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Great investors’ views on risk

What do the great investors regard as the best measure of risk? Surprisingly, perhaps, they do not use the mathematically based measures so much talked about by those bright young graduates in the markets. They’re just old fuddy-duddys with a simplistic homespun view of risk unable to cope with the magnificence of the mathematical models created in recent times! Perhaps.

Or are they really on to something more profound by concentrating on factors which while impossible to measure with great precision are nevertheless more important? Personally, I’d rather be roughly right than precisely wrong so I’ll stick with the subjective measures of risk. Apart from anything else, they are focused on losses over the long term ...