Fashion victims

Black swans, perfect storms and data mining are three fashionable phrases that describe the devastating impact of highly improbable events very elegantly, but what are they, and how can investors cope with them most advantageously? What are they? The black swan is an example used by philosopher Nicholas Taleb to illustrate the problem of proving that something does not exist. To prove that something can exist, it is merely necessary to find a single example, but to prove that something cannot exist, it would be necessary to have a comprehensive database. That would be infinitely large...