do you have more data on the loss of $6m of larry's client account? from which month to which month in 1987? how large is the % is the $6m in the account? were they traded the same thing? s&p index, t-bonds or different things? stocks, forex? please enlight me, because i have limited access to websites and no access to us libraries.
". During the course of the contest in 1987, Larryâs composite performance showed a loss of $6,122,281 while his personal accounts experienced a gain of $902,599, as outlined in the NFAâs Findings and Conclusions." So he put priority on his personal account over his managed account. Was this illegal ? No. Was it ethical ? You decide.
You are assuming that these two diametrically opposed and virtually simultaneously occurring outcomes are unrelated. That may or may not be a realistic assumption. I guess each person will have to put it through his own BS filter and see if it passes the smell test to his satisfaction.
And you are assuming the numbers are the result of some mass conspiracy theory between a broker and a trader. Believe it or not, some people actually can trade the S&P pretty well.
You don't have to convince me of that. However, you may have some difficulty trying to convince even one of Larry's managed money clients. Even just one. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1007920#post1007920
ok. i think i can conclude this it is possible to manage a small money very well from 10k to 200k in 3 months in 1987. his bigger portfolio was not that lucky. since there is no % or trade history of his bigger portfolio, we will never know what happened there. it is still very educational to study the trades in his first 9 month trading in robbins. i do think he is a ok trader, but in his book he claimed such and such money management and the fact is that he does not use his money management at all. he is taking my approach: bet big, win big or lose big. so i can conclude his books are mostly useless. i like the book "trading for a living" and "trade your way to financial freedom" which are from a third person's viewpoint. larry is just a salesman like Jesse Livermore, who only show the public their winning trades but the in the end, thier loss killed them. meanwhile, another book showing Japaness Fairy's trade log is much useful for me to look into a great trader's mind.
reading your posted thread about the NFA investigation and your musings about it brings back some memories: I remember back then you did not have to wait a few minutes to assign a trade to one or the other account, because the pit broker kept ALL of his trades on HIS books until the end of the day. Only after the close he assigned the trades to the various accounts. So this procedure could have obviously used to separate trades according to profits and losses. If I remember correctly there was a similar incident about Hillary. She turned out to be a cattle trader par excellence and there were rumors she had used this tactic to profit.
first time to know that hillary clinton is a female trader. wow! let's vote one of us to the highest office and sell what kind of risk management skills she get. sure i bet somebody will know the quickest way to profit from government policy changes.
Guys, this thread is really entertaining, but let's keep it real: Ponderables: 1. If he was able to cheat, why did he have 50% DDs? He could have just assigned those losing trades to the different account. Oh, I forgot, probably to throw of investigators... 2. If your procedure was doable, how come others didn't do that way? 3. How come investigators never find any wrongdoing (and boy did they try) in the competition? 4. How come his daughter was able to achieve similar results a few years later? She was either able to cheat the same way (must be stupid organizers) or there was a winning method... Just apply common sense, I know it is hard, and try to answer those questions. If you get a headache, use Tylenol...
pekelo, since you referred to my post I´d like to point out that I did not accuse anyone of wrongdoing. Other posters did. I merely pointed out that back then ( I dont know if this is still possible today) how it could have been done. To show its possible. See?