Thursday, April 09, 2020

Nassim Taleb: Covid is not a "Black Swan"

meaning it was predictable

The Corona Crisis is Not a Black Swan: Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Universa Inv. & NYU Tandon) - YouTube

Our tightly networked world: Blessing and curse | American Enterprise Institute - AEI

The risks of such rare, concerning events are of course especially on our minds today in the context of Covid-19. Taleb anticipated this in a supplemental essay he wrote for the paperback edition of The Black Swan when it appeared in 2010: 

“As we travel more on this planet, epidemics will be more acute—we will have a germ population dominated by a few numbers, and the successful killer will spread vastly more effectively.

Taleb-Advised Universa Tail Fund Returned 3,600% in March - Bloomberg

"A tail-risk hedge fund advised by Nassim Taleb, author of “The Black Swan,” returned 3,612% in March, paying off massively for clients who invested in it as protection against a plunge in stock prices."