Chaos Kings

For fans of The Black Swan and written by a veteran Wall Street Journal reporter, this is a fascinating deep dive into the world of billion-dollar traders and high-stakes crisis predictors who strive to turn extreme events into financial windfalls.

There’s no doubt that our world has gotten more extreme. Pandemics, climate change, superpower rivalries, technological disruption, political radicalisation, religious fundamentalism — all threaten chaos that put trillions in assets at risk. But around the world, across a wide variety of disciplines, would-be super-forecasters are trying to take the guesswork out of what formerly seemed like random chance. Some put their faith in 'black swans’ — unpredictable, catastrophic events that can’t be foreseen but send exotic financial instruments screaming in high-profit directions — while others cling to the hope that paying close attention to the data will foreclose any true surprises from happening. Most famous among the former group of big-bet traders are those who run the Universa fund, helmed by manager Mark Spitznagel and built on the strategy of one of its chief investors, Black Swan author Nicholas Taleb. On days of extreme upheaval, Universa has made as much as $1 billion.

In researching Chaos Kings, author Scott Patterson not only gained exclusive access to Universa strategists, but he also combed Wall Street to find market players with similar models. Additionally, he met with savvy seers in a variety of fields, from earthquake prediction to counterterrorism to climatology, to see if it’s actually possible to bet on disaster — and win. Riveting, relevant, and revelatory, this is a must-read for anyone curious about how some of today’s investors alchemise catastrophe into profit.