Taleb, a principal at Universa Investments LP whose 2007 best-selling book argued that history is littered with rare events that can’t be predicted by trends, said that countries such as Lebanon and Italy, which suffer recurring political crises, are safer for investors.

“A perfectly fragile country is a country, say like Egypt” before “the recent events, where there is no variation and then — puff — you got a crisis and it’s mayhem,” Taleb, a New York University professor, told a conference in Moscow hosted by Troika Dialog. “So Egypt is perfectly unstable, Saudi Arabia, countries like that.”

Supporters of Mubarak, who has been in power since 1981, clashed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square with demonstrators who have been demanding the 82-year-old leader’s resignation since Jan. 25.

The 86-year-old ruler of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah, has backed the Egyptian government and condemned the protesters, while trying to address imbalances in the largest Arab economy. The government announced in August a $385 billion, five-year spending plan as the kingdom tries to reduce a jobless rate of as high as 43 percent for Saudis between the ages of 20 and 24.