Today’s Wall Street Journal reports (paywall) that the markets’ slump has been very good to Nassim Nicholas Taleb:
Separate funds in Universa’s so-called Black Swan Protection Protocol were up by a range of 65% to 115% in October, according to a person close to the fund. “We’re discovering the fragility of the financial system,” said Mr. Taleb, who says he expects market volatility to continue as more hedge funds run into trouble.
Taleb’s overall strategy is straightforward, and is described in the WSJ article much as Taleb explained it himself in The Black Swan.
To execute its strategy, Universa buys far-out-of-the-money “put” options on stocks and stock indexes. These are bets that the market will see a sharp, sudden downturn. They become extremely valuable in a market decline of 20% or more in a one-month period.
The lesson? Success lies waiting outside highly dynamic, uncertain systems predicated on a high degree of false certainty.