I don't have any idols, but I do feel I owe a massive intellecutual debt to a lot of the greats. There are clearly many brilliant traders out there, but few have chosen to make their thoughts public. So I don't think attempts to rank traders are meaningful because those "lists of greats" are heavily biased towards those who have decided to make themselves known. Anyway, here is my list of indebtedness: Jim Rogers and Marc Faber - for teaching me to appreciate taking up truly unpopular contrarian views of the world. I've learnt a lot from their brand of global macro and developed a deep respect for the study of financial and economic history. Warren Buffett - for teaching me how to think about businesses and industries. Forget all those books about him, just go straight to the source. His shareholder letters are masterclass lectures in business. One takeaway that many people overlook from Buffett I feel is the importance of understanding corporate accounting. Victor Niederhoffer - anyone with an interest in statistical prediction owes him a mountain of debt. He pioneered his work back in the mid 1960s when the Chicago Efficent Markets school was in ascendancy. He kept pushing in the other direction when EMH was at it's peak in the 1970s. In addition, his willingness to fight back in his 60s after a spectacular blow up is one of the most incredible comebacks. He is a real Brooklyn fighter with a backbone of steel. Jack Schwager - Jack's contribution is really his MW series of books, which is a real gift to all traders. It's a broad survey of styles, tricks and traps and methods. It really drove home to me how complex the market ecosystem is, that there are many angles at which smart people are attacking the market. Drobny's book is a more than worthy successor to the MW series. Various autobiographies - Baruch, Levy, Livermore, Schwartz, Clews. While I learnt bits and pieces from each, the most important thing I learnt from reading these personal accounts over time is that there is truly nothing new under the sun. Markets are as old as the hills and the tricks, traps and machinations change form, but the essence stays the same in most cases. This is why I feel studying economic and financial history is important.
Excellent post. I definitely tip the hat to Rogers and Faber, they gave a lot of information about trading moves based on major, long-term fundamental shifts in any asset anywhere on the face of the planet. Some of my best trades, I would not have conceived of if I had not discovered their ideas about long-term booms and busts. I should add 4 other authors who really gave a lot of insight into the markets. The first is John Train, with his "Money Masters" series, and to a lesser extent his "Craft of Investing" book. It focuses on more conventional types than Market Wizards, but was a precursor to those books and gave some really useful lessons from expert market practitioners. The other is George Soros, who despite lots of "fluff" in his two books, gives several accounts of major global macro trades he made. In "Alchemy of Finance", his trading diary chapters are a fascinating glimpse into the process of trading real-time. He wrote them as he traded, so they show his thoughts without the benefit of hindsight, during a time of some historic market moves. I don't know any other trading books where the trader put out his thoughts "as they happened" like that. Also "Soros on Soros", whilst not much about trading, still contains some stuff about trades he made, and those sections are very valuable. Finally there are two authors who came up with similar growth stock investing approaches - Jim Slater, and William O'Neill. The idea of purchasing fast growing companies while they are making new all-time highs, and holding for 5, 10, 20 fold gains over a few years is, even now, quite a radical approach. Although I think their systems are a bit too restrictive and quantitative, the general idea of purchasing stocks where the business is rapidly carving out a new and fast-growing niche, and going from micro-cap to institutional darling, is one of the time-tested ways to make spectacular returns.
This is slightly off topic since the guy is a broker not trader. But I really admire what Iâve read about Chris Gardnerâs life â the guy in The Pursuit of Happyness. Incredible what he went through and he definitely has achieved incredible success. Hereâs a link if anyone is intâd: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/10/10/DDGVLF4AI81.DTL
From this board Reardon Metal, mschey, Lescor, Szeven, MilleniumMan, Steve Tvardek, red ink inc From the CME S & P 500 pit Rex Martin (former employer), Robert Beardsley (SIR), Meslo, Howard Segal. CBOT 30 year Balwin, Tony G, Mike Herlehy
I dont know a lot about many different traders but I would like to emulate Linda Raschke. She is still on top after 20 some years in the business. I have learned more about trading futures from her than anyone.
Thanks for the kudos, Cutten. One other book I would like to mention is the work put out by Gavekal Research, which reminded me that economics is still a field of study in the making. Economic thought has changed so much over the years, and we should expect that in 20 years (ie one generation), mainstream economics today will no doubt seem dated and wrongheaded. Gavekal's approach to economic thought really slaughters a lot of sacred cows. Soros's book taught me a little of that too - reflexivity pointed out that obscure feedback loops in markets exist and can be responsible for asset cycles.
Essentially, Tesla. Someone gave me his bio which the author had autographed and given to testa's closest female friend. She had kept clippings about Tesla in it and had made notes along side some of the narrative stories. I loaned it out to a person and lost track of it. The way he thought about stuff is what interested me and why the bio was given to me. I was invited to his place of origin one time and other times I have been to places he went. At one of these in Montana, there was a lab journal of his just laying around. It happened to be a time when E. F Schmacher was part of the group at a warm spring in Montana. We were, in part, guests of some Native Americans and, in part, the BOD of NCAT whee I represented the EOP. Carter gave "Small is Beautiful" to his cabinet before he met EFS. Tesla understood the size and time of things and so he could extrapolate way out into the blue very methodically and pleasantly. Edison, mentioned elsewhere, could never have understood Tesla's way of doing things.