Extreme Values, from Victor Niederhoffer
I found the paper, Stochastic Hydrology, lecture 24 to be the best discussion of extreme values very useful in finance I've found. It uses the time between successive maximum events as a base to calculate the probability that a maximum will be exceeded by simple and relatively understandable and useful things that a person can calculate and count with pencil and paper. It ends a rather time consuming search for such a method.