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

Rating:
Summary: A great read for curious minds
Review: ..and not just for the Wall Street traders ( this being said....understanding the survivorship bias could save them a lot of pain at bonus time :-)
A very entertaining and helpful book, which taught me a lot about the role of "chance" in life.

Rating:
Summary: uncommon sense
Review: 'fooled by randomness' is a book that can be read with pleasure by almost anybody. nassim taleb's conclusions have wide application and not just to the business of trading and finance. for instance, the book should be required reading for policy-makers.

nassim is an irreverent fellow who demolishes shibboleths as he goes along. the story appears to be semi-autobiographical, hence authentic.

i recommend it without reservation.

Rating:
Summary: Fooled By Randomness
Review: The principal subject could have been adequately covered in a dozen pages or less. The rest of the book is just a lot of rambling. Numerous put downs of famous people that only reflected the author's lack of maturity. Also many pages of trying to convince you of his brilliance. You time and money can be better spent elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: What is this guy's problem?
Review: This is a painfully bad book. Nassim Nicholas Taleb's observations are completely trivial, lacking any depth and conclusion whatsoever, and it takes you a while to understand that this book is not about randomness and the way the human brain is easily fooled when interpreting information.

This book is about Taleb himself - one huge ego trip and at the end impossible to read. No one can criticize the intellectual message of the book - that humans make bad decisions because they underestimate the fundamental effect of uncertainty. But the point is that Taleb misses to discuss the huge amount of research available in this field performed since quite some time by economists, psychologists, and others. There is absolutely nothing new in this book; it does not even provide a synopsis of interesting research or real-live implications or applications.

What makes this book so unbearable is that Taleb is so full of himself for knowing Greek mythology and all the philosophers while at the same time knowing about financial engineering. He tells us several times that he is working out. At the end of this book you would like to beat the b'jesus out of this guy for writing a book so irrelevant and arrogant.


Rating:
Summary: Fighting human biases
Review: This is one of the best books I've read about human behavior and probability. This book crystallizes many of the reasons behind why we humans behave the way we do despite knowing the odds intellectually and offers some very pragmatic ideas for minimizing our irrational behavior.

In addition to his insights on probability, Dr. Taleb seems to have a firm understanding of how to teach. I'll never forget the visceral images his book left me with, such as Odysseus and the sirens or the experiences of his friend Nero. I know little about the markets, but I can see what a powerful training ground in probability they must be. The descriptions of traders "blowing up" are good allegories even though I find myself in a less random environment (I think).

Rating:
Summary: Five stars, reluctantly.
Review: This is a very good book for the right target audience - traders who successfully speculate with their own funds. There aren't many of them, estimates rarely go above 10,000 worldwide. Small wonder then, that the publisher chooses to market the book on a larger scale, and that's where it gets misunderstood.

Not that that's difficult. Taleb has a rare clarity of thought, but not of expression. There are a few brilliant insights almost lost in the wordy mix of bitterness and triumphalism that makes up most of the book. These insights are well worth the price and the time spent extracting them, but they will be lost on most people who buy this book. Unless one is able to filter Taleb's text through the prism of one's own experience it won't make sense.

If you are not a trader, don't bother with this book - there are better texts on epistemology as well as statistics.

If you are a trader who is still learning, buy this book, read it once, keep it on the shelf, and read it again in a few years.

If you are a consistently profitable trader with someone else's money, buy this book and read it to better understand your own decisionmaking process before you consider becoming self-employed.

If you are a consistently profitable trader with your own money, buy the book and read it - it won't improve your trading but it will improve your execution, and it's worth the money for that.

Rating:
Summary: Fooled By The Hype On The Cover and The Ramble Inside
Review: I had been looking forward to reading this book for some time but I was too busy in my job as a securities analyst. The title was enticing because it seemed to hint at some of the same conclusions about stock markets that I had come to in my 20 years of analysing stocks.

I was very disappointed with the book. I couldn't bring myself to finish it. Much of the text is full of long-winded padding. The smugness and the name-dropping and the sneering at those less brainy than the undoubtedly smart Mr. Taleb himself were intensely irritating. Frankly, a huge opportunity was lost here. The title promised much more than what was delivered. Mr. Taleb's rambling self-absorption in his own cleverness and the stream of consciousness style that pervades much of the book is offputting and slightly nauseating.