Interview with Nate Silver – of Direct Relevance to Traders

On this relatively quiet session here's a useful article from an interview with Nate Silver. Much of the work that Silver does is of relevance to traders.

What do you see as the common theme among bad predictions? What most often leads people astray?

Silver: A lot of it is overconfidence. People tend to underestimate what the uncertainty that is intrinsic to a problem actually is. If you have someone estimate what they think a confidence interval is that's supposed to cover 90 percent of all outcomes, it usually only covers 50 percent. You have upside outcomes and downside outcomes in the market certainly more often than people realize.

Nate Silver: Confidence Kills Predictions