Here's a whole thread on Larry I started with my first ET handle: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/poll-do-you-think-larry-williams-is-a-charlatan.174999/
Of course doah! I even just read it on the list. When I started trading I re-created all his trades from the competition and he had a simple thing going that worked as a super edge I believed in the market at the time. I would not work any longer.If the competition was in cahoots.. I've not seen that. He got me very interested in fractals and played a large part in my own somewhat different understanding of what is actually going on. If a fraud, he got me started with the idea that I needed and could reach a level vastly higher than people told me was possible.
Here's another thread on the guy, where he (supposedly, anyway) responds: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/mr-williams-responds.65159/ Please be sure to read the article entitled "Larry Williams's Last Stand" posted by late apex. It starts on Page 5.
Well I reckon he is legit, that may not have been a constant through since 1967 I get the jetting about the world doing courses and being loved thing, I know of a guy in Colombia who does exactly that. He is not a fraud but he is very bad value for many people. Some do well however. I did not read books, I just got Ninja and stared at the thing. I learned the ES, about other markets after drilling three trades with a slight edge for eight months from a school. I learned about the back end and how order matching etc happened (trying to automate before I could trade of course). I had an idea in my head of how it all interconnected in Futures but it was clues from a Williams talk I happened across (I intentionally looked at nearly none) that made me feel I was not crazy, I had seen something very elegant others missed. In the threads I don't see anything that damages Williams, he likes attention, well his kid did not fall far from the tree Is it largely just on the basis that the 10k % was impossible you feel he is a fraud? Or the why teach when you can print money? I can assure you the guy I know of here makes a frikkin' fortune teaching noobs. That is good risk management.
No. I explained in the threads why I am confident he is not legitimate. Even if you accept his "World Cup" win as legitimate, he was never able to replicate that performance ever again. So maybe a lottery winner should also write books and do the seminar circuit? And remember that the same year he "made" $1m in a trading contest, he lost over $6m of client money. Same year. Did you read that NFA finding? Keep in mind that time stamps on trades took longer in those days. Think about that. Now imagine having an "accommodating" broker. And on the matter of brokers, Robbins Trading Company, the contest sponsor, promoted what would subsequently be "Managed Accounts by the World Cup Trading Team." So the winner(s) of the trading contest would go on to manage client money sourced by Robbins. Here's the thing. While the contest was still underway, Williams was already identified as one of the members of the World Cup Trading team. Williams's victory was taken for granted before the contest was even half over. The NFA couldn't prove collusion but they made pains to advise possible investors to be aware of Williams's managed money losses while he simultaneously made money for himself. They also fined Williams and Robbins in connection with the contest, but it was appealed and a lesser charge was levied. Seriously, how many red flags does it take?
More than that as I know for certain from my broker who has been in business a long time people trading futures somtimes break 10k %. I absolutely was all over the possibility he was burning his clients by taking the opposite trade in a different correlated instrument, just helping himself enough but someone convinced me it was not viable and thet the NFA would have seen that a mile off anyway. I don't even own one of his books but I know a couple of f-off rich traders (30 million + net worth) who hold him in some regard. This will not make sense but I guess as it is a quite fuzzy notion but I sensed Williams thought in capital letters and many don't. Terrible way to get the idea across but I saw things nobody else talked about and assumed this was all super secret stuff nobody discussed. A lot of it is, however.. the bones/DNA whatever of what I deduced in parallel make Williams' stuff ring true to me. At least the parts I've seen. Wish I had not used that analogy but some don't see structures in the charts as they seem blind to them and don't care. Sorry, it is Friday and brain broken
From what I have seen while looking through a couple of his books years ago in a bookstore, he just dealt in trading pablum. Perhaps you read more into it than is there and benefited from your own insights rather than anything he provided. That would be my guess.
Again, I'm not saying it's impossible to make a lot of money in a short period of time (although I have yet to do it), but Williams was only able to do so under questionable circumstances. And he was never able to replicate his performance when those circumstances were no longer available to him and the NFA had been alerted. His "Million Dollar Challenge" seminars were pathetic, as explained in the article to which I referred you. Immediately after his "celebrated" victory in the questionable trading contest he was running on fumes. And it never got better.