I would note that Madoff has more money than I do, probably oliver valez... and so does just about every crook in the Senate. That does not make them better traders... It makes them better sales guys or better frauds or better insider traders. As a basic fundamental guideline for have a serious conversation ... if you blow up your hedge fund 2 or 3 times with 100s of million of other peoples money... you are not a good trader. If you were to place a client's money in such a managers new 3 or 4th fund... you would have to tell you client... you are taking a bet that the manager can sell vol and get to a target for withdrawal faster than the market he is trading has a very quick and deep reversal. In other words... let him trade til he blows up... but try to get out right before the blow up. you know what I would put a small amount of money is such a venture if I could get into the fund early and just after the markets had a big pullback.
That depends on your definitions. My definition of a trader is someone who looks to profit from the stock price fluctuation and does not want to hold forever. Long or short does not matter. An investor is someone who may benefit from stock price appreciation but who primarily looks to share in the flow-through earnings of the company either now or in the future. Investors are always long. Under these definitions, O'Neil is definitely a trader.
Good point. I don't disagree but based on my rudimentary knowledge of his career, I would call him more of a financial pioneer and publisher/investor than a trader--is he still alive on the earth planet?
What does this mean? Are you asking about rumors he went to Mars to teach the foolish buy-and-hold Martians the CAN SLIM method?
No Surf. I stick to facts. Something you obviously can't grasp. Everything I've stated has been facts. Show me where I am wrong. JWH had some giant years with over 100% returns. He didn't make his money by taking 2% of AUM. Sure JWH has had a bad run the last few years, but his investors faired much much better than VN's who were left holding next to nothing at the end.
WJ O'N spent his first 27 months trading. He started with 500 bucks. read page 173 of "24 Essentials......" Then, he spent some time figuring out how to apply this first fortune he made. He figured out two things: 1. How to sell financial information to clients. Originally his institutional package sold for 44K. I was asked to be a Beta tester. 2. How to do TA to trade a quality based stock universe. See CANSLIM. Marketsurfer and dark horse are ignorant as they have been telling ET for quite a while. WJO'N has protogeges. They are famous traders and have famous companies in the financial industry. Marketsurfer and Dark Horse do not know any of these people. This thread is OP'ed by a research organization. Certainly they need a catchy "brand" to capture those who need financial information in a timely manner. McGraw-Hill publishes WJO'N. Covell should have read WJO'N's books before he ripped off the CW ignorant players. Prentice Hall dumped Covell. VN is living proof of how to NOT go about learning how to use financial information. You can assume a New Yorker writer is not informed about the financial industry. Neither are New Yorker readers informed about the financial industry. The article could be used to sell subscriptions to the New Yorker and it would be talked about in Greenwich or the back country at coctail parties. Cassidy notes the instructions VN hands out to his lackeys. The instructions and the followup reports are just what VN used to get trapped in the markets. WJO'N traded and then joined the financial industry. VN has wasted his life in many ways. He wanted a boy so he didn't wear condoms. So now he has a collection of relatives and lackeys that he is happy with. The dialogue in the article says it all. VN is an example of fer, anxiety and anger prevailing. when you "know that you know" see WJO'N) the context is support, comfort and confidence. By watching the development of the "brand" in this thread, you get to see how information is processed, signals are developed, and timely trading action is executable. A trade always comes AFTER the signal information which is a leading signal of price in the market. There is NO MOMENT in the market's operation when a trader HAS to be on the wrong side of the market. Anyone can see the market unfolding. All market fractals are interlocking in a fixed and certain manner. VN has never understood why there are no older "rambo's" in the financial industry. The expressions that make up the ingredients in trading are: lists, criteria, functions, rules, strategies, baskets and libraries. VN learned to win by preventing his opponent an opportunity to play. In trading he couldn't do that but his opponents learned to prevent him from operating. He got taken to the cleaners regularly. In Darvas's time, a lot of us did what was required. I bought my MB from a Count who had a short run model that was not available through dealers. It was well known in Greenwich to the cocktail crowd. I put a bigger engine in it at the agency on route 1. Expert traders take the full offer of the market segment by segment on the trading fractal they choose. Trends only do one thing: begin, have a middle and end. Further, there is an identity between the beginning and the end (except for the aspect of opposite sentiments. There is only one thing to learn to be able to take the full offer of the markets. It is NOT to prevent your opponent from making a play. All you learn is the End Effect of a given trend. Is it a criteria, a function, a rule, a strategy, a library? YES. One pattern emerges. VN never caught on. The interlocking fractal nature of the market explains all. It begins with the granularity of the markets. Granularity and events are the foundation of the singular pattern. Specifically the Order Of Events. VN had to learn what failure of a trend was. He didn't. There is an OOE. It is very very reasoned to know that you know the Failure To Tranverse is the beginning of the next trend and also simultaneously the End Effect of the present trend. VN doesn't know how to obey the dictates of the market. He does Rambo instead and the market beats him up over and over.