I like seeing a young kid kicking ass like this, maybe the next Stanley Druckenmiller or Victor Neiderhoffer during their heights of annual gains of 30% plus? Mr.Druckenmiller had a nice streak with his Duquesne Capital Fund under George Soros hitting some banner years, Victor too had a great run before allowing himself to get too crazy with leverage and one bad trade upon another. What system are they using to produce these incredible returns? The Black Box systems Goldman, Morgan and UBSS are using with H.F.T.S. or is this guy picking stocks for the long-run like Carl Ichan and Willy Ackman? I think not only is the young man smart, he is the ability to communicate unlike some great math geniuses who are socially shy or recluses only focused on work. Fun story, hope to hear more from him and how he is tearing things up!
Yeah he is a lot like Vic. Vic studied math at the University of Chicago. This kid at Cal Tech. Vic was a world champion squash player, this kid a world ranked tennis player. I think what a lot o guys miss here on ET is that people that excel at anything in life, tend to excel at a lot of things. It's the old "not knowing how to fail" idea. Elon Musk is like this as well. These people are naturally driven and success in one area simply drives them to be successful in other areas. I have always said that most people have no idea how how much hard work it takes to truly be successful at anything. But once you master the idea of total commitment, discipline and persistence, you can accomplish just about anything. It's why prop firms love to recruit athletes. The attributes they had to succeed in sports can be applied to anything in life including trading.
Please do not mention the naked volatility seller Vic. Nothing genius about selling short premium. If he were really that smart, he would have known that a blow-up was inevitable. The guy gambled, plain and simple. Yet, he is a god to many just like Madoff was.
Technically he's NOT doing all those things at once. Kind'uv like telling someone that's a family man with kids, has a good paying job, exercises hard about an hour a few times per week and hangs out at his kids soccer games...how can he do all those things at once. Most hard working folks just do it and are excellent with their time management. Anyways, he'll naturally slow down when he settle down and starts a family. Until then, he probably still has that college hormone energy where students stay up most of the night partying or hanging out with friends and goes to classes and sports practice the next day without missing a beat. Congrats to the kid for getting an early start on his career instead of following the norm that tries to do such "after" getting their degree. By the way, I read somewhere last year that self made millionaires via starting their own business under the age of 21 grew by 25%...maybe its due to better stats keeping of that age group. Impressive especially in these tough economic times.
It would be interesting to know what sort of math he is using for his strategies. At least for the strategy he started while in college the math should not be very advanced, well it's college level.
Ash, how can this be a sign of a Market Top if so much cash is on the sidelines sitting and waiting? CNBC and Fox-Financial have done their studies saying the little guy has not enjoyed the great rally from 2010 to 2013 bumping up their account values. It's said Jack Kennedy is suppose to have sold all his positions and took out a large short position when the shoe-shine boy was giving advice on stocks to everyone he talked to. I wonder if this is a Market Top but I still think there is lots of fuel waiting for something or has Main Street decided to side-step the Market until they can't stand the pain of not making double-digit returns? Victor had over a 20% percent annual return over a his period until he lost everything in 1997. Pre-Blow-up, he was rated one of the best investors and as he said he "went from short sleeve to short sleeve in three generations". He returned capital to the investors over the years, he had a incredible run until it came slamming him out of business. Victor parallels Jesse Livermore, multiple blow-ups, blaming Wall Street and groups trying to squeeze him when the truth he had no risk management, that's what could have saved this guy. How many times has Victor blown-up only to have some rich people load his investing gun again? His aggressive style was bound to blow him to pieces, is he still managing money with another group providing him his fourth of fifth grubstake? Japanese interviewer keep's trying to get Victor to talk about the painful experience of losing all that cash, you can hear the pain in his voice. The interviewer has not class, he keep's picking at Victor's scabs. Low class interviewer, not cool at all! Here's a interview he did with more updated info. I need to check and see if he is still managing money, I need to learn from Victor's errors and tighten up my risk management because I think we are in a weird Market too. http://bambooinnovator.com/2013/06/...st-everything-in-the-1997-asian-crisis-video/
I'm curious about this story about no Main St investors having partaken in this rally. 2013 saw the biggest net investor inflows since 2004. None of this has been retail money? Over the last few months we have seen that 16 year old starlet giving stock tips. At the moment we also have: 1. NYSE margin leverage just a shade below the 2007 all time high 2. Sentiment surveys showing bears at 15%, the lowest since 1989 3. Capitulation of famous bears like Stephen Hendry When you say "this is a weird market", is that another way of saying it might be different this time?