas can change the way one looks at the world and the things that happen everyday...
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20 von 33 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
Überflüssig, 21. Dezember 2008
Überflüssig. Ärgerlich. Ein arg gehyptes Buch, das nur einen Zweck kennt: die Eitelkeit seines Verfassers zu bedienen.
Langweilend und sich ständig wiederholend, verkauft Mr.Taleb Altbekanntes und hat dabei offensichtlich noch nicht einmal seine Quellen ordentlich gelesen.
Ich muss mich der Meinung meines vorangehenden Rezensenten anschliessen:
Verschwenden Sie keine Zeit. Lesen Sie lieber eine anständiges Buch
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6 von 11 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
Skip this book and read "The Origin of Wealth" by Eric Beinhocker instead, 10. März 2009
Fooled and abused by an overambitious envious soul
This man must have been drunk or doped, when he wrote this book. One would actually have to get paid for reading this insulting pamphlet. Taleb abuses his readers as therapists for his effort of come to terms with his failure to qualify for the bestowal of the Nobel prize (which nobody could have blamed him for (apart from those with an equally overinflated ego, maybe)! Seeking consolation for his overambitious and envious soul, he chose to try bring down his intellectual superiors to his level by belittling and ridiculing them and the scientific effort of systematic trial end error. Fortunate for him, such a levelling-down approach is quite popular, as it takes away the burden to strive. Thus he has attracted many readers which at least allowed him to find financial consolation for his intellectual failure and his amoral pretension, to have generated a single original insight worthwhile buying this book.
Had he limited the claim for his book, its publication may have been more tolerable - for the sake of some nice anecdotes that he has included. Yet this would have required him to admit, that our limitations to forecast evolutionary devolopments or to systematically and sustainably outwit financial markets (index developments) is a long established finding and not at all an original insight. Suggesting that learned people had failed to accept the consequences of Gödel´s incompleteness theorem, of Chaos theory or of George Soros´ reflexivity-observation is devious. As a consequence of this discernment many investors have actually redirected their holdings away from actively managed stock-holding funds to ETFs. Nevertheless, it makes sense not to give up seeking winning investment-strategies - of course without the illusion of finding them in win-all fool-proof computer models alone. Skillfully done, these efforts shape the markets, improve their efficiency as coordination mechanism and further our understanding of their mechanics. The initiators and the managers of funds have an obvious reason to give currency to the report, that they can actually outperform markets. And investors - similar to gamblers - are willing (for some share of their assets) to accept the odds for the sake of maybe unreasonable, yet not necessarily completely impossible return-expectations.
When Taleb delivers his explanation for the systematic biases and flaws in decision taking (which are evolutionarily implanted into our brains), he comes up with a bad and inadequately abridged recitation of the findings made by cognitive and behavioural scientists. The readers would be significantly better served with the original works or better thought through summaries, such as for example C. Roxburgh´s synthesis published in his crisp and concise article Hidden flaws in strategy". In his book, the Art of the long view - Planning the Future in an uncertain world", Peter Schwarz has gone far beyond Taleb´s bemoaning of the intrinsic planning problem; therein he has described techniques for coping with the challenge of looking into the future and of actively manging risk rather than putting oneZs head into the sand and just seeking shelter with a blind risk-sharing strategy, as suggested by Taleb. Or if you want a comprehensive analysis of the development of economics, ist failures and successive advancements plus an outlook where it is headed, do yourself a favour and read The Origin of Wealth" by Eric D. Beinhocker.
Now back to TalebZs work and his critisism of Probability Theory and Statistics, a field he has obviously completely failed to understand (despite his claims, tob e an expert!) - be it for the reason of his laziness (which he is even boastful about instead of ashamed of) or for his intellectual limitations. Anyhow, it is probably the audacity of a naive and uneducated or of a doped person, which enticed him to falsely claim that an inadequate choice of probability models by some practitioners in the trading room (or In other real-life applications) may be charged against deficiences in the theory. Taleb fails to even recognize (not to mention acknowledge), that the methodology for model testing is a core part of the field of probablity-theory and no educated scholar is let to believe, that the Gaussian distribution ruled the world! No way does probability theory suggest or even legitimize to blindly hold on to a preconceived model-assumption. Quite the opposite, it offers tools to overcome the human perception-trap through systematic testing of our inductive interpretations.
When Taleb notes that some authors better read a little more before starting to write a book, one cannot get around thinking, that he himself should probably have followed that rule. Yet, seeing the list of authors and their publications, he seems to be very biased in his reception of their message (although I doubt that he has actually listed all of those authors/books he seems to have piggybacked on - eg. Senge/The Fifth Discipline).
The therapy of wirting this book seems to have worked for him - not only financially. In the final part, he finds consolation in his acknowledgement, that following our archaic program to outperform all the others and to seek dominance, is a lost cause easily destracting us from enjoying what we have and only with extremly remote chances, to in exchange finally gain what we have been aiming for.
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