Anybody know the biggest percentages ever?

[metaron]

Hi folks

Does anybody out there know the biggest percentages ever made by the top traders and how many years they could maintain it. Or does anybody know of a smaller less well kown trader that has/had crazy percentages.

I know Mark Cook made 500+% during the U.S investing championships in early 90's.

 

[Rossini]

High percentage returns are not hard to get. And not that relevant, someone who is getting 1000's of percent returns are more than likely taking a huge risk. I would always go for much smaller but consistent returns.

Having said that one of the guys who trades with me in the office likes to take very small accounts say £3000, he takes huge relative risk and tries to turn it into say £40,000 over a few weeks.

This way if he blows up the account, who cares, he can just start again with another small account.

 

[Rhody Trader]

Check out some of the returns for the folks in the Market Wizards books. Beyond that, you're going to have a really hard time getting reliable data except for folks who are in the public realm dealing with investor money - and as we've seen of late, even that has to be questioned.

 

[Calinor]

Some well known ones:

"Larry Williams is famous for his turning $10,000 into $1.15 million in one year. If you ever see the statements, he was under a margin call at one point during the first month on drawdown. He also ran the money up to over $2.5 million before settling at year-end at $1.15 million, meaning during that same period he lost over $1.35 million!"

which essentially agrees with what Rossini posted. If he was under a margin call, then he was riding his luck and probably taking too big a risk. He also had a draw down towards the end of over 50%.

Ed Seykota turned $5,000 into $15,000,000 over a 12 year time period in his model account.

And google also throws up some guy I have never heard of called Takashi Kotegawa.

Richard Dennis is also quite famous, and there are many others I read about in a book called Trend Following who have made big gains over several years although some individual years many of them lose.

 

[KillPhil08]

Mallegan - Scalping eu on demo, starting account $5000 and 55000% in one month, pretty sure this is very similar to how he does it in real life as well.

 

[Joey25]

Spanish knicked some change from a busker and turned it into 30K. True.

 

[Paul71]

Spanish knicked some change from a busker and turned it into 30K. True.

Was that Spanish? The f*cker, i'll get my 86 pence back one day......mark my words.

 

[sebby2468]

Mallegan - Scalping eu on demo, starting account $5000 and 55000% in one month, pretty sure this is very similar to how he does it in real life as well.

55000% in 1 month ? are you sure he's not adding a few zero's on there, thats insane

 

[Joey25]

Here's the link to the competition Larry Williams won, for anyone who's interested:

Robbins Trading Company - World Cup Challenge

It looks like he cashed in on the '87 crash.

 

[metaron]

Got to admit 55000% in a month sounds crazy even playing a demo.

 

[Calinor]

55000%, profit from a 5,000 account = 2.75 million in a month lol!

Nice link Joey. Interesting to see many of the same names featuring this year as in previous years.

 

[Adrian Success Gibbs]

$5,000 -> $2,750,000 in one month? BS!!

 

[DaxDestroyer]

Here's the link to the competition Larry Williams won, for anyone who's interested:

Robbins Trading Company - World Cup Challenge

It looks like he cashed in on the '87 crash.

Don't forget: He taught his stuff his daughter and she WON also

 

[Black Swan]

Was that Spanish? The f*cker, i'll get my 86 pence back one day......mark my words.

Did he say your John Lennon impersonation was 5hite and you stank of pi55 and booze too?

 

[Paul71]

Did he say your John Lennon impersonation was 5hite and you stank of pi55 and booze too?

No. He just kicked me in the bollux, took MY 86 pence, stroked the dog and did a runner. All this happened, and it didn't even break his mobile phone conversation to his broker.


He's a bugger you know.

 

[Jaydee]

Hi folks

Does anybody out there know the biggest percentages ever made by the top traders and how many years they could maintain it. Or does anybody know of a smaller less well kown trader that has/had crazy percentages.

I know Mark Cook made 500+% during the U.S investing championships in early 90's.

In some ways it's difficult to measure traders against each other because some are managing huge amounts of capital when compared to others. It's much harder to post 3 digit percentage returns when you are managing billions of dollars than if you only have $50K to throw about. The liquidity of the market becomes the major factor.

 

[mauzj]

Locals trading backed accounts are making infinite returns.

 

[Black Swan]

No. He just kicked me in the bollux, took MY 86 pence, stroked the dog and did a runner. All this happened, and it didn't even break his mobile phone conversation to his broker.


He's a bugger you know.

Class act, still, could be worse, at least he left you with the guitar. If we wake up one morning and it's all gone FUBAR/there are no markets, you can always chop it in at cash convertors and start again.

 

[Paul71]

Class act, still, could be worse, at least he left you with the guitar. If we wake up one morning and it's all gone FUBAR/there are no markets, you can always chop it in at cash convertors and start again.

Without the markets.....there's nothing, i'd use the guitar to sail somewhere. Maybe go around the cape of Good Hope or something.

 

[metaron]

In some ways it's difficult to measure traders against each other because some are managing huge amounts of capital when compared to others. It's much harder to post 3 digit percentage returns when you are managing billions of dollars than if you only have $50K to throw about. The liquidity of the market becomes the major factor.

JayDee definitely have to agree with you there. If we take the example of Takashi Kotegawa who is a very short term trader who turned $13,500 into over $150 million in 7/8 years his pecentage returns will get lower each year now because of his size. Maybe if he tries long term trading he'll mess up as it's against his obvious personality traits for short term trading.

Having that amount of money I think would scare me if you look at traders who have had it all and lost it all. The same psychological pitfalls can befall experienced traders with millions as well as noobies with hundreds. Think I would have to start sipping pina coladas while getting my sausage polished all day by the time I got to this amount.:innocent:

The man who increased 1.6 million yen to 18 bln yen in 8 years