Didier Sornette: Marketer

“Only a faster-than-exponential stock market growth makes private investors feel richer.”

Didier Sornette

Source: Why Stock Markets Crash - Critical Events in Complex Systems (2003), Chapter 10, 2050: The End Of The Growth Era?, p. 375
Context: In order to have a continuing influence, the stock market has to continue rising at an accelerating pace faster than exponential. Only a faster-than-exponential stock market growth makes private investors feel richer.

Feeling

“According to the academic world view that markets are efficient, only the revelation of a dramatic piece of information can cause a crash, yet in reality even the most thorough post-mortem analyses are typically inconclusive as to what this piece of information might have been. For traders and investors, the fear of a crash is a perpetual source of stress, and the onset of the event itself always ruins the lives of some of them.”

Didier Sornette

Source: Why Stock Markets Crash - Critical Events in Complex Systems (2003), Chapter 1, Financial Crashes: What, How, Why, And When?, p. 3.

World , Fear , Reality

“At another level, market crashes constitute beautiful examples of events that we would all like to forecast. The arrow of time is inexorably projecting us toward the undetermined future. Predicting the future captures the imagination of all and is perhaps the greatest challenge.”

Didier Sornette

Preface, p. xvi.
Why Stock Markets Crash - Critical Events in Complex Systems (2003)

Beauty , Imagination , Time , Future

“The acceleration of the number of traders buying into the market in the inflating bubble captures the oft-quoted observation that bubbles are times when the "greater fool theory" applies.”

Didier Sornette

Source: Why Stock Markets Crash - Critical Events in Complex Systems (2003), Chapter 6, Hierarchies, Complex Fractal Dimensions, And Log Periodicity, p. 185.

Fools , Quotes , Time

“One trader's move in the market can be interpreted by another trader as relevant additional information due to the uncertainty he faces.”

Didier Sornette

Source: Why Stock Markets Crash - Critical Events in Complex Systems (2003), Chapter 6, Hierarchies, Complex Fractal Dimensions, And Log Periodicity, p. 182.