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Falkenblog
Personal blog · falkenblog.blogspot.comeconomicsbusiness
Falkenblog is a personal blog at falkenblog.blogspot.com about economics and business. Since 2008, 30 different Hacker News readers have linked it 38 times, most often “Is Taleb a crank?”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Most-linked posts?
- Is Taleb a crank?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2009-08-18
- A Batesian Mimicry Explanation of Business Cycles (2010)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-02-04
- Taleb Mishandles Fragility2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-11-29
- /2008/12/benfords-law-catches-madoff.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2008-12-19
- /2016/08/finding-alpha-pdf.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-06-28
- Piketty's Terrifying Dystopia2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-07-27
- Envy vs. Greed - a new basis for economics2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-10-04
What Hacker News says?
Best survey of the subject I have found (most are bullshit) is Finding Alpha by Eric Falkenstein which he has graciously offered for free on his blog. By the subject I mean, finding an edge in trading. Spoiler alert there is no system to follow. He wrote algos for a local options market maker, had a significant Econ PHD thesis. The basic premise of the book is that real Alpha is rare, idiosyncratic and gets exploite…
Comment linking /2016/08/finding-alpha-pdf.html
on “I've reproduced 130 research papers about “predicting the stock market””Submitted Is Taleb a crank? as a story · 46 points
HN discussionStop-losses are not as effective or nearly as simple as they are described in typical financial media. http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/stop-loss-myth.html (with additional citations in the blog)
Comment linking /2011/02/stop-loss-myth.html
on “How I made $500k with machine learning and high frequency trading”Submitted A Batesian Mimicry Explanation of Business Cycles (2010) as a story · 42 points
HN discussionThe book The Missing Risk Premium covers a lot of the evidence. The author give a synopsis here: https://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/missing-risk-premium... Low volatility investing is based around the observation that low volatility stocks have higher average returns than high volatility stocks. This article is a good summary: https://www.researchaffiliates.com/en_us/publications/articl...
Comment linking /2013/07/missing-risk-premium-synopsis.html
on “The Rate of Return on Everything, 1870–2015 [pdf]”Submitted Can a Computer Do Your Job? as a story · 33 points
HN discussionNot entirely convincing. I personally prefer Falkenstein as my Chomsky critic: The spread is a debating tactic where you present a set of supporting arguments so wide and particular your opponents are unable to rebut them all because 1) they have day jobs and 2) they have limited space or time to address them in any particular forum. A champion spreader is Noam Chomsky, who selectively recites facts of world history…
Comment linking /2012/09/economists-love-spread.html
on “Aaron Swartz: The Book That Changed My Life”Submitted Piketty's Terrifying Dystopia as a story · 15 points
HN discussionEric Falkenstein's various Taleb takedowns are fun. http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/fama-on-taleb.html http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/taleb-mishandles-frag... http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/nassim-taleb-imitates... http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/review-of-talebs-blac...
Comment linking /2009/03/review-of-talebs-black-swan.html
on “Nassim Taleb: We should retire the notion of standard deviation”Submitted IQ and Trading Profits as a story · 13 points
HN discussionThis is actually an awesome illustration of why a lot of famous results in academic finance were wrong in the 70s and 80s. Returns don't average, they multiply. If you get HHTT or TTHH you're in terrible shape: 2.25 * .36 = .36 * 2.25 = .81 You started with $1 and now have 81 cents. I recently learned that a lot of early computer-era academic finance actually made the same error of averaging returns, as described in…
Comment linking /2016/08/finding-alpha-pdf.html
on “What is ergodicity? (2016)”Submitted Taleb Mishandles Fragility as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI used to be impressed by Taleb (when I was younger and more clueless) but having read two of his books and many articles I find the negativity tiresome and petulant, and his finance theories questionable. Eric Falkenstein: "Another key to understanding Taleb is that he has a French post-modern tendency to write to impress rather than explain. He provides hundreds of loosely related anecdotes, reminding me of the Ta…
Comment linking /2012/11/taleb-mishandles-fragility.html
on “Taleb: The future will not be cool”Submitted Envy vs. Greed - a new basis for economics as a story · 4 points
HN discussionOn the other hand, he's unilaterally refused to disclose actual audited returns for the funds that he's been involved with. This is very convenient for marketing his books and views, but creates an inaccurate impression of how profitable his approach really is: http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/nassims-selective-ret... .
Comment linking /2010/08/nassims-selective-returns.html
on “How to identify algorithmic trading strategies”Submitted Fermi's Intuition on Models as a story · 3 points
HN discussionBenfords law is instrumental in fraud detection, the Enron guys were wise to it, but Bernie Madoff was not: http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/benfords-law-catches-...
Comment linking /2008/12/benfords-law-catches-madoff.html
on “Why 30.1% of numbers start with 1”Submitted Piketty's Terrifying Dystopia as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThis reminds me of an article I read a year back, same topic: http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/my-big-toe.html "The bottom line is, if we are in a simulation, there needs to be compressive sampling because quantum effects between particles would otherwise require an infinite amount of memory, so the meaning of the wave function is that it's for data compression. [...] The fortuitous data compression implicit i…
Comment linking /2013/07/my-big-toe.html
on “Is the Universe a Simulation?”Submitted Why Envy Dominates Greed (2010) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThe too many variables problem might be more evident in the social sciences - but it is present everywhere in science, even the most 'strict' science branches - like physics. You always need to make some assumptions. Much more eloquently - this idea is laid down in: http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/nonscientists-naive-a...
Comment linking /2009/09/nonscientists-naive-about-science.html
on “The New Science of Causation”Submitted What's the Difference between AAA and AA+? as a story · 2 points
HN discussion> Canada has the lowest ratio of net debt to gross domestic product among the Group of Seven industrialized countries If we're including household debt this does not square with what I've read elsewhere. p.s. I've immensely enjoyed various sharp screeds from recent years ripping Taleb a new one: http://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/nassim-taleb-cl... http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/search?q=taleb
Comment linking /search?q=taleb
on “Black Swan' Author Taleb: Stimulus Made Economic Crisis Worse”Submitted A Batesian Mimicry Explanation of Business Cycles (2010) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionMy favorite quote on Nassim Taleb's writings: Taleb’s writings are filled with certainty, anger, and immodesty, having the Godelian impossibility of someone shouting 'I am the most humble!' Spot on. From http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/review-of-talebs-blac... .
Comment linking /2009/03/review-of-talebs-black-swan.html
on “Taleb on Black Swans, Fragility, and Mistakes”Submitted Valentine's Day Sexonomics (2010) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI'd asked about the application of Benford's law to the Madoff case in a previous thread ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=396942 ); this is one take. Note from the item's comments, though, that someone else ran the same analysis and came to a different conclusion: http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/benfords-law-catches-... (There's also some discrepancy in the numbers each used, so I expect further correcti…
Comment linking /2008/12/benfords-law-catches-madoff.html
on “Bernie vs Benford's Law: Madoff Wasn't That Dumb”Submitted BitMex Funding Rate Arbitrage as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Is the Fama-French Model Dead? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Finding Alpha as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
