Thereafter, Thorp shifted his sights to “the biggest casino in the world”: Wall Street. Devising and then deploying mathematical formulas to beat the market, Thorp ushered in the era of quantitative finance we live in today. Along the way, the so-called godfather of the quants played bridge with Warren Buffett, crossed swords with a young Rudy Giuliani, detected the Bernie Madoff scheme, and, to beat the game of roulette, invented, with Claude Shannon, the world’s first wearable computer. Some smaller gems that were cool to see were the author's use and takes on the Kelly Criterion in both gambling and investing, Sharpe's principle (that the return of the average actively managed dollar must equal the market return, https://web.stanford.edu/~wfsharpe/ar...), the golden rule for a university endowment to last forever is to spend a maximum of 2% per year, and the excellent introduction by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. At the end, the book turns into a bit of an investment advice book, albeit a very good one with some unusual suggestions, e.g., how to index arbitrage in a tax efficient way.

A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I

But this is a good book. See, I read "A mind at play", a biography about Claude Shannon (btw they are genius bros), and I dragged myself to finish it. It is hard to write about a genius, if you are not a genius yourself (the author of "A mind at play" admitted it himself). This one, I cannot stop reading. Thereafter, Thorp shifted his sights to "the biggest casino in the world" Wall Street. Devising and then deploying mathematical formulas to beat the market, Thorp ushered in the era of quantitative finance we live in today. Along the way, the so-called godfather of the quants played bridge with Warren Buffett, crossed swords with a young Rudy Giuliani, detected the Bernie Madoff scheme, and, to beat the game of roulette, invented, with Claude Shannon, the world's first wearable computer. The incredible true story of the card-counting mathematics professor who taught the world how to beat the dealer and, as the first of the great quantitative investors, ushered in a revolution on Wall Street. It was also refreshing to see the life balance mentioned explicitly as I think so many book glamorize the intense work dedication and ignore the often detrimental effects on home life. On the crisis in funding for the California university system: “To starve education is to eat our seed corn. No tax today, no technology tomorrow.” (p. 341)Overall I found the first half more interesting because of his story of pulling himself up by the bootstraps and overcoming many of life's essential unfairness. I like that he deliberately calls out how some people you come across in life will not hesitate to put their well being ahead of yours even when they already have what may be considered a comfortable position in life. What makes people successful is being able to roll with these punches to overcome what life dishes out.

A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, H…

This book intersects with many, many others. I'm only going to list books that I've read, but the point is that if you liked the book, or if you liked any of these books, there's quite a lot of crossover appeal. Among them: I've come to believe very strongly that any knowledge that cannot be used in the real world is useless. Application of knowledge to solve real world problems - for individualistic gain or otherwise - satiates our desire to exist. As Munger says, we have a high moral responsibility to understand human systems and act rationally. In this regard, Thorp's autobiography is an illustrative guide to finding meaning in life - not through spirituality, but through curiosity and application of the inquisitive mind to understand the world around it. This was a very frustrating AudioBook. I have discovered that autobiographies about titans in the finance industry tend to be far too self-aggrandizing for my liking (Currently having the same problem with Ray Dalio's "Principles".) It is made doubly painful when the Autobiography is read by the author. Edward is not a good reader. He has an odd cadence and seems inhibited by something in his mouth (dentures?) that makes his reading style off-putting. On top of that finance titans tend to be rather braggadocios. The book felt even more egotistical having been read by the author. Edward fills us in on where he grew up, how he was educated, what made the application of mathematics to gambling such a compelling challenge, and why he rushed to publish his successful system after testing it in the real world. [04:51]You dont have to take my words for it. Mr.Taleb himself endorsed this book. So it must be something. Exploring the mental models of externalities, the tragedy of the commons, and fundamental attribution errors. [59:15] Before this book, I wasn't aware of what a super genius he is. He took a standard IQ test (he didn't know the reason) to determine whether he should skip 6th grade (he was younger and smaller than his classmates, but academically far beyond them). He enjoyed the first part of the test, then decided he had better things to do and drew a line down "true" for the last set of true/false questions. Nevertheless, he got the highest score the principal had ever seen in many years of educating bright students. One of those unique minds who combined amazing innate math abilities with a flair for practical implications, Thorpe would enjoy decades of results that even earned the respect of Warren Buffet. Thorpe dives into any number of related topics including his own tale of spotting the Madoff fraud 20 years before it came to light....noone listened to him either. For all of his chest puffery, I honestly don't see how Mr. Thorpe benefits society. He exploited loopholes. Not super admirable. He seems to have had a nice life and cared very much about family and friends. While I certainly appreciate that aspect of his life and career, it's not special enough to warrant such a long and rambling autobiography.

A Man for All Markets — Beating Blackjack Edward O. Thorp, A Man for All Markets — Beating Blackjack

When the Chicago Board Options Exchange opened for business in April 1973, the only people on the floor were my traders. It was like having machine guns against bows and arrows.” What you should be reading and listening to if you want to enact positive change in the world right now — politically or evolutionarily. [1:08:29]

chất lượng giấy oknôi dung cho thấy một cách nhìn khá hay về đầu tư Review từ độc giả Nguyen Quoc Viet The author is an extraordinarily talented and successful person. He is a brilliant theoretician who can justifiably lay claim to a handful of good mathematical theories. He is also a good investor. He has led an interesting life, particularly when he was taking on the casinos. The author has a life story that needs to be recorded for the rest of us. Yet, the way he describes it makes it unbearably one-sided and as if coming from a person too much in love with himself. There’s an old saying, ‘Give a person a fish and they eat for a day; teach a person to fish and they eat for a lifetime.’ And it’s a similar thing for thinking. If you give somebody advice about a problem, they might solve that one problem. If you teach them how to think about problems, they can solve problems for the rest of their life.” In one section, he really throws down the gauntlet against Efficient Market Theory, but I do believe he and Buffet are outliers and that overall EMT can be important for recognizing that most people will not be able to exploit any perceived inefficiencies and over time the market tends to (mostly) correct, just how long it may take is unknown to most.

A Man for all Markets – Wilmott A Man for all Markets – Wilmott

This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront !Wealthfront is an app that helps you save and invest your money.Right now, you can earn 4.80%APY—that’s the Annual Percentage Yield—with the Wealthfront Cash Account. That’smore than eleven timesmore interest than if you left your money in a savings account at the average bank, according to FDIC.gov. How has Edward known where to draw the line between growing a business and withdrawing before it consumed all else in his life? What catalyzed his decision to wind things down? [1:17:48] The book is a great educational experience and a great narrative. I came away with a much better understanding of how hedge funds work which probably would have been boring or annoying in a lesser told tale. There are learnings and scattered through their are anecdotes. For instance, he tells a story about how he convinced his maid to put her money into Berkshire Hathaway in the 1960s and keep it there. She didn't keep it there.This takes us through the first ten chapters. Then in Chapter 11: “Wall Street: The Greatest Casino on Earth” Thorp turns his attention to the financial markets. The titles of the next 14 chapters not only outline the story but could serve as something like a syllabus for a graduate course in investing. Viz., “Front-Running, The Quantitative Revolution, Swindles and Hazards, Buying Low, Selling High, Hedging Your Bets, Compound Growth, Beat Most Investors by Indexing, Asset Allocation and Wealth Management, etc.” How did Edward suss out that something was fishy about the way the Madoff brothers were doing business 17 years before everybody else finally caught on? [50:58]