Protecting your tail: The ONLY thing an investor should not fail to do

Absolute Return/Nassim Nicholas Taleb/ 8-11-2015

“Uncertainty should not bother you. We may not be able to forecast when a bridge will break, but we can identify which ones are faulty and poorly built. We can assess vulnerability. And today the financial bridges across the world are very vulnerable. Politicians prescribe ever larger doses of pain killer in the form of financial bailouts, which consists in curing debt with debt, like curing an addiction with an addiction, that is to say it is not a cure. This cycle will end, like it always does, spectacularly.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

MK note:  When it comes to protecting one’s tail, nothing protects like the same item that has protected tails from time immemorial – gold coins and bullion.  Complicated advisor-reliant strategies might work, or they might not work, and you shouldn’t certainly undertake any strategy you do not fully understand.  Gold works – simply, directly, historically and without complications.