What I’m Reading
Update 4/21/2014
Here’s a short list of what I’m reading right now. Some of these may make their way to my recommended reading list.
1) The (Mis)Behavior of Markets by Benoit Mandelbrot & Richard Hudson. Very interesting fractal analyses of financial markets.
2) Antifragile by Nassim Taleb. So far, a good read about systems that are the opposite of fragile. It’s not robustness – which just survives volatility – it’s “anti-fragile’, which actually thrives on volatility/disorder.
3) The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail but Some Don’t by Nate Silver. I love Nate’ work and looking forward to getting deeper into this one.
4) Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis. I loved MoneyBall but I’m afraid Lewis is chasing sensationalism here in hopes of repeating his Hollywood success. High Frequency Trading is all over the financial news, so I need to have read this.
Yes, I liked the book as well, he does have some very good points, I liked his “barbell strategy” in particular. In my opinion he thinks of himself as a modern day pragmatic version of Popper. He likes to philosophize, but he doesn’t like doing research for his book, he would rather write his opinions and his personal take on things.
Taleb claims to use his own simulation tools, but he prefers a more intuitive approach to things, he has the trader’s mentality. As a physicist, I rather prefer a more quantitate approach to things, a la Didier Sornette. (Plus I may have been influenced by Richard Feynman, who thought of most philosophers as second rate thinkers.) Sornette actually published an article in Reports on Progress in Physics, a prestigious physics journal, titled “Physics and financial economics (1776–2014): puzzles, Ising and agent-based models”. (I can send you a pdf file if you would like.)
Hi Damian,
What do you think of “Antifragile” by N. Taleb?
Thanks,
Alisher
So far, so good. I’m part way through and enjoying it. Like many, I’m put off by Taleb’s persona, but his points are very good. Biology and evolution show that systems can be anti-fragile while members of the system may not be so.