The recent sharp moves (epic?) provided plenty of opportunity for Day Traders. Bloomberg has written about CIS before, same thing then, he provided Bloomberg with brokerage statements of his trades to validate his claims. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-panicked-japanese-day-trader-made-34-million
I'll bet there were many more players who bet big and lost it all. Likely won't hear about them. Leverage is a great thing... until it goes against you. (I've traded for years and I don't recall ever being leveraged > 200%)
34 million sounds like alot, and it is...but %-wise of his account...the overall picture or change then becomes more modest. Balls of steel, though, to bet that kind of money...trying to call the bottom and/or tops in that crazy environment
Correctamundo! He made a modest percentage on a a couple of big, leveraged bets and got away with it. That don't make him Marilyn Vos Savant.
You can make small (microscopic) bets and repeat again and again same mistakes until your account equals zero. And you can make leveraged bets and increase regularly your account if you trade futures and/or mega cap with solid money management and discipline. Obviously, this guy is not Kerviel or Leeson. He knows what are his risks and limits, trades his own money and don't fight the trend. CM
Actually, the article mentions the following: "Last year, when he was the subject of a profile in Bloomberg Markets magazine, CIS said that in a decade of day trading, mostly from a spare bedroom in a rented apartment, he had amassed a fortune of about $150 million. At the time, he shared tax returns and brokerage statements to back up his claims." Let's say he still had $150 million, then $34 million is around a 23% return, it's all relative to the amount of the actual equity value of his account. Still, a killer return for playing both sides with large blocks of futures contracts. What would be interesting is to find out what his starting equity value was "in a decade of daytrading."
BULLSHIT NAIVETAE! He had a $240 Million position on leverage. Do you think he had $240 Million to back his play? Had "things" gone against him in a big-enough "noise counter", this guy would have been busted and never heard from. Not much diff than a Power Ball Lotto winner. Don't look to him as a guru. Mostly he "got away with" a big bet.
I call him a damn good trader. He didn't start with 5K last month and make 34M doing monte carlo bets. This guy has been at it for a while and he's got money that we'd all love to have...and success that we'd all love to have. He built that trading. You may not agree with all of the risks he's taken, but he's smart enough to have made the right calls to get his account into some very nice territory. I say congratulations and nice work buddy!
He could be just a fake story by Japanese Government just to simulate the stock market in Japan in general since Japanese feels scared of investing in stock market after super big crash in 90s.