Betting Against the Crowd: A Complex Systems Approach

Preface
Reference
Summary
Contents
Part I Foundations of Crowd’s Dynamics
1 Navigating the Collective: Insights into Crowd Behavior and Strategies for the Individual
	From the Painted Bird to the Celebrating Crowd
	The Importance of Interactions
	The Individual and the Collective
	Constraints and Opportunities
	The Importance of Learned Ignorance
	The Dancing Crowd
	Scientific Thinking in the Absence of Truth
	The Rebel’s Perspective
	The Structure of the Book
	References
2 Signs of Collective Dynamics: Insights from the Stock Market Collapse
	Introduction
	Ponzi and the Pyramids
	How to Recognize Bad Omens
	Always Look for the Rats
	In Sum …
	References
3 Entropy, Constraints, and Action: Tools for Short-Term Prediction
	Introduction
	The Lady or the Tiger?
	How to Measure Uncertainty
	The Appropriate Dose of Chaos
	Understanding Constraints
	On the Cognitive Importance of D = 3
	How a Navy SEAL Uses the Fluctuation Theorem
	In the Midst of Chaos, There Is Opportunity
	Windows of Opportunity: Pockets of Order and Chaos
	References
4 Information Thresholds: Navigating Predictive Boundaries
	How Much Information Is Enough?
	Time to Clearance
	The Exponential Decay of Information
	So, How Much Information Do We Need?
	Out of Plato’s Cave
	References
5 Short-Term Fluctuations Versus Long-Range Trends: Unearthing Investment Opportunities
	Introduction
	Buy-Low-Sell-High (BLSH)
	Betting Against the Crowd
	What Is Your Expected Value?
	The Kelly Criterion
	Playing with Kelly
	So, Have We Won?
	Simple Models in a Complex World
	Lessons to Be Learned About Betting Against the Crowd
	References
Part II Case Studies: Political Nationalism, Football, Financial Markets and Armed Conflicts
6 Non-linearity in the Emergence of Political Nationalism: A Lesson from Hungary
	Introduction
	Measuring the Expected and the Observed Levels of Nationalism
	Entropy, Variability, and Non-linearity
	Additivity and Extensivity
	Measuring the Entropy of Political Parties
	What if the Whole Is Different from the Sum of Its Parts?
	References
7 Fixed Beliefs and Football Fandom: Unraveling the Dynamics of Collective Optimism
	Introduction
	Optimism and Pessimism in Football
	Cinderella Teams and Hermes’ Invisible Hand
	Lady Fortuna’s Invisible Hand
	Hermes’ Invisible Hand
	“Knowledge Is Safety”
	References
8 Contrarian Strategies: Capitalizing on the Limits of Exponential Growth in Financial Markets
	Introduction
	Identifying a Significant Exponential Growth
	Leaving the Ship in Good Time
	Signs of Reversal
	The Experiment
	Betting Against the Herd
	References
9 Unraveling the Complexities of Chronic Armed Conflicts: Patterns, Predictability, and Uncertainties
	Can We Learn from the Past? And How Much?
	The Long Memory of a Conflict
	Order Is Never Enough
	Tsallis Entropy, Again
	Discretizing the Dataset
	Predicting the Class of Fatalities
	Predicting Surprise
	Crowds, Conflicts, and Lady Fortuna
	References
10 Mentsh Trakht un Got Lakht: Final Lessons in Individuality and Collective Dynamics
	A Final Word
	Reference
Author Index
Subject Index