ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENT SCENARIOS

"The number of things that are possible is not fully appreciated by the average individual. And it is not clear, then, to them how many things that are possible must not be happening. That it's impossible that everything that is possible is happening." Richard Feynman

“As Nobel laureate, co-founder of the Santa Fe Institute (and according to The New York Times headline The Man Who Knows Everything) Murray Gell- Mann frequently stresses we are far too prone to see what has happened as both preordained and a far smaller percentage of the possible outcomes than we care to believe. As he wrote we and our surroundings are better thought of as ‘the frozen accidents of history.’” James Anderson

“The number one principle would be do not look at the world today, what’s happened in the past and happening currently, is in the price. Try and think how the world may look differently in 18-24 months from now and try and base your investments on that and not what’s true today. It’s amazing what that single little exercise can do.” Stanley Druckenmiller

“Even though we all live in the present, in our role as investors we must think like futurists; We must always try to visualize the environment in which we will reap so that, in the here and now, experience-based rationality will determine when and where to sow.” Frank Martin

“One of the jobs of a good trader is to imagine alternative scenarios. I try to form many different mental pictures of what the world should be like and wait for one of them to be confirmed.” Bruce Kovner

“When you buy something, we always have a view of various paths that can happen, various things that could happen. Sometimes we think X, Y, Z will happen, and it could happen and if it does, the market is not going to like it. As we move forward in time, we’re always looking at the news and the prices. Then if something unexpected happens, then we sit back, and we reevaluate, were we wrong? Was there something wrong in the thesis?” David Abrams

“Quite often when I seem off in the clouds, I’m imagining myself in another time, reacting to events of another time or era, whether those events involve the advent of a common currency for Europe, the crash of 1987, the Internet bubble, or whatever the compelling news of the day might have been – or something totally unrelated .. my attempt to imagine the present as it would look from a different time helps me sort out the real from the illusions that blind us to what is before our eyes.” Leon Levy

“Putting yourself in different situations, sleeping in ideas and letting yourself be creative lets you engage your subconscious to process information.” Ken Shubin Stein

“The financial markets generally are unpredictable. So that one has to have different scenarios... The idea that you can actually predict what's going to happen contradicts my way of looking at the market." George Soros

"Always remembering that we might be wrong, we must contemplate alternatives, concoct hedges, and search vigilantly for validation of our assessments." Seth Klarman

"To make better decisions, we force ourselves to consider various futures. We work hard to hold multiple contradicting scenarios in our minds simultaneously." Christopher Parvese

"Charlie and I both think about worst case scenarios a lot." Warren Buffett

"In addition to looking at worst-case scenarios, I look at how hard something is to execute. The simpler the goals and the steps to reach them, the more likely I'll be successful." Sam Zell

“Having imagination, a feel, a gut sense of what could be that isn’t now is very important, to prepare for something that the price doesn’t tell you.” John Burbank

"In this hectic age of distraction, all of us need to pause every now and then in what we are doing to examine where the rush of the world and of our own activities is taking us. Even an hour or two spent in such detailed contemplation on a park bench will prove rewarding. The importance of such periodic stocktaking was one of the most valuable lessons I learned from my early experiences as a speculator." Bernard Baruch

‘The notion of one forecast of the future, of one expected growth rate & one associated DCF analysis is just too simplistic. We need multiple versions of the conceivable futures stretching from the scarcely imaginable best case to the end of the turkey’s life." James Anderson

“One must assume the full range of possibilities when making investment decisions, especially during a crisis.” Li Lu

“From my experience, knowledge is advanced and insights are gleaned by studying alternative points of view from conventional and unconventional sources of information, and by not discrediting a point of view simply because it comes from someone who is not an accredited member of the relevant establishment, who does not have an advanced degree in the subject at hand, and/or someone whom has been criticized in the media. In an effort to get to the truth, I try to keep my mind open to alternative possibilities and weigh them against each other.” Bill Ackman