True Legendary Trading Stories

[BrianLA]

This guy and his family came to the U.S. as immigrants in early 1980's with little English and wealth. In my school, he would learn that, by maxing his student loans & credit cards
to trade, he would be able to afford certain living expenses which included a nice DC suburb condo and a bimmer. Bastard. The poor use of leverage, however, would later come back to bite his ass. After grad school, he spent a few years on Wall St. and
sorta found a niche in trading. After leaving his last employer with almost half a mil in bonus, he started a small, aggressive hedge fund and grew it to almost 40M. The stock picking fund operated during the 2000-2002 bear market. It beat benchmarks very handily in the first 2 yrs but blew up in 2002 with a 38% drawdown during the summer. I think it was due to the accounting crisis and leverage. He's still a young dude so I don't think that's the last chapter of his career. The last time we talked, he seems to do better with trading financial and commodity futures short term.

 

[dbs119]

nice thread!

I remember one guy posting in one board in october 2002 about e-reports.. HE got YHOO, QLGC ,and soem others right.. I think he made 48-50 % that month..
That guy though, went short some high-flying stock in november and lost a lotta..
I remember this guy making some other nice calls on BRCD in nov 2002 and especially in july last year.. He said he was buying calls in AMZN before its e-report. Then he cashed a little after the opening gap..
Then ,he said he was buying EBAY puts.. WOW, he again got it right.. WOWww.. And he still posts in one board.. But unfortunately, he doesn't post any of his e-report picks..

 

[buylo]

1.5 years into my trading career, was trading in the German Schatz 2 year at a prop firm when it ran from 102.58 to 102.99 (let's not forget this a 2 YEAR contract!) in 2 minutes and the Bobl 5 year was racing straight down. Was short a 200 lot at 102.61 figuring someone puked.

Eurex started acting funky so puked out at 102.64 but got no fill confirmation back. Next thing, 102.99 prints and there is no price on the planet for the Schatz. I think 58's was the next price to be bid or offered. Prices fill in, and I still have no fill confirmation back, but think I am ok since it is know a 3 tic winner.

Oops. Instead of 102.58, someone had entered a price of 108.58. Yes, 108.58, 6 handles higher in a 2 year contract. Do the math on a 200 lot 600 tic loser. Still no fill, and this is all happening in a 3 minute bar. The Bobl 5 year is still going straight down. My body goes numb as I glance at my P&L, and I try to plan my escape route to the nearest highway overpass. The GUI flips around again and we are back in the 102 handle. I finally get my fill back and find that I indeed took a 3 tic loss. I walk into the bathroom, shed some tears and then barf.

Some guys had sold some Schatz up in the 108 handle and bought them back in the 102 handle, but obviously Eurex busted the trades in the 108s.

That's all I got.

:eek:

 

[PCanyon]

In the early 80's, a dentist in Chicago, Alan Ko, took 25,000 and traded it to over 3 million in three years.

He would have made an additional 3 million had he been trading during the crash of 87. However, he was visiting family in Hong Kong and was out of the markets.

Alan Ko was well known by most of the members of Club 3000. He simply took a variation of Larry Williams' $2000 system called Trend Catcher and made some adjustments. He traded the S&P (the big old burly contract at $500 per big pt, Bonds, Copper, Silver, Notes). This was an intermediate term volatility breakout system. It was programmed for optimization on an Apple IIe.

Mike Chalek programmed the system and Ko traded it like an ice man. He stuck through drawdowns and Chalek has admitted publicly many times that Ko was successful with a mediocre system but he was a great trader with iron fisted discipline.

Chalek went on to sell systems while Ko made money trading the markets.

So the story here is that it can be done, but more importantly it takes much more than just a good system to make big time profits in the markets.

 

[Prince Philip]

Quote from Samson77:
and I was sitting on almost $750,000.00 in profits.

I set a goal for 1 million and waited because this company had a fantastic product that I believed was revolutionary.

Unfortunately the shares fell in sympathy with the markets and also 911 and they now trade for .03.

[/B]

And you call yourself a trader???


Fucking idiot more like

 

[Samson77]

Quote from Prince Philip:

And you call yourself a trader???


Fucking idiot more like

Prince Philip..... of the Trailer Park.


At least I built something that was worth this kind of money you moron.

 

[Hello_Dollars]

Quote from Babak:

I'm not sure if I've shared this before or not but here goes...

It was a roaring bull market in 2000 and I was a totall n00b. Like all the rest of 'em thought I was hot stuff. There I was selling puts on BCE on the TSE. Each month around $2000. It was becoming like a salary really! Bam! $2000, next month, $2000. Each would expire worthless as the stock had appreciated well above it.

Then I decided to get serious! I thought BCE is for losers. I want the real action. I looked around and found JDSU. Here we go, I thought NASDAQ, where the action is. Where the big boys play. So I upped size and wrote a big wad of puts. Easy stuff I thought.

Guess what the market did next. Yup! It tanked. And there I was watching my puts go into the red exponentially each day. It was the classic deer caught in the headlights situation. My stomach would turn into a knot whenever I looked at a quote. I would try to think of something else, hope for a miracle, hope that the option would somehow miraculously stop falling and recover. Or not get exercised!

I thought about doubling down since I thought when hadn't the market rebounded back?

But at that time I had begun reading the Wizards books and if it was one thing I got out of them, it was to NEVER add to a losing position. So as hard as it was, I didn't.

So what happened? I bought the puts back for a huge loss a few days before expiration. Then what did the market do? Yup! It rebounded like a bat outta hell. Had I doubled down, not only would I have saved my hide, I would have actually come out ahead!!

Now I felt like a real ____.




But looking back, I can't decide whether it would be better had I doubled down or not. I think if I had, I would have still learned my lesson and never again added to a loss. But who knows! Maybe it was better this way.

Whatever way may have been best, the result of that incident was that I woke up to the reality that I didn't know jack about the market!

Looking back on those days, I can't help but chuckle at the naivete and courage that came from ignorance.

Babak, that's painful, but it sounds like you needed the experience in order to achieve long-term success. And you shouldn't regret not doubling down for one moment. From having experienced something similar in my day, I can say this with the utmost conviction. Had you in fact doubled down, the market would have tanked further until you reached the point of maximum pain. It is simply a function of the laws that govern the market.

 

[BundMaster]

Quote from Hello_Dollars:

Babak, that's painful, but it sounds like you needed the experience in order to achieve long-term success. And you shouldn't regret not doubling down for one moment. From having experienced something similar in my day, I can say this with the utmost conviction. Had you in fact doubled down, the market would have tanked further until you reached the point of maximum pain. It is simply a function of the laws that govern the market.

One of the wisest responses I've heard here.Well said.

 

[Prince Philip]

Quote from Samson77:

Prince Philip..... of the Trailer Park.


At least I built something that was worth this kind of money you low life, no class moron.

How do you know I am a low life??

How do you know I am a no class moron???


I KNOW you are a fucking idiot who claims to be trader, because, assuming you are not streching your own reality, you had three quarters of a million dollars profit in a trade, and you let it go to NOTHING. Outstanding.

The only basis you have for calling me the above is because I have pointed out to you that you are a FUCKING IDIOT, and you don't like that.

Do you honestly think that I give rats arse what a loser, for that's what I tend to call folk who drop 750,000 dollars on one trade, thinks of me just because I give an opinion???


As far as I see, by the way, you built nothing - you said you were given the shares - and as for 'worth this kind of money' - well lets see now - it's fucking worthless.


Now come on, who is the fucking idiot. Oh yea, must be me.

 

[Samson77]

Quote from Prince Philip:

How do you know I am a low life??

How do you know I am a no class moron???


I KNOW you are a fucking idiot who claims to be trader, because, assuming you are not streching your own reality, you had three quarters of a million dollars profit in a trade, and you let it go NOTHING. Outstanding.

The only basis you have for calling me the above is because I have pointed out to you that you are a FUCKING IDIOT, and you don't like that.

Do you honestly think that I give rats arse what a loser, for that's what I tend to call folk who drop 750,000 dollars on one trade, thinks of me just because I give an opinion???


As far as I see, by the way, you built nothing - you said you were given the shares - and as for 'worth this kind of money' - well lets see now - it's fucking worthless.


Now come on, who is the fucking idiot. Oh yea, must be me.

It was an investment you idiot not a trade ....

Ever hear of a guy called Warren Buffett

learn the difference and when you've been around this business as long as me you can talk until then spare me your petty wisdom.