Has anybody met (or traded with) any of the Market Wizards?

M

MichaelJ

I saw the news item on Trader Vic Sperandeo (whose 1st book I have) getting involved in a commodities fund startup. Got me to thinking & reminiscing...

Has anyone met, dealt with, or traded with any of Schwager's Market Wizards (or those of similar trading/investing caliber, you decide)? Please only share non-confidential info :-)

As for myself, Schwager's books got me interested in a trading career way back in the mid 90's. I in fact tried to contact Schwager himself (he was running his CTA at the time, and I talked to him on the phone for a few minutes - control your enthusiasm, I know...)

I also tried to contact Trader Vic (no dice) and Marty Schwartz. Funny thing is, the closest I got to Marty was a reporter who once did a Barron's article on him. The reporter was kind of bitter about Marty - I don't know why - and warned me not to bother. Anyway, Marty if you're reading this, loved your book (and Vic too). But I was a young punk at the time so can understand why I was not exactly a high priority for them to contact.

Sorry to be such a suckup but for me these guys were like rock stars when I started getting obsessed by trading.

As another story that will show that I was a bit nuts, when I was on a drive near Mt. Kisco in NY State I tried to convince my wife that we should try to drive by Michael Steinhardt's house. But it was on a hard to find road on another side of a reservoir, I think...

Enough about me - please share your "I met (or attempted to meet) a Market Wizard."
 
I met Trader Vic at a gold mining conference in San Francisco last November. He gave a 30 minute speech and gave copies away of his new book. The point of his speech was that gold was going to got to 3,000 dollars by 2009 and he showed some strange way to hedge it. I can explain in more detail if you want.
 
I traded in the Bond pit with Tom Baldwin for ten years and I often ate lunch at a booth next to Rich Dennis at the original Brokers Inn (now the new CBOT financial room sits upon the site). Weirdly/ironically, I scalped my Bears seats to the Chicago-NYG 1987 Monday Night season opener and the buyer was Paul Jones. I'll repost a thread about Rich Dennis that I posted a few years back.

Baldwin was the consummate floor trader. He had a sleazy side that knew how to trade uncompetitive. However many guys on the floor could only steal. What separated Tom though was his tremendous feel, total confidence and aggressiveness. Think of a pitcher who can throw the spitter but ALSO has command of a 95mph fastball. I remember quite clearly a day in mid 1985 when I was short 200 bonds and there was about 2000 on the offer. I knew the short side was shit as most of the guys around me were also short. Never a good sign. But I figured if the offer started to trade I would at least be able to get my 200 in, if I was quick. Without a word Baldwin bid into the offer, took EVERYTHING that was there and the market rallied about 12/32nds on "air" as short locals, buy stops and Pabst all chased the small and few and far between offers on the way up. I suspect Baldwin was short when he bought the 2000 but seized the opportunity to flip long. While guys like me were hoping the market would turn sellers, Tom was plugged into the reality and made the great trade.I know Tom's had severe problems the past few years because of an ill advised foray into a tech stock in the late 1990's. It doesn't diminish one iota the respect I have for him as a pure scalper.

Quote from Pabst: 3/27/02

I'm not the best guy to comment on this. I grew up a scalper and even now off the floor I consider a 2 day position an "investment".
But as someone who has seen the likes of Rich Dennis and Tudor Jones operate, those "5%" winning trades involve add on after add on. Case in point is Dennis in the 1985-1986 bull market in bond futures. He would start with his normal unit of 500 contracts and get chopped for days. Buy the days high, put em back out on a new swing low ect. Every once in a while he'd wind up with 500 that worked. Then he'd start the process higher, all over again. Work em in, work em out. After maybe a couple of months the market has rallied 10pts. from where he started and he has 2000 on.(meaning 2million a point) Now the market is short and ready to pop on any size buying and he's there supplying the noose. Bidding for 500 on every up tick, finally gets to a point where for the last month of the move he has 5000 on. T-Bonds rally 20 pts. in just over a month and he's up $100,000,000 on a trade that started out with him just testing the waters,losing $100,000 a few times before he could establish a position worth doubling up on.
 
"Weirdly/ironically, I scalped my Bears seats to the Chicago-NYG 1987 Monday Night season opener and the buyer was Paul Jones."

Sat in those seats that night. Not bad, 40 yard line half way up. Yours weren't the only ones bought that night tho. Half of us sat on the other side of the field.
 
TOO WILD!! Actually mine are DEAD on the 50. But you're right. I know someone else (I believe either Goldenberg or Heymeyer) who's seats were used that night.

I sold them for $400 (x4). I'd never sold them before. Never even knew I could. Scalping epiphany sort of thing. A friend of mine at the CME said Tudor's broker in the S&P's was looking for seats. $300 apiece. I said I'd have to think about it. By the time I could get a hold of my buddy(most on ET would know who he is), the price had gone to $400. I gave my friend 2 bills for brokering it and I pocketed 1400 which was more than the season cost!. It's only been the past few years that I've received anywhere NEAR that kind of money. I did however get a grand each for two of the seats for the Monday opener vs. GB in 2003 at the newly "refurbished" Soldier Field. The market for those seats went sellers so hard going into the game that I was only able to get $500 each for the other two.
Quote from gwscan:

"Weirdly/ironically, I scalped my Bears seats to the Chicago-NYG 1987 Monday Night season opener and the buyer was Paul Jones."

Sat in those seats that night. Not bad, 40 yard line half way up. Yours weren't the only ones bought that night tho. Half of us sat on the other side of the field.
More...
 
Beauty, beauty... brings a tear to me eye ...

Quote from Pabst:


But as someone who has seen the likes of Rich Dennis and Tudor Jones operate, those "5%" winning trades involve add on after add on. Case in point is Dennis in the 1985-1986 bull market in bond futures. He would start with his normal unit of 500 contracts and get chopped for days. Buy the days high, put em back out on a new swing low ect. Every once in a while he'd wind up with 500 that worked. Then he'd start the process higher, all over again. Work em in, work em out. After maybe a couple of months the market has rallied 10pts. from where he started and he has 2000 on.(meaning 2million a point) Now the market is short and ready to pop on any size buying and he's there supplying the noose. Bidding for 500 on every up tick, finally gets to a point where for the last month of the move he has 5000 on. T-Bonds rally 20 pts. in just over a month and he's up $100,000,000 on a trade that started out with him just testing the waters,losing $100,000 a few times before he could establish a position worth doubling up on.
More...
 
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