Quant Theorists Are Paid to Delude Themselves

I spent some time looking at this when I was younger and came to the conclusion that it's not about picking the "winning" stock or asset, but finding the trade with a disproportionate return.

This was well before Taleb and black swans.

The idea came from my maths teachers at high school. They figured that at the greyhounds there was a much better chance that a new dog at 100:1 that that dog might win 1/100th of the time. Plus there were always only 8 dogs and no jockeys to colude during the race.

So they used to go and get random trifectas of $1 bets with combos like the two favorites and the rank outsider. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of them.

They reckoned over time they came in well in front.

So in a similar way I see the best stock bets might ignore chances, mostly, and focus on outcomes, regardless of likelihood because anything could happen (esp at the last moment), which is sort of Talebs trading approach.