Black Swans, by definition, cannot be predicted.
Yogi Berra himself said that we could not predict the future, especially because it has not happened yet...
There are too many factors even for Armstrong's supercomputer(s) to deal with. If M.A. could predict the future with anything much better than average, he would be VERY RICH...
Martin Armstrong is very rich and does not need money. He has stated numerous times he is doing this now for mankind, for the challenge, and his loyalty to his long-term clients. And also because for a man of his drive and intellect, he would be bored to tears sitting on a island. Cripes the man was isolated in prison for a decade and wants to cover lost time on his productivity (similar to myself with a lost decade due to chronic illness and now very eager to be productive).
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2015/02/18/what-makes-me-tick-good-question/http://armstrongeconomics.com/1113-2/I will demonstrate to you my long-term memory (it is a vague memory, so I must rely on Google to locate the url for the underlined phrase I remembered):
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/12/15/gold-promoters-are-part-of-the-manipulation-against-investors/I have been forced to come out in front of the curtain. I can retire and go off to some island and wait it out until I die. But I too have family and what kind of a future they face because of all this nonsense does not let me sleep beyond 3 hours at night. What I have been put through was for a reason and those who try to ignore me are only exposing their own lack of integrity or bias. I really do not care what they think of me. It means nothing to me. I just consider the source. They will one day wake up and see while they are fighting with their own egos, they risk losing all liberty because the real battle is not with me, it is the man with the tanks and guns. That will start to become very clear in 2014. All they are interested in is filling their pockets and forgetting they are playing with the risk of war and a Dark Age unless we steer this ship through the treacherous waters ahead.
Sorry there are no blackswans, in the sense of truly random events. They are long tail distributions (actually a multi-dimensional pattern). Remember that randomness is intimately related to the entropy. If one can sample all of the entropy, the randomness can be modeled. Armstrong input extensive data since 6000 B.C.
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2015/03/02/27739/When I wrote the Global Market Watch, which is a pattern recognition AI model, I allowed the computer to explore on its own and report back to me the results. This REQUIRED tons of data. It cannot be achieve on databases only back 50 years. You need hundreds of years so the computer can learn form every instance. It is calculating patterns with unbelievable complexity of variables.
All of this said, the key to any model is the UNDERSTANDING of its functionality. So what you are doing may not be able to achieve what our system does, but you are on the road to knowledge and that leads to CONFIDENCE in your decision.
When this model has made some of its most outstanding calls at the most extreme points in a panic, it is hard to retain that CONFIDENCE to do what it says. At the collapse of the markets in 1998, the New Yorker Magazine reported that I covered my shorts announcing that to our trading room and walked out and went to the beach. Some read that as arrogant or rejoicing I made more money than anyone in the shortest amount of time. In truth, it was discipline. It was knowing that my inner self was saying are your crazy? Over time, I came to realize when the computer would put out a forecast and it could make me say OMG is this crazy, it was 100% spot on. For if it could invoke that emotion within me, it must be devastating the majority in which case it was ripe for the change.
So NEVER give up on your quest to understand. That is what life is all about. Trying to use fundamentals to forecast is hopeless. A good trader uses them in the opposite manner – buy the rumor and sell the news of the fundamental. This model and watching how it functions has taught me a lot. Plus having clients everywhere has forced me to open my eyes and see the world through everyone’s perspective.
I am vaguely familiar with Taleb's math on modeling systemic responses to long tail events:
http://unheresy.com/Information%20Is%20Alive.html#Knowledge_AnnealsNote Taleb was working closely with Benoit Mandelbrot, the father of fractals before the latter's death. Note also Armstrong's comments about the fractal nature (hidden order) of time and events.