Book read: The (Mis)Behaviour of Markets but Benoit Mandlebrot and Richard Hudson

I've just finished this book that looks into economic theory and puts a case for applying fractal techniques for financial modelling.

It paints a pretty gloomy picture of ecomonics, an over reliance on theories that have long since been disproved by events (rational investors, price change independence, normal distributions the list is long). It makes one good comparison with Astronomy where observation drives the theory - in the case of economics the theories often ignore the observations!

The book also puts a case for using fractal techniques in modelling of a stock price. It has to be said it never really gets beyond a high level description of this, probably all that can be expected from a layman guide.

Any such techniques would probably only be an advantage for a while, since widespread use would then ensure that the expectation would be "priced in" to the stock.

Not a bad read, some good historic examples, 7/10