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Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb 
Just as coincidence can be confused with causality, so the lucky idiot can be confused with the skilled investor. The realities of randomness and probability almost guarantee that, out of a large pool of random investors, a Warren Buffett will emerge just by luck. Taleb (the founder of Empirica L.L.C., a trading firm and risk research organization) retains that central message in his revised examination of randomness and the consistent inability of humans to recognize it. He explores ways of distinguishing between noise and signal in general and in the financial markets in particular. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Table of Contents

Pt. I	Solon's warning
1	If you're so rich, why aren't you so smart?	5
2	A bizarre accounting method	22
3	A mathematical meditation on history	43
4	Randomness, nonsense, and the scientific intellectual	70
5	Survival of the least fit - can evolution be fooled by randomness?	79
6	Skewness and asymmetry	97
7	The problem of induction	116
Pt. II	Monkeys on typewriters
8	Too many millionaires next door	139
9	It is easier to buy and sell than fry an egg	149
10	Loser takes all - on the nonlinearities of life	172
11	Randomness and our mind : we are probability blind	182
Pt. III	Wax in my ears
12	Gamblers' ticks and pigeons in a box	226
13	Carneades comes to Rome : on probability and skepticism	234
14	Bacchus abandons antony	245
	Epilogue : Solon told you so	250
	Postscript : three afterthoughts in the shower	253