Empirica Capital

Empirica Capital

Company type	Hedge fund
Industry	Investment
Founded	1999 (1999)
Founder	Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Defunct	2005 (2005)
Fate	Closed
Headquarters	Greenwich, Connecticut , United States

Empirica Capital LLC was a hedge fund founded in 1999 by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in partnership with Mark Spitznagel, that used Taleb's black swan strategy.[1][2][3][4] The firm closed in 2005.[5][4]: 157 

The investment strategy of the fund has been explained in a New Yorker article.[6] One of Empirica's funds, Empirica Kurtosis LLC, was reported to have made a 56.86% return in 2000 followed by returns of -8.39% in 2001, -13.81% in 2002, and -3.92% in 2003, according to an investor letter.[7][8]

Taleb has stated that he shut down Empirica LLC, in 2005 to become a "writer and a scholar".[3][9][10] At the time he also "feared he might have a recurrence of throat cancer."[9][11]

In 2007 Spitznagel founded the firm Universa Investments L.P. with Taleb as an adviser using black swan portfolio hedging strategies similar to Empirica's.[10][12]

References

1. Taleb, Nassim Nicholas (2007), "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable", Random House and Penguin, New York, ISBN 978-1-4000-6351-2
2. Harrington, Shannon D. (July 19, 2010). "Pimco Sells Black Swan Protection as Wall Street Markets Fear". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2010-10-01.
3. "Mr. Volatility and the Swan", The Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2007, retrieved January 5, 2016
4. Hubbard, Douglas W. (April 2009). The Failure of Risk Management: Why It's Broken and How to Fix It. Wiley. p. 304. ISBN 978-0-470-38795-5.
5. "Black swan manager returning 23%, anticipating bear market". 24 October 2011.
6. Gladwell, Malcolm (22 April 2002). "Blowing Up". The New Yorker. Retrieved 18 August 2022.
7. Patterson, Scott. "Mr. Volatility and the Swan". WSJ. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
8. Alexander, Jan (November 2011). "Spreading his Wings". AR: Absolute Return + Alpha. Institutional Investor & Hedge Fund Intelligence. pp. 24–32.
9. Lubove, Seth; Weiss, Miles (6 October 2011). "Black Swan Manager Returning 23% Anticipating Bear Market". Bloomberg. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
10. Patterson, Scott (November 4, 2008), "October Pain Was 'Black Swan' Gain", The Wall Street Journal, retrieved January 5, 2016
11. Farrell, Maureen (June 27, 2011). "Protect Your Tail". Forbes.
12. "Black Swan Trader Bets Reputation on Inflation", The Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2009