he jumped into the cotton pit, immediately made several hundred (maybe it was several thousand) percent profit, lost about 80% of that just as quick, but figured, hey, I still have a great return! he then managed a fairly small fund by current standards, and was notorious for pushing the pedal to the metal when he was right, taking big risk. he was right a lot however. from what i hear, he doesn't "trade" like he used to, but still gets great returns given the amount of money he trades. Bruce Kovner is the same. both started around the same time, with Kovner being more of a quant guy, and trading everything. Jones more of the pure trader. And an extremely nice guy to boot, from what I hear.
Short clip of PTJ crying like a little girl because he droped 5% in a day: http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=2d740f822d744300bc0ecb86b4a1191edd80e1ac