hedge fund
A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as s ...
Mark Spitznagel
Mark Spitznagel (; born March 5, 1971) is an American investor and hedge fund manager. He is the founder, owner, and chief investment officer of Universa Investments, a hedge fund management firm based in Miami, Florida.black swan strategy. The firm closed in 2005 as Taleb took time off for health reasons.
The investment strategy of the fund has been explained in a ''
New Yorker
New Yorker or ''variant'' primarily refers to:
* A resident of the State of New York
** Demographics of New York (state)
* A resident of New York City
** List of people from New York City
* ''The New Yorker'', a magazine founded in 1925
* '' The ...
'' article. One of Empirica's funds, Empirica Kurtosis LLC, was reported to have made a 60% return in 2000 followed by losses in 2001, 2002, and single digit gains in 2003 and 2004.https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118429436433665637 http://www.tavakolistructuredfinance.com/2009/06/talebs-stranded-swan/ The article said the fund had a 60% return in 2000 followed by “losses in 2001 and in 2002.” In 2003 and 2004 it had low single-digit gains, a period when hedge funds posted average returns of 20% and 9% respectively.
Taleb has stated that he shut down Empirica LLC, in 2005 to become a "writer and a scholar. At the time he also "feared he might have a recurrence of throat cancer."
Empirica Capital is voluntarily wound up on Dec 2004 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fkr_bVHUYAA7GHw?format=jpg&name=large
In 2007 Spitznagel founded the firm Universa Investments L.P. with Taleb as an adviser using black swan portfolio hedging strategies similar to Empirica's.