“…These guys all know each other, and they all have the same strategies. They came from the same schools, and they get together for drinks after work, The strategies employed tend to be not only duplicable but broadly followed — the result being a packlike tendency that has helped increase market volatility and, for some hedge funds, has led to losses in the last month.”
After reading “Fooled by Randomness” by N N Taleb and "A Short History of Financial Euphoria" by John Kenneth Galbraith, nothing comes as a surprise in financial world.
Over last few weeks, so-called sub-prime crisis in USA is growing on the world like a creeping wine. In such times, we need to remember Galbraith’s words: “…And tragedy can be quietly enjoyed when, as is not true of war, nothing is being lost but money.”
I have always doubted wisdom, expertise and integrity of almost all ‘visible and audible’ experts in Indian financial world. Watching CNBC and NDTV Profit is loads of fun. They get you sit-down comedians through the working day.
Their anchors even have invented funny language to entertain us :” stocks have gone up/down for themselves……markets do what they want to do……”. Anthropomorphism at its worst!
They remind you of Michael Crichton s words:
“ A lot of people complain that television lacks focus. But that's the nature of the medium. Television's not about information at all. Information is active, engaging. Television is passive. Information is disinterested, objective. Television is emotional. It's entertainment. Whatever he says, however he acts, in truth Martin has absolutely no interest in you, or your company, or your airplanes. He's paid to exercise his one reliable talent: provoking people, getting them to make an emotional outburst, to lose their temper, to say something outrageous. He doesn't really want to know about airplanes. He wants a media moment. If you understand that, you can deal with him.”
Artist : Whitney Darrow,Jr. The New Yorker Sept 13, 1947
