"Meanwhile, rumors circulated on the Internet that, for the second time in a decade, his funds had âblown up.â -NYorker.
What an outrageous pack of lies! The whole Spec List KNOWS this is crappola. We talk to VN every day! We are all so smart and witty. And not a bit pretentious. Did you know that the Laplace transform of the third harmonic of Middle C in the classical diatonic scale, closely matches the weekly average range of the top 37 highest beta S&P stocks over 12 years? Well, we did! Goddammit! I hope Vn and Wizdum sue the SHIITE out of ET and Baron! String 'em up! Bread and water! 20 lashes o' the nine! To the brig with the scurvy dogs! Keel haul the lyin' bilge rats! Oh. Wait. You mean it's true? Well...VN is a great guy. He made more money than all of you bastids... ET is stoopid...
made the canadian thanksgiving with its multiple pint stopover at the bar tonight worth it with many many dividends in kind and kudos... brilliant post. thank you
Looks like Pabst was right on in his reporting. The CME doubled margin requirements for S&P 500 puts, and Niederhoffer was forced to cover his massive short put at market lows. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/15/071015fa_fact_cassidy?printable=true I wonder if this thread is what the new yorker referred to when it said "Meanwhile, rumors circulated on the Internet that, for the second time in a decade, his funds had âblown up.â"
Definetely it was the Pabst ET thread - the story first appeared here. The New Yorker story was great. I'm glad VN gave them the scoop and cooperated. I didn't get any sense that his group's personal assets were lost so I'd expect them to just trade their own $ and probably do fine. Shows you funds are vulnerable to internet speed sleuthing and volatility.
Here's something pretty funny. Do a google advanced search for the phrase "fixed systems" on the ET website. You'll find two posts that match, one from marketsurfer who quotes Victor Niederhoffer as follows: I have an aversion to all fixed systems and purportedly easy ways of making money in the market because the market learns and adapts to allow flexible, sagacious and strong decision makers to profit at the expense of the weak. -- Victor Niederhoffer The second match is a post from ET user profturf who expresses disdain for fixed systems in a lengthy message sprinkled with "erudite" references to the many books he/she has read. The writing style is unmistakable. But profturf hasn't posted here in more than a year.
my dad too has been warning me about how all gamblers end. poor guy vic, i can feel his pain... he must have been struggling to win respect from his father, a cop, all his life - but never could. the pain is not that of missing the money per se, but of letting down his father. the thing is though, his father is dead, so he cannot prove him wrong - that would be disrespect to a dead man. so, out of respect, he now has to fulfill truly the prophecy of his father. sad.