Black Swan

Since the “black swan” metaphor was coined in the 2007 book of the same name it has become fashionable to label virtually all low probability/high impact events black swans. But the danger of making an occurrence like the COVID-19 outbreak appear to be astronomically rare is that we will treat…

The trouble with black swan events is that no two of them look alike, so preparing for them is a dicey business.The unforeseen, global seismic events that touch every aspect of daily life tend to leave things forever changed.That’s especially true for financial services.In scrambling to address the coronavirus crises…

By Vikram Nehru Covid-19 is a dark cloud that has suddenly descended on humanity. But even the darkest clouds have silver linings. Indeed, the Chinese word for crisis, ‘weiji’, signifies danger as well as opportunity. The Black Death of Europe in the 1300s, pre-19th century cholera epidemics, and the Spanish…

Why You’re Not One of the World’s Great InvestorsAnd that’s fine. You don’t have to be perfect to do perfectly well in the stock market.Bloomberg, April 24, 2020How would you like to generate 40% annual returns for three decades? Build a firm with billions of dollars under management that’s the…

Trump senior advisor and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Kevin Hassett says the U.S. is in “black swan land” and predicts double-digit GDP decline in the second quarter.April 25, 2020Read More

Trump senior advisor and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Kevin Hassett says the U.S. is in “black swan land” and predicts double-digit GDP decline in the second quarter.April 25, 2020Read More

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The COVID-19 pandemic is neither unprecedented, nor an unpredictable Black Swan event. It is causing massive and still unknowable suffering. But to soften the blow of that suffering, we have a collective responsibility to accurately understand the root causes and repeatable elements of this pandemic so that we can learn…

The COVID-19 (the disease that the coronavirus causes) outbreak in India is a disaster in the making, akin to several disasters that have occurred in the past, e.g., 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, 1999 Ersama cyclone. They start as a health crisis and quickly morph into a humanitarian and an economic…

So, there’s this new study doing the rounds. Some economists decided to study the twitter followers of prominent coronavirus skeptics and fearmongers, and it seems that followers of Nassim Taleb were more likely to shelter in place, and less like to die of coronavirus, than followers of Richard Epstein or…