Catching Up: Gladwell on Difficulty, Taleb on Amaranth, and Amaranth’s Letter

Some things worth scanning that I may not get to in more detail:

• Malcolm Gladwell, the king of anecdotal empircism, uses sports and healthcare examples to make a useful point about insider vs. outsider views of an activity’s degree of difficulty.
• Nicholas Nassim Taleb has some very good comments on the Amaranth episode.
• Amaranth’s letter to investors is harrowing stuff:

Performance Update

We estimate that, as of Friday, September 29, 2006, the Net Asset Value of the multi-strategy funds had declined approximately 65% to 70% month-to-date and approximately 55% to 60% year-to-date. We are providing a range given the significant number of trades executed during the month and the limited time available to calculate the estimate. 

Related posts:

1. Gladwell: What Business Can Learn from Spaghetti Sauce
2. Catching Up: Housing, Geotagging, and Press Releases
3. Black Swans at Amaranth
4. Peter Bernstein on Amaranth: Better to be Wrong Than Too Right
5. Monkeys, a typewriter, infinite series, and the letter “S”