ah...good to know. if someone puts up their acct statements, i'd see no reason not to believe them. granted, they can also segregate accounts and you'd have no way of knowing whether he's showing you everything or not (say he has 5 systems based on the type of market we're in -- he can trade each system in an independent account, and simply choose to display the best-performing system for a certain period of time)...but if he's trading in front of people he doesn't even know, then it's hard to argue that he's not competent. frankly, just because he sells some of his techniques doesn't make him a bad trader...just a good businessman. if my trading methodology weren't so specific to 3-4 stocks, i would be strongly tempted to do the same (if i were an index futures trader, for example)...especially since so many people here seem to have learned quite a bit from him...if i could still trade full-time but have a side business that was related to trading, i'd probably jump at the chance, too...who wouldn't?? he probably makes 10x on his newletters and books compared to what he makes trading, and with less risk...
anyone who blows out a managed fund is suspect in my book. but then again, that includes dear Larry, Marty Schwartz, and LBR.
btw williams was for a long time, an advisor at worldcupadvisor.com (robbins pimpage). i saw some trade records there and they sucked, plus i heard from people who paid to follow him there and once again he sucked. i think thats why they no longer list him as advisor heh. o ya u want a good question for larry? ask him how he did at worldcupadvisor.com
Larry Williams had some sense of trading, he proposed his program to a huge backer and it was all she wrote. He marketed the snot out of his program and in turn he became rich. Any other comments on his programm would be hog wash. If the guy made millions of his ideas what is the problem. Money is money. I see nothing wrong with what he did and in any event if the CFTC or the NFA never went after him he is all good. Comp
I have a lot of respect for Tony OZ. But, I wonder how he has been doing during the last 3-6 months ??
How can he cheat by trading in front of people at his seminar huh ? http://www.ctiming.com/MillionInfo.asp* As for critics here's his answer: http://www.ctiming.com/Critics.asp No. 2 WILLIAMS BLEW UP, TRADING A FUND IN 1987! There is some truth here. In 1986, 87 and 88 I managed a substantial amount of money. A significant number of the people came out way a head. Most notably Susan B. Kringle, who had opened her trading account with $60,000 and walked away with approximate $540,000. She then sued me claiming she should have made $63 million. Many people, and I mean many, made a substantial amount of money with my trading during that time. As new money in and the crash or 87 developed, I lost money for investors. No doubt about that, it happened. People were not blown out though. . . as I recall the worst damage done was about 40 percent decline in a few of the individual trading accounts. The NFA brought an action against me at that time, which I believe was highly politically motivated. After all I had just run from the floor, and was selected by my fellow commodity trading advisers against their hand picked "boy". From day one, I knew this was not a good thing to have done... at my first NFA meeting was only one not to have a nameplate at the table for we sat, repeatedly from the head of the NFA would not acknowledge me or shake my hand. The message was pretty clear, eventually they brought an action against me. Eventually I settled, neither admitting nor denying their charges and paid a $12,000 fine. In light of the hundreds of thousands of dollars the NFA has fined other people, notably brokers and trading advisors, this was not even a slap on the wrist. No. 3 YOU CHEATED WHEN YOU WON THE ROBBINS WORLD CUP TRADING CHAMPIONSHIP This is the most ludicrous of the allegations. Internet authors hiding behind bogus names, have claimed there were two accounts the winning trades when in one account the losing trades into another. If I would've known which trades were going to be losing trades why would I've taken them to begin with? Perhaps more importantly the NFA and CFTC both had all my trading records, they too were looking for chicanery, double accounts or whatever. They had all my trading records for about 18 months, went through the brokerage firm with a fine tooth comb.
Are we talking of the same Larry Williams http://www.tsimon.com/williams.htm "Larry Williams -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Larry Williams was an R&B and rock-and-roll singer who also wrote songs and played piano. His career might have had more impact had he not become seriously involved with the drug scene. "
that includes just about anybody we've ever heard of...niederhoffer, soros.... soros made $500mil last year for himself...
Larry did lose on SOME SPECULATIVE accounts and by 40%. It is still less than WHOLE NON SPECULATIVE FUND FROM MERRYL & SO ALIKE LOSING 80 to 95% !!! Should I deduce that speculative account is less risky than non speculative one ... And the HUGE FUND didn't have to get sued how strange huh ? Something is strange about the CFTC: it seems that they like to sue particularly successful well known traders. For example they wanted to stop the site of Franck taucher who is "First Place Winner of "The $40 Million Investment Challenge" for having produced the highest verifiable investment return, 1980 - 1993, as reported in "Forbes" magazine and "The Wall Street Journal " And what is funny is that the pretext given by CFTC is that according to academics Technical Analysis doesn't work whaf whaf whaf ! Happily Frank Taucher has won the trial (very recently about 2 months ago) because it was considered as anti-speech freedom.
Larry is well cited by many of its profession for some well known techniques. BUt some miss to cite him for example OOPs is one of his invention but this site didn't mention it see http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16332