Protecting Assets Under Non-Parametric Market Conditions

Under non-parametric market conditions, investors usually become more concerned about the return of their money than about the return on their money. Protecting assets becomes the surest if not the only path to survival and growth. High frequency trading systems, over leveraged shadow entities, flash crashes, and stealth central bank actions, to name a few, contribute to create a “Rumsfeldian” type of world in which decision makers have to cope not only with “Known knowns” – things they know that they know – but also with “Unknown unknowns” – things they don’t know that they don’t know! The goal of this chapter is to explore such a conceptual model of the “Unknown” and to derive from it a concise and coherent set of battle-tested heuristics aimed at designing effective investment strategies to protect assets.