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About this quote

What does it mean?
Rare events are often mispriced by the market, becoming more undervalued as they become rarer.
In plain terms
Make money only when opportunities are very rare because rare things are priced too low.
What can you take from it?
Seek out extremely rare events for investment opportunities.

Where it applies

  • investment decisions
  • asset pricing

Putting it to work

  • look for outliers
  • avoid common trades

Questions to consider

  • What rare events are you ignoring?
  • How do you price uncertainty?

Another view

Rare events can be impossible to predict or value accurately.

More from Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  1. I always remind myself that what one observes is at best a combination of variance and returns, not just returns.

    Permalink to quote #6
  2. The more data we have, the more likely we are to drown in it.

    Permalink to quote #8
  3. A mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in the light of the information until that point.

    Permalink to quote #5

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