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Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

Book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb · 14 quotes · Ifs, Reality Check, Ability

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Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets Quotes

“The number of managers with great track records in a given market depends far more on the number of people who started in the investment business (in place of going to dental school), rather than on their ability to produce profits.”

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Book:Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
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“Those who were unlucky in life in spite of their skills would eventually rise. The lucky fool might have benefited from some luck in life; over the longer run he would slowly converge to the state of a less-lucky idiot. Each one would revert to his long-term properties.”

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Book:Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
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“Reality is far more vicious than Russian roulette. First, it delivers the fatal bullet rather infrequently, like a revolver that would have hundreds, even thousands of chambers instead of six. After a few dozen tries, one forgets about the existence of a bullet, under a numbing false sense of security. Second, unlike a well-defined precise game like Russian roulette, where the risks are visible to anyone capable of multiplying and dividing by six, one does not observe the barrel of reality. One is capable of unwittingly playing Russian roulette - and calling it by some alternative “low risk” game.”

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Book:Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
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“Bullish or bearish are terms used by people who do not engage in practicing uncertainty, like the television commentators, or those who have no experience in handling risk. Alas, investors and businesses are not paid in probabilities; they are paid in dollars. Accordingly, it is not how likely an event is to happen that matters, it is how much is made when it happens that should be the consideration.”

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Book:Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
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