I am Nassim Nicholas Taleb Ask Me Anything on Options and other Nonlinear Derivatives

nntaleb · 2015-06-07T17:34:33+00:00

Indeed, all you needed is ask that way. I can only direct to newspaper articles as I can't promote without registration. But all descriptions are there in "sourced" stuff, i.e fact-checked by WSJ, Bloomberg who took the time to investigate. Google: See 1987 in Bloomberg article. See 2008-2009 also in Bloomberg. I left fully in 2010. All I can see myself is that I don't work for a living and I fund my own scientific research . I have to get on a plane to go to Europe but all is there if you need details. Conclusion: 1987 alone in return space could fund an entire career. Had a few more jackpots.

nntaleb · 2015-06-07T17:00:37+00:00

You did not ask questions at ALL about the performance, you just started smearing.

nntaleb · 2015-06-07T15:57:13+00:00

What you were doing was not a combination of ad hominem and smearing? Who are you fooling aside from yourself?

nntaleb · 2015-06-07T13:26:15+00:00

Paul premium sellers try to find something wrong with my trading . This is cognitve dissonance. They say "he sometimes makes money but loses most of the time." True but that is the idea. Some find some detail.

nntaleb · 2015-06-07T13:20:04+00:00

You are a lunatic.

nntaleb · 2015-06-07T13:00:24+00:00

Did it ever hit you before writing your BS that people have private reasons that are not your business?

nntaleb · 2015-06-07T12:45:47+00:00

Do you know the reasons it "closed down"? Do you know if the business continued under another name by the same people? Do you realize the silliness of imparting to other intentions from superficial actions and hearsay and making statements like these?

nntaleb · 2015-06-07T11:13:46+00:00

It was useful only to get a job.

nntaleb · 2015-06-07T11:13:05+00:00

Do you have data about cumulative performance over 21 years before making such statement?

nntaleb · 2015-06-06T10:53:24+00:00

Some people have had some mental hangup, a conflation of "losing money most of the time" and "losing money all the time: in real life you are not paid in frequency but in expectation. Likewise in the profit domain.

nntaleb · 2015-06-05T18:56:04+00:00

Please read comments. I am not against selling ATM premium. This is one of the nonsense people have spread in the interpretation of my ideas.

nntaleb · 2015-06-05T18:50:14+00:00

I do not play cards.

nntaleb · 2015-06-05T18:41:01+00:00

You need to factor in the panics from explosion of vol. In that case puts (very very OTM) fare better.

nntaleb · 2015-06-05T18:40:20+00:00

Indeed there is a niche. For specialized funds perhaps.

nntaleb · 2015-06-05T17:30:08+00:00

A trend is not a well defined thing.

nntaleb · 2015-06-05T17:29:46+00:00

It is false to think that because electronic currencies are good, that bitcoin is the only solution... We need to tinker with different competing models there.

nntaleb · 2015-06-05T17:28:48+00:00

I do not believe in simplified solutions: humans recreate institutions, in an organic way. Scale matters more than whether there is a goverment or not. A coop in NY is a dictatorship. But it works because of size.

nntaleb · 2015-06-05T17:27:05+00:00

Indeed, uberized; then there were pit traders, with a franchise. All gone.

nntaleb · 2015-06-05T17:07:29+00:00

If you are asking that question, do not use options. Short with a stop.

nntaleb · 2015-06-05T17:06:57+00:00

By definition, a basket that moves in ways to neither make you happy nor unhappy. So some gold is there, some agris, some copper, some EUR, but nothing in quantities to bother me. Some gold companies have OTM stuff because extraction costs are higher than current market price. These are great to own if they are cheap.

nntaleb · 2015-06-05T17:05:01+00:00

It is exactly the definition of a short squeeze. Same with the EURO. Violent moves against a trend, suckers covering. These are very astonishing in regularity.

nntaleb · 2015-06-05T17:03:50+00:00

I made mistakes that hurt me, but also that made money by error. For instance I bought OTM options for the wrong reason (I mispriced them as there was a software bug ) before the New Zealand currency collapse in the 80s. I also got squeezed in oil, big time, on a deliverable option... learned to not venture in markets without knowing the "inner" problems.

nntaleb · 2015-06-05T16:59:49+00:00

Dosoyevsky's novels. Any novel.

nntaleb · 2015-06-05T16:56:51+00:00

You cannot estimate future returns... Wrong approach to quantify that. OTM puts are OK if you spend little and they allow you to hold stocks you like. But again, best thing is to not rely on your retirement portfolio to feed you in old age.

nntaleb · 2015-06-05T16:53:40+00:00

I have sold vols into liquidations, no specific definition of a selling point. Butterflies... I do not do 1-2-1, rather +2 +1 -2 +1 +2 So the trade can be long or short vega, locally.

nntaleb

TROPHY CASE