Larry Williams
- Thread starter mikeriley
- Start date
%%
OK;
i did. His 1988 fund[co-managed, by Jake ''fined '' bernstein+ 2 others] lost 50% also.
His 1989 fund lost more than 50%.....
Cant really blame his Williams % indicator, that may help some, I have used it some.
Rich Dennis had a big loss\ a bit less% that than 50% actually, but his personal account did about the same.[I used to think when i was a kid i wanted to manage a fund or mutual fund ; but mutual funds are long only LOL+ like my funds privacy]
I dont know Larry W disclosed, to win a trade contest, may have ;
may have to take bigger risks than one would want to all the time LOL
Speaking of 50%;
i saved a sheet from a traders magazine one Fund named ''60% DrawdoWn'';
that fund had great 3 year track record.
Dont know if they are still in business. LOL That'$ life.
Dave Ramsey helps a lot in investing........................
Last edited:
In 1997 or 1998 (probably 1998) I bought two mail order courses for $199. The first from Ken Roberts and the second from Larry Williams. Both were sold through a foldover pamphlet booklet that found it's way into your mailbox box from a list purchased from a broker you may have signed up with. The actual "book" that you bought as a "course" was the exact same shape and size in either case. Except Roberts may have thrown in a few cassette tapes. Larry threw in about three months of his hotline. I remember calling that line on the daily where he scanned the futures markets for patterns.
Pound for pound I felt Larry was trying harder to cram his course more full of useful information. Seasonals, the COT report, advance decline line, a relative strength line marked off by trend lines, the Kelly formula and about 20 of his personal patterns like the "Oops". Also his own indicator the Williams R%. But not by itself. He advised using it in harmony with a larger trend as indicated by a moving average, such that you are selling rallies in a bear trend, for example.
What was impressive about his own personal patterns, most of which applied to the SP500, were the statistics he published for each one, so you could believe the stats or not. Apparently he had hired a programmer that worked with some software and a ton of data to gather it together. That software started selling for a couple thousand dollars or more and was eventually purchased by Tradestation for which you would pay them maybe $100 a year if you also had an account. Now it's free as 'Easy Language" if you have an account.
One thing he said included in his course was a schedule of probabilities which, if I remember, starts with a coin flip probability, your first chance of a win is 50% , and for each loss the probability of the next to be a winner goes up to 67% or something, on up to 92% after four or five losses. But I think most people in gambling forums will tell you this is a fallacy. I concluded that Larry had made a mistake and that this kind of probability escalation only works if you have a positive expectancy to begin with.
He also mentioned that if you don't have an edge the best way to bet is to go all in on one bet, rather than trying to win over many bets...which, imo, has no place in a futures trading "course" where you are especially in grave need of establishing an edge of sorts.
So I guess I'm not surprised to learn he did lose a significant amount of client money . Nowadays you can get more, and more valuable info on YouTube for free.
Out of curiosity I took Tradingview back to 1987 SP500 daily chart to compare Williams contest performance that year to my own method applied to the SP500 daily. ( Btw, there was a big sudden dip that year that caught a lot of traders off guard. In a recent interview I heard Larry mention that 1987 drop had caught him on safari in Africa. He had to scramble to salvage his positions. ) Anyway I was happy to see my own method of being always in, either long or short, outperformed Larry's, with smaller drawdowns, given about 10x or so leverage.
Pound for pound I felt Larry was trying harder to cram his course more full of useful information. Seasonals, the COT report, advance decline line, a relative strength line marked off by trend lines, the Kelly formula and about 20 of his personal patterns like the "Oops". Also his own indicator the Williams R%. But not by itself. He advised using it in harmony with a larger trend as indicated by a moving average, such that you are selling rallies in a bear trend, for example.
What was impressive about his own personal patterns, most of which applied to the SP500, were the statistics he published for each one, so you could believe the stats or not. Apparently he had hired a programmer that worked with some software and a ton of data to gather it together. That software started selling for a couple thousand dollars or more and was eventually purchased by Tradestation for which you would pay them maybe $100 a year if you also had an account. Now it's free as 'Easy Language" if you have an account.
One thing he said included in his course was a schedule of probabilities which, if I remember, starts with a coin flip probability, your first chance of a win is 50% , and for each loss the probability of the next to be a winner goes up to 67% or something, on up to 92% after four or five losses. But I think most people in gambling forums will tell you this is a fallacy. I concluded that Larry had made a mistake and that this kind of probability escalation only works if you have a positive expectancy to begin with.
He also mentioned that if you don't have an edge the best way to bet is to go all in on one bet, rather than trying to win over many bets...which, imo, has no place in a futures trading "course" where you are especially in grave need of establishing an edge of sorts.
So I guess I'm not surprised to learn he did lose a significant amount of client money . Nowadays you can get more, and more valuable info on YouTube for free.
Out of curiosity I took Tradingview back to 1987 SP500 daily chart to compare Williams contest performance that year to my own method applied to the SP500 daily. ( Btw, there was a big sudden dip that year that caught a lot of traders off guard. In a recent interview I heard Larry mention that 1987 drop had caught him on safari in Africa. He had to scramble to salvage his positions. ) Anyway I was happy to see my own method of being always in, either long or short, outperformed Larry's, with smaller drawdowns, given about 10x or so leverage.
Very strange advice.
Good Morning semperfrosty,
It's actually very good advice. I agree with Larry on that statement.
You guys realize, of course, that he's just throwing everything against the wall and you think he's doing you a favor. The guy's only claim to fame is winning a trading contest decades ago under suspect conditions, as noted by the NFA. And to my knowledge he has not been able to replicate that kind of performance ever since. I don't recall his even coming close. He's just running on fumes, regurgitating trading pablum, some if it dubious, and you guys are gobbling it up with your eyes closed. Meanwhile, his observable performance, as evidenced in the "Million-Dollar Challenge seminar in St. Croix in 2004, per my earlier reposting, is rather lackluster.
But do let me know when he wins another contest.
But do let me know when he wins another contest.
Last edited:
Yes, while true, it still didn't think it belonged in a trading "course" imo. So after that I had to take everything with a grain of salt. Probably the best advice in the course was to sell rallies in a bear and buy dips in a bull, interacting between the Williams R% and a longer moving average. I think the ratio was a 10 period R% with a 50 period MA.
This was my own method performance (theoretical) on SP500 Index futures for 1987. Without leverage, 70.86% that year on 4% drawdown. 18% of that was due to the huge sudden drop in either September or October. Otherwise, 52% for the year. But with 10x leverage it would have been 16,000%. These 75 trades don't include trading fees and spread though.
The chart above is what the SP500 did in 1987.
Actually here's a better picture of 1987 (yellow highlight to yellow highlight), the SP500 Index:
Last edited:
To follow that advice you would need,on your very next trading day,to choose a trade and bet your entire trading account on a positive outcome.
I note that your style is to 'click' buy or sell across the trading day.Whilst I struggle to see that you have an edge,spreading your trading across the day in small increments at least limits your risk for any one trade and allows you to play the probabilities.
'Risk of ruin' and 'Live to fight another day' would have been more appropriate lessons from LW.