Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a famous trader, philosopher and scientist. Nassim Nicholas continues to be not only a well-known theorist, but also acts as a practicing trader and founder of Empiric L-El-Si.
His hedge fund brought billions in profits to its investors during the most difficult crisis.
His books were translated into 17 different languages, and Nicholas himself was recognized as a genius of the stock exchange world. Nicholas had a special interest in statistics, namely random events that could affect the world economy.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb was born in 1960 in Lebanon in the city of Amoun.
Nassim's family belonged to the Orthodox caste and represented their interests at various political levels. So his grandfather and great-grandfather were the deputies of the prime minister of Lebanon, and his paternal grandfather was the most important supreme judge in Lebanon. If we talk directly about his parents, his father was a famous oncologist. In general, Nassim grew up in a wealthy noble family.
After the deportation, his parents were able to obtain French citizenship, which allowed Taleb to attend a French school and receive a much-needed education. Initially, Nicholas graduated from the University of Paris, and also defended his academic degree there.
He later went to business school at the University of Pennsylvania. The economic education he received became a huge impetus for the development of his stock exchange career and worldview.
Achievements
Nassim Nicholas Taleb gained his wealth during the 1987 crisis, but Nicholas gained worldwide fame as one of the best managers in 2008 during the so-called recession in world markets. To understand how successful a given person is in the stock exchange world, you just need to look at the list of positions he holds.
So Nassim held the position of chief trader at Union Bank of Switzerland, as well as chief derivatives trader at CS-First Boston, Banque Indosuez. Nassim was a long-time executive director of CIBC-Wood Gundy.
Nicholas Taleb also served as chief arbitrage trader at BNP-Paribas trader and as an independent market maker at Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Taleb is also a member of the board of directors of Silvercrest-Longchamp NonGaussian Fund, BVI, Centaurus Capital LP Alpha Fund, Centaurus Kappa Fund.
The successful career ladder ended with the creation of his own hedge fund “Empirica LL-S”, which was focused on trading options and futures. During the crisis year, this fund's profitability reached 65 percent, which is very high during a period of general recession.
Taleb and the Black Swan
Taleb was very different in his views on market analysis based on statistics. So Taleb is considered the most ardent critic of statistical analysis and clearly states that what happened in the past does not guarantee repetition in the future. As an example, in his book The Black Swan he gives a simple example based on the history of the discovery of Australia, where the black swan was first discovered.
So, for three hundred years, humanity has met only white swans, so there was no debate about another color of this bird. However, when humanity discovered Australia, they were surprised by a black swan, which they had never seen before. Thus, 300 years of observations and statements were shattered by just one random incident.
Taleb successfully adapted his theory to financial markets and in his semi-philosophical book showed with examples how unplanned events and statistics influenced historical price changes, namely those random events, like the so-called black swans, completely rewrote the world economy.
For example, think about the fall of the Twin Towers, sudden wars and how they could affect the markets. It was the theory of random events and its influence on financial markets that allowed Taleb to amass a huge fortune.
Taleb became the author of a number of such books as “Fooled by chance", "Black Swan", "Procrustean Bed", "Antifragile". The book “Black Swan” is considered a must-read textbook for economists, as well as future stockbrokers.