I confess I must applaud this thread. It was most entertaining, so I must thank those that participated. I now am not so sure what to think. I knew him at the University of Chicago and thus at the reunions. I agree with most that he has an ego the size of Jupiter. Upon meeting him, you know he is intelligent, and he wants desperately to make certain you know he is smarter than you are. There are people like that, using words like "grandiloquent" instead of "arrogant", or "licentious" or "scatalogical" instead of "sexual". Instead of simply saying, "It is cold outside", he will commence in a banter with physics regarding the receptors on the human epidermis and how it connects to the proper nucleus in the frontal cortex. He absolutely cannot resist demonstrating his knowledge on a given subject... so it seems. It is true that he leans so much on his models and most of the time he is bullish and selling volatility. It is interesting that he had those two well publicized blowups in 1997 and 2007, but he bled a ton of money also on 9/11/2001 and in May 2006, and I believe during 2003. Whenever the markets dove, Victor ended up in trouble. It is also of significance that he blew up in 2007. If he had received funds to restart a hedge fund immediately afterwards, he likely would have blown up during 2008 (likely more than once), and again during the first few months of 2009. If Matador did not shut down, and he sold volatility during the epic banking failures, then he may have lost billions and billions of dollars. This is possible... I am keen to admit that his fame fascinates me, and his future my friends and I would be remiss if we did not exercise a modicum of curiosity. I wonder if he will come back at this stage of the game. If he were to endeavor to alleviate his reputation, I hope that he would end his career on a high note. Still, we as a group at the last University of Chicago reunion did propose a good question. Even John Law and Richard Dennis and George Soros and Jesse Livermore had their blowups. Jesse Livermore, at his time was once one of the richest men in America. His biographer as of late estimated in today's dollars he would be worth billions and billions of dollars. Yet Jesse Livermore bankrupted himself many times and put a bullet into his corpus callosum (suicide). Many of our finance friends at the University of Chicago read about these big traders and were recommended their works as pivotal reading to each other. But where is the lasting efficacy? Is it the fate of all speculators to blow up... given enough time on the normal curve? Is it the most salient lesson then to read of people like Victor to learn to exercise restraint? (And the concomitant hubris?) As I recall, even Victor often spoke of his father's belief that Victor would end up penniless. Victor himself often mentioned to us that he truly feared that would end his career in an epic failure. He appears to want to "do good". But his "out of this world" ego obfuscates what could be his true nature. He would often talk down about others, or at least seem to. Is his desire to be praised and honored a function of his concern of others, or is he solidly determined to prove that he is "the smartest person in the room"? You may want to check out his website, www.dailyspeculations.com and let the rest of us know what you think, because a lot of us with University of Chicago ties are interested in his very unique story. He was a classmate. Personally, I wish him the best, but I am of the constitution that I wish so in all people...
I was going through some old threads regarding Niederhoffer, and I noticed something interesting that stock777 mentioned. I just want to share it with you all.
I once read an interesting book about a famous gambler named Nicholas Andreas "Nick the Greek" Dandolos. He is estimated to have won and lost over $500 million. Died nearly penniless. $500 million! What is it about this type? Why can't you just WIN and keep it? Stop taking big risks for crissakes. A telling quote may be: Nick was asked near the end of his life why after gambling for millions, was he still playing $5 poker? "It's still action!"
Are you saying that this book is comparable to Education of a Speculator? Surf would say in the deffense of the Greek: "But he won more than what he lost!" From Wiki: "It's estimated that he won and lost over $500 million in his lifetime. He himself claimed that he went from rags to riches over 73 times. A man who never respected money, he donated over $20 million to education and charity."
It appears people born with the constitution of a speculator may find it impossible to extirpate the unquenchable need "for action". I often too find my blowups occurred not as a function and derivative of my algorithms, but rather of my ego's desires. Maybe what some in this thread exhorted is correct, that psychology is more salient than the determination of a tradable edge. Again, did anyone visit the www.dailyspeculations.com site of Victor to see if it changed their assessments?
Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau; July 12, 1817â May 6, 1862)[1] was an American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state. Notice the tax resister
I was just about to open up the betting lines on it offering 3 to 1 odds that Henry is Victor. (Nick the Greek would probably take it) I specially liked the subtle pitching of his website and that we should give THEM feedback, but there was no email or address provided. Salient was a sure giveaway... Well, I always wanted to ask a statistican who is also in the insurance business like Victor: As a good insurance agent, shouldn't you count on the probabilities of flood, forrest fire, earthquake,etc. when you sell contracts? And yes, those are analogies for market meltdowns...