I don't think he made any. Actually, I don't think he ever traded. But if you mention physics I'm pretty sure he can have very respectable opinions
fading any move - yes, but fading in general is a very profitable (low risk) technique, if one can identify favourable conditios and much quicker return also, not to mention that an intermediate counter trend move in itself is like THE fade
And why do you think that? He famously got caught in the South Sea bubble: "I can calculate the movement of the stars, but NOT the madness of men." â Sir Isaac Newton, after losing a fortune (£20,000) in the bubble. Not to mention all the time he wasted on alchemy. Still, at least he was privy to The Secret, LOL.
Heads result is always 50/50 chance ... no trend ... in coin tosses because coins have heads with no brains inside. Humans are rather different. We are less like coins and more like monkeys that have heads with some brains inside. Some monkeys react faster to stimuli and what follows is ... monkey see and monkey do ... that's the reason the market trends and countertrends every now and then. There you are ... my "Idiots' Thesis on the Existence of Trends in the Markets" to help me enrol into this Idiots Club.
Niederhoffer is definitely a trend trader. He's a big believer in the stock market always making a higher high, which is by definition the defining characteristic of an up trend. I'll be much interested to see wether he can keep on posting similar results after 2008. Every strategy, given enough time, is mean reverting. Including his. However, I do enjoy his "Horses mouth" talk and his blog. A jolly good fellow who deserves accolades for his come back.
JWH was phenomenal in the 90's. But his way of trading is not suited for the actual market. Years ago I received a long time the exact entries of JWH in different programms and markets within 24 hours. He was always late, but he made his money in the BIG moves. Now markets have become more difficult. The moves are smaller so his profit is smaller, and the moves are faster, so he is losing there too. He gets whipsawed, and that causes his bad results. JWH was my favorite trader in the 90's but i've written him off since several years. The fact that he made more money the all ET members together is no argument to say that he is still good. I only analyze his results. Every succesful traders will reach a point where it is all over, nobody stays a star for ever.
ehheh what I find interesting about trading is how we get into it for easy money. Soon we find out its not easy at all, we then get serious and before we know it we are working very hard at it. Much harder than other jobs. after years and after we sold our soul to the devil so to speak, we feel that trading is easy. We never recover from suffering, no matter how much money I make today, big part of me died on my third blow up!
Except James Simons/RenTech. <a href="http://imageshack.us"><img src="http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/491/rentechtl2.gif" border="0" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us"/></a><br/>
soros, kovner, drunkenmiller, tudor-jones, etc. the wizards of yore are still making and taking money