Take the probability of loss times the amount of possible loss from the probability of gain times the amount of possible gain. That is what we’re trying to do. It’s imperfect, but that’s what it’s all about.
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The Quest For Information
You never have perfect information. So you work, work and work. Sometimes we thumb through ValueLine. How you fill your inbox is very important.
Four Pillars Of Learning
Four essential mechanisms, or “pillars,” massively modulate our ability to learn. The first is attention: a set of neural circuits that select, amplify, and propagate the signals we view as relevant–multiplying their impact a hundred fold. My second pillar is active engagement…learning requires active generation of hypotheses, with motivation and curiosity. The third pillar, the flip side to active engagement, is error feedback…eliminate inappropriate hypotheses, and stabilize the most accurate ones. Finally, the fourth pillar is consolidation: over time, our brain compiles what it has acquired and transfers it into long-term memory…Repetition plays an essential role in this consolidation process.
Capital Markets As Prediction Markets
Capital markets are the best prediction market in the world, because they combine three important questions: are you right, are you right about how wrong everyone else is, and are you right about something that matters?
Correct and Non-Consensus
Everyone’s forecasts are, on average, consensus forecasts. If your prediction is consensus too, it won’t produce above-average performance even if it’s right. Superior performance comes from accurate non-consensus forecasts. But because most forecasters aren’t terrible, the actual results fall near the consensus most of the time – non-consensus forecasts are usually wrong…The problem is that extraordinary performance comes only from correct non-consensus forecasts, but non-consensus forecasts are hard to make, hard to make correctly and hard to act on.
Integrative Thinking
The ability to face constructively the tension of opposing ideas and, instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new idea that contains elements of the opposing ideas but is superior to each…Integrative thinkers don’t break a problem into independent pieces and work on each piece separately. They keep the entire problem firmly in mind while working on its individual parts.
– Roger Martin, The Opposable Mind
Combinations
Risk and Time
Risk and time are opposite sides of the same coin, for if there were no tomorrow there would be no risk. Time transforms risk, and the nature of risk is shaped by the time horizon: the future is the playing field.
The Difference Between School and the Real World
If you’re asked a question in school, on a test for example, that’s a clue about how to solve it. It means it can be solved using techniques you already know. This is a difference between school and the real world.