Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, I saw him give a talk in February at a Long Now Seminar, and I asked him: "How should people invest if they aren't derivatives traders?" And he said: "Don't invest." I have read his books and I am familiar with his barbell strategy. Are you really suggesting that he recommends the common man to invest in derivatives and such?
Very interesting - I've often wondered what the rest of us can learn from Taleb's advice. I've seen a slightly more watered down approach at use. Put 60-70% of your money in government bonds (regular and inflation-indexed), and the other rest in US small-cap value stocks, international small-cap value stocks, and emerging market stocks. These sectors have been more volatile, but with higher returns, over the last 80…
But if you are a buy-and-holder (i.e. a buyer of future cash flows), then a 90% drop in the market is a great thing - you can buy a lot more company that before. Regardless of how the market moves, you will still be acquiring an ever-growing % of whatever company you are looking at.
And you have dollar cost averaging working in your favor as well, so you are guaranteed to do at least a little better than average.