Dealing with Financial Risk

Antonio’s first big mistake in The Merchant of Venice was to bet his whole fortune on a fleet of ships; his second was to borrow 3,000 ducats from a single source. The first rule of risk management is to identify your risk. The second is to diversify it. Antonio broke the second rule, and his creditor Shylock flunked the first. He found he could not take his pound of Antonio’s flesh withou…