Best Trader of All-Time

This is my criteria:

Any one who has turned a modest amount (say $100 to $3000) to many billions and who has kept it, should be the greatest of greatest.

Bruce Kovner comes to my mind.
Rakesh JhunJhunwalla comes to my mind.

JA started with $6-8 million....so thats a huge sum to begin with.

I am sure there are others who have turned a small amount to an insane amount and who has kept that money.

I am sure that there are many IF they had tens of millions can turn that into billions. I am sure those people may be here on ET as well. I am sure, you could be one of those people. Thing is not every person is blessed with OPPORTUNITIES.

If you read fooled by randomness, all this perception would change.
 
Its like saying Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani made billions. The credit goes to their dad Dhirubai Ambani who doesn't even have a college degree and who did trade back in the 1960's. Then he founded Reliance then Wharton named a building after him and started studying him. Point is this: He started with NOTHING.

Show me some body who started with nothing. Don't show me people who stated with tens of millions or billions.

So Ambani came from the scratch...and built his company. His children of course, started with 10 billion USD and together they are worth almost 100 billion USD and Mukesh Ambani is building a house for 2 USD billion. Thats of course insane............
 
Quote from monty21:

Tim Sykes :p

Turned $12415 into $2 million short-selling penny stocks.

(than lost 2/3 of all his money on one stock position... Jesse Livermore style)

(also used to be a ET member and sponsor)
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lol, have you seen this guy on wallstreet warriors (go to hulu) this guy is a joke. His mom comes and does his laundry and cooks for him once a week, and he treats her like shit. He cant even trade without getting emotional.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/14021/wall-street-warriors-closing-the-deal#s-p1-n1-so-i0 at 10:50
 
Quote from monty09:

JA was not within cents of BH trade but was in a range given his own call. So BH trade did not or could not alter his own call.

For instance, if you were selling a 95 Honda Civic for 5k and given my own exp of buying/selling 95 Honda Civics said the real vaule should be 4300-4500. Is that inside info or me just knowing my market?

And your mentioned an power desk while JA was on Oil then Nat Gas while at Enron.

Believe it or not about 40%-70% of current energy staff across NA are alum of Enron. Not a better place to be FROM.

JA gets my vote for best trader.


QUOTE]Quote from Agassi:

Remember the incident where the other hedge fund blow up? Amaranth? it was widely believed that money just got transferred from Amaranth to Arnhold...point is that they both were on the opposite side of the trade. And when Amaranth was finally forced to unwind, the top trader from Amaranth called John Arnhold and they didn't agree on the price. The price that John Arnhold quoted was EXTREMELY CLOSE...to pennies. And John predicted this a few months ahead of time. Haven't you seen the Enron documentary? didn't u know that other traders (noth John) purposely shut off the electricity so the prices went up? all this info is publicly available on google. I made my statements based on publicly available information. But of course, john was not involved on any ofthe enron scams. but how can any one make such accurate predictions? Please enlighten me.
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[/QUOTE]

You are comparing apples with oranges. There are a lot of people who can price a car. Only JA is able to predict oil and gas. Why is that? He is very secretive and doesn't reveal his techniques for obvious reasons. Do you know HOW he arrives at that price? that too consistently year after year? So he is some genius and all of us (including u and me)are idiots? is that so? is that what u are trying to imply?
 
Quote from cashmoney69:

lol, have you seen this guy on wallstreet warriors (go to hulu) this guy is a joke. His mom comes and does his laundry and cooks for him once a week, and he treats her like shit. He cant even trade without getting emotional.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/14021/wall-street-warriors-closing-the-deal#s-p1-n1-so-i0 at 10:50
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Ya man,

I saw the first season... pretty funny. Sykes tried to act like a bad ass. Pretty impressive he took 12K to 2 million before taxes, but equally retarded he lost 2/3 of his entire hedge fund's value on one preferred stock. He added to his position multiple times too.

That Russian guy was legit. I hated that German Blonde whore. We barely saw that Indian bond trader girl.
 
So is this the greatest trader of all time or the greatest trader to start with less then 10,000,000 in capital?



Quote from Agassi:

Its like saying Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani made billions. The credit goes to their dad Dhirubai Ambani who doesn't even have a college degree and who did trade back in the 1960's. Then he founded Reliance then Wharton named a building after him and started studying him. Point is this: He started with NOTHING.

Show me some body who started with nothing. Don't show me people who stated with tens of millions or billions.

So Ambani came from the scratch...and built his company. His children of course, started with 10 billion USD and together they are worth almost 100 billion USD and Mukesh Ambani is building a house for 2 USD billion. Thats of course insane............
More...
 
Quote from monty09:

So is this the greatest trader of all time or the greatest trader to start with less then 10,000,000 in capital?
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Monty21, Monty09... coincidence

rare name
 
Most of you confuse fund managers with traders. Managing a "fund" and skimming off 2/20 is not trading.

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The "greatest" trader is the fellow who has quietly traded his system profitably without major spikes in draw down.

Isn't worried about paying his taxes because he knows city services are not free.

Does not spend time with hookers and mistresses.

Isn't high on the blow with his crack head buddies.

Takes care of his wife and kids and his family.

Volunteers and gives to the less fortunate. Teaches his kids to be proper citizens.

Isn't a braggart or a loud mouth.

He is humble enough to know there will always be someone bigger and more profitable than he is.

----

I know a few such great traders.

Having read a few of the posts on here, most of you are wanna-be-a-trader. I could scam any one of you by driving up in a brand new Bentley and selling you my "system".
 
Quote from fkbsuhites:

Most of you confuse fund managers with traders. Managing a "fund" and skimming off 2/20 is not trading.

---


The "greatest" trader is the fellow who has quietly traded his system profitably without major spikes in draw down.

Isn't worried about paying his taxes because he knows city services are not free.

Does not spend time with hookers and mistresses.

Isn't high on the blow with his crack head buddies.

Takes care of his wife and kids and his family.

Volunteers and gives to the less fortunate. Teaches his kids to be proper citizens.

Isn't a braggart or a loud mouth.

He is humble enough to know there will always be someone bigger and more profitable than he is.

----

I know a few such great traders.

Having read a few of the posts on here, most of you are wanna-be-a-trader. I could scam any one of you by driving up in a brand new Bentley and selling you my "system".
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well said. agreed 100%.
 
There is no one greatest trader. Whereas there is one greatest investor, Warren Buffett.

Especially with no measuring stick or formula, this entire discussion is arbitrary. What is a definition of the greatest trader? Without one, there's no point of making a list.

Just because someone traded from zero or had money to play with doesn't mean too much. I'm more impressed with Kyle Bass (shorted sub-prime mortgages) turning 300 million into 3 billion than someone taking 50,000 to a million. Smaller accounts allow more flexible moves in positions and gives the ability to take greater risks.

My view is that there are many great traders, but with continually changing markets, there are new great traders whose strategy works better in the present market conditions. It's very difficult to consistently adopt to markets and that is why most guys will lose a lot of their earlier profits eventually.

It's like comparing athletes from different generations. Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 pts in a single game. But I think Michael Jordan is a superior player though considering he played in a much more athletic and talented league.

Jesse Livermore made fortunates because he frequently cornered the market. Prior to the great depression, it was legal to manipulate stocks and futures. Today, hedge fund guys play the same game of poker but within new laws and regulations.
 
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