$10 K => 42 million: Why Dan Zanger is richer than most traders

BSD

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Remember Dan Zanger, who turned US$ 10 000 into 42 million in 3 years during the bull market of the 90's with simple but robust momentum trading strategies, then proceeded to lose half of that in the following bear market of 2000, but is going strong again with profits of 22 million last year ?

Here's a good article about him:

"Why Dan Zanger is richer than most traders"

Pipe dreams of perpetuum mobiles or risk free millions may be a fun pastime to while away those boring moments of life when you're between trades and nothing much else is going on either, but at the end of the day nothing will overcome this little hurdle that life provides free of charge for those aspiring to great objectives: Risk and Reward are eternally co-joined as Two Sides of One Coin. If you want big ups, you simply need to be able to handle big downs if you want to realize your dreams.

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As an aside, Dennis's book "How to get rich" quoted in the article above is definitely an excellent, spot-on read.

Lots more articles about Zanger here on his website:

http://www.chartpattern.com/media.html
 
when I read articles like that - particularly on the risk taking element - the more I think of the adage that if you get enough monkeys hammering away on typewriters, sooner or later one will come up with the Complete Works of Shakespeare.

For every Dan Zanger who got lucky by leveraging up to insane levels during the tech boom, how many have blown themselves to smithereens never to be heard of again? I know some extremely wealthy guys (ones who make Zanger's wealth look nothing special), who were basically in the right place at the right time in the mid-90's. Their main achievement was getting out after April 2000 with some of their wealth still intact. More instructive is the Felix Dennis example: success takes lots of dedication and plenty of hard work.
 
For every Dan Zanger who got lucky by leveraging up to insane levels during the tech boom, how many have blown themselves to smithereens never to be heard of again?

Absolutely true.

Also that one shouldn't mistake a bull market with brains etc.

But in his defense I'd say that bull market or not almost nobody managed to run up their money the way he did and manage to emerge from the ensuing bear with an amount of money that by most definitions would still set you up for the rest of your life extremely luxuriously, ie with a cool 20 million under your belt.

But, on top of that, he didn't just get lucky during one of histories biggest bull markets, never to be heard from again, no, he's still producing pretty amazing profits, ie 22 million just last year, and regularly featuring on TraderDaily's list of top earning traders.

Many net profitable daytraders in the bull scalped their way to superb incomes, probably congratulating themselves on what they believed to be great skills when all it was was a great bull driving their performance, and accordingly they didn't get rich like him or a Richard Dennis or even a Jesse Livermore, the only way you can do that if you start with peanuts like Zanger is by being very willing to accept large risks, and trading in a way that's scalable, which means scalping is out, you need to go after larger moves where liquidity is sufficient for moving the size that you will eventually be moving if you keep compounding, stay hungry and don't get overly risk averse.

Key points imo are that you can only get very rich if you start with little by accepting enormous risk, and, more importantly, you have to realise what price you're willing to pay to get where you want to go.
 
you need to go after larger moves where liquidity is sufficient for moving the size that you will eventually be moving if you keep compounding, stay hungry and don't get overly risk averse.

That's where the luck comes into it though, or to put it another way I'd be reluctant to list Zanger as a role-model for newbie traders. I was talking to a guy who is an account manager at one of the big spreadbet firms recently, and he said they get a surprising amount of people who go from a starting point of less than £10k all the way up to the £250-£500k level over a few months, using a combination of compounding and big balls, and then all the way back down again (usually to zero or less...!)
 
Also that one shouldn't mistake a bull market with brains etc.

reminds me of one of my first share transactions, during the dot com bubble.

Arthus Shaws - basically a machine shop, worth about £0.5M. He bought a 56K modem and marketed his company as some sort of media start up - and its value rocketed to about £1BN - about twice the value of Tha Halifax bank:LOL:

Now which dweeb would buy shares in that.............:eek:

Thankfully I lost far less than a friend of mine, but learned a valuable lesson (ref your quote).

UTB
 
I'd be reluctant to list Zanger as a role-model for newbie traders.

I totally agree with that. First you need to know what you're doing, and only then can you decide if it's OK for you to potentially go bankrupt a few times if you want to become filthy rich, as that realistically is what you'll be looking at as a very possible outcome on your way when you're starting with zilch.

Happened to Livermore a few times, didn't it, who made and lost several fortunes, but at least once, in todays money, turned nada into a cool Billion.
 
reminds me of one of my first share transactions, during the dot com bubble.

Arthus Shaws - basically a machine shop, worth about £0.5M. He bought a 56K modem and marketed his company as some sort of media start up - and its value rocketed to about £1BN - about twice the value of Tha Halifax bank:LOL:

Now which dweeb would buy shares in that.............:eek:

Thankfully I lost far less than a friend of mine, but learned a valuable lesson (ref your quote).

UTB

A similar great story in last week's Economist about emerging market bubbles. In the '94 EM peak, a Hong Kong boiler room was advising clients to pile into 'Bhutan Dry Docks'. They received several large orders, despite Bhutan being an entirely land-locked Himalayan kingdom with no stock market at that time...
 
Happened to Livermore a few times, didn't it, who made and lost several fortunes, but at least once, in todays money, turned nada into a cool Billion.
Yes, but look what happened to him in the end :eek: !
 
Talking about making big money, according to Michelle Baltazar's "The Beginner's Guide to Financial Spread Betting" page 3, a couple started betting with £1000 which turned into £1m in eight weeks :eek:

I wonder what level of risk (%) they were using.
 
Markus,

Presumably, Dennis doesn’t equate style/elegance with wealth nor regard it a concomitant. He should try Vienna
(no onyx bathrooms there).

Grant.
 
Hi All,
I agree with the sentiments expressed so far. Along with Dan Zanger, the same comments could be applied to Timothy Sykes, I suspect. Sykes' fame comes from turning . . . "$12,000 of Bar Mitzvah gift money into $1.65 million trading thousands of stocks from 1999-2002, managed the #1 Short Bias Hedge Fund from 2003-2006, starred in the television documentary Wall Street Warriors, and appeared regularly on CNBC all before the age of 26. It's been a wild ride. This `Rocky'-like story is the first realistic look at the world of stock trading and hedge funds--it will educate and inspire everyone". His book is on my Amazon wish list (just in case anyone was wondering what to buy me for Christmas :cheesy:). Like Mr. Zanger, I suspect he took larger risks with his Bar Mitzvah money than most of us here would be comfortable with and, as such, neither trader is the best role model for newbies. Even so, I can't help but admire both of them. Here's a link to Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/American-Hedge-Fund-Million-Operator/dp/0979549701/ref=sr_1_1?
Tim.
 
Hi All,
I agree with the sentiments expressed so far. Along with Dan Zanger, the same comments could be applied to Timothy Sykes, I suspect. Sykes' fame comes from turning . . . "$12,000 of Bar Mitzvah gift money into $1.65 million trading thousands of stocks from 1999-2002, managed the #1 Short Bias Hedge Fund from 2003-2006, starred in the television documentary Wall Street Warriors, and appeared regularly on CNBC all before the age of 26. It's been a wild ride. This `Rocky'-like story is the first realistic look at the world of stock trading and hedge funds--it will educate and inspire everyone". His book is on my Amazon wish list (just in case anyone was wondering what to buy me for Christmas :cheesy:). Like Mr. Zanger, I suspect he took larger risks with his Bar Mitzvah money than most of us here would be comfortable with and, as such, neither trader is the best role model for newbies. Even so, I can't help but admire both of them. Here's a link to Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/American-Hedge-Fund-Million-Operator/dp/0979549701/ref=sr_1_1?
Tim.

I believe Timothy Sykes had to close his fund in 2007 after substatial losses. He's also notorious for having a feud with Trader Monthly after he was dropped from the top 30 under 30 list.

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2007/09/25/7586/tim-sykes-has-a-fund-only-a-mother-could-love/
 
Grant, aha, Vienna, hmm...

If I were a boat, which I'm not, at least last time I checked, I'd be a Wally, not a classic schooner, if I were an interior design, I'd be a Zen, minimalist interior with empty, uncluttered space :)

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118WP_interior.jpg


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Tim, agreed, Timothy Sykes did a very good job return wise too, but believe that he's been through a bit of a rough patch recently, maybe not least because of all the distractions he's exposed himself too, now he'll just have to settle down and pick up where he left off.



Good trading all :)
 
PS, one thing I wrote earlier elsewhere, should have actually written that here where it's more relevant:


I think we're all agreed on the number one rule governing what we do that's equally valid in all other entrepreneurial or business endeavours where you're managing risk exposure, namely that risk and reward are two sides of one coin.

If you want big returns you'd better be prepared for a volatile ride and maybe even the odd blowup or two.

Richard Branson didn't get to where he is without taking on monumental risks, that's simply the nature of the beast, and one needs to be fully aware of not only exactly what one wants, but also what the price is one needs to pay to get there.

It's all about defining one's utility function, about clarifying personal objectives vs acceptable pain threshold on the journey.

That said, and what with the numbers we're talking about here, I'm really surprised that nobody with any floor or arcade experience has piped up so far...

Shouldn't think they're a bunch charaterized through great shyness usually ;-)

I remembered one thing I read awhile back tho, and thats that TWI is or was one of them, and he's also somebody who gives off the impression that he knows what he's talking about:

QUOTE=twalker;74501]

I currently work in an Arcade and will try to answer your questions.

Many people think if you make 20-30% a year that you are doing brilliantly well. Many here will make 50-100% per month. It is not a methodology you could apply to large amounts of capital such as fund trading but for individuals accounts it cannot be bettered. I know as I traded professionally for many years before I went out on my own.

Saying that, it is not easy, nobody gives money away. We all work long hours and it takes most people around 6 months to get to the point where they are competent.
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/showthread.php?p=74501#post74501

Schwartz of Market Wizards fame averaged out at 33% / month in the nine audited 4 month long trading contests that he entered with a stake of US$ 400 000 each time, and in the tenth contest he got out at breakeven.

There is a world of difference between what you can achieve on a compounding vs a non-compounding basis due to eventual liquidity issues that you'll encounter.

Averaging out at the returns of Schwartz or floor / arcade traders you clear out your account every year or even every month.

Some guys who have great talent, lady luck behind them, and balls of steel go on to become the huge success stories that created real wealth we read about like Dan Zanger, or even the monumental, in todays money Billion dollar fortune of a Jesse Livermore, obviously with the caveat that such a journey will see its share of blowups included in the equation.
 
Just thought I'd cap this off. I have been thinking about the role luck plays in trading results, and I can agree with the above examples of Dan Zanger and Tim Sykes. After just reading Tims book, I realised that people can just get lucky by finding a niche a small pattern repeating it and really pushing that luck and bang! your a trading millonaire. I don't envy it, it just happens, Tim traded on the back of micro cap momentum which could have even come from boiler room operations as he states. Just found the right trades in the right markets. It also reminds me of that coin flip story that's on here which paralells so-called genius traders.

But of course their are outstanding individuals out there, some returns from the real trading cream are no mistake.

As Ed Sekoyta says, 'there's bold traders and there's old traders, but there's no old bold trader's'

Prehaps Zanger and others who went through the go go days of the net boom got lucky, then later as markets changed they got hit, and hard. Then some of those guys adapted, studied, researched and got their education just in time before they gave back those gains.
 
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Good points, Tech.

When I was engaged on my first baby steps in trading, trying to figure out how best to get started, I decided pretty early on that there wasn't any need to re-invent the wheel, markets were primarily driven by human emotions, and those haven't really changed over time.

As, ahem, nothing succeeds like success, I'd try and educate myself on the basis of what successful traders, ie those actually trading, as opposed to writing books about trading, had done, and then try and emulate that.

The plan was to filter out the key success relevant factors driving their performance out of all the irrelevant noise, trying to unearth the 20% of relevant input that produces 80% of output, in other words.

The biggest success stories starting all the way from Jesse Livermore onwards seemed to be those that had trading styles where the emphasis was not on being right as often as possible, where instead a great emphasis was placed on defense, on keeping their position sizing small enough to survive to the times when they'd be able to capitalize on larger moves that would more than make up for all the previous losses.

Seemed to make eminent sense, as it's pretty logical not only since the highly laudable Mark Douglas' insight that anything can happen any time in trading as all it needs is some big order driving your market in a direction your clever analysis would not necessarily have forecast to send your individual trade bang into your stop loss. Good thing is that needing to know what happens next is pretty irrelevant in the big scheme of things, all you have to do is react to what's happening to emerge net profitable from your trading by cutting your losses short while maximizing your winners.

Some insights that helped me more than anything in my trading progress:

Jesse Livermore:

"I did precisely the wrong thing. The cotton showed me a loss and I kept it. The wheat showed me a profit and I sold it out. Of all the speculative blunders there are few greater than trying to average a losing game. Always sell what shows you a loss and keep what shows you a profit.

Disregarding the big swing and trying to jump in and out was fatal to me. Nobody can catch all the fluctuations. In a bull market the game is to buy and hold until you believe the bull market is near its end.

Losing money is the least of my troubles. A loss never troubles me after I take it. I forget it overnight. But being wrong – not taking the loss – that is what does the damage to the pocket book and to the soul.

It sounds very easy to say that all you have to do is to watch the tape, establish your resistance points and be ready to trade along the line of least resistance as soon as you have determined it. But in actual practice a man has to guard against many things, and most of all against himself – that is, against human nature.

A speculator must concern himself with making money out of the market and not with insisting that the tape must agree with him. Never argue with it or ask for reasons or explanations.

It was never my thinking that made me money but my sitting tight."

Dan Zanger:

"Be very quick to sell your stock should it return back under the trend line or breakout point.

Hold your strongest stocks the longest and sell stocks that stop moving up or are acting sluggish quickly. "

Bruce Kovner:

"Michael Marcus taught me one other thing that is absolutely critical: You have to be willing to make mistakes regularly; there is nothing wrong with it. Michael taught me about making your best judgment, being wrong, making your next best judgment, being wrong, making your third best judgment, and then doubling your money."

Richard Dennis:

"The worst mistake a trader can make is to miss a major profit opportunity. 95 percent of profits come from only 5 percent of the trades."

Gary Bielfeldt:

"The most important thing is to have a method for staying with your winners and getting rid of your losers."

Paul Tudor Jones:

"I spend my day trying to make myself as happy and relaxed as I can be. If I have positions going against me, I get right out; if they are going for me, I keep them.

The most important rule of trading is to play great defense, not great offense. Every day I assume every position I have is wrong. I know where my stop risk points are going to be. I do that so I can define my maximum possible draw down. Hopefully, I spend the rest of the day enjoying positions that are going in my direction. If they are going against me, then I have a game plan for getting out."

Michael Marcus:

"Taking advantage of potential major winning trades is not only important to the mental health of the trader but is also critical to winning. Letting winners ride is every bit as important as cutting losses short. If you don't stay with your winners, you are not going to be able to pay for the losers."

Ed Seykota:

"The trading rules I live by are: 1. Cut losses. 2. Ride winners. 3. Keep bets small. 4. Follow the rules without question. 5. Know when to break the rules."

Larry Hite:

"It is incredible how rich you can get by not being perfect."

William O'Neill:

"Investors cash in small, easy-to-take profits and hold their losers. This tactic is exactly the opposite of correct investment procedure. Investors will sell a stock with profit before they will sell one with a loss.

The whole secret to winning in the stock market is to lose the least amount possible when you're not right."

Bill Lipschutz:

"I don't have a problem letting my profits run, which many traders do. You have to be able to let your profits run. I don't think you can consistently be a winner trading if you're banking on being right more than 50 percent of the time. You have to figure out how to make money by being right only 20 to 30 percent of the time.

It's very difficult to be different from the rest of the crowd the majority of the time, which by definition is what you're doing if you're a successful trader.

So many people want the positive rewards of being a successful trader without being willing to go through the commitment and pain. And there's a lot of pain.

Avoid the temptation of wanting to be completely right."

William Eckhardt:

"One common adage on this subject that is completely wrongheaded is: You can’t go broke taking profits. That’s precisely how many traders do go broke. While amateurs go broke by taking large losses, professionals go broke by taking small profits. The problem in a nutshell is that human nature does not operate to maximize gain but rather to maximize the chance of a gain. The desire to maximize the number of winning trades (or minimize the number of losing trades) works against the trader. The success rate of trades is the least important performance statistic and may even be inversely related to performance. …

What really matters is the long-run distributions of outcomes from your trading techniques, systems, and procedures. But, psychologically, what seems of paramount importance is whether the positions that you have right now are going to work. Current positions seem to be crucial beyond any statistical justification. It’s quite tempting to bend your rules to make your current trades work, assuming that the favorability of your long-term statistics will take care of future profitability. Two of the cardinal sins of trading - giving losses too much rope and taking profits prematurely - are both attempts to make current positions more likely to succeed, to the severe detriment of long-term performance."

Brett Steenbarger:

"As a rule, maximizing batting average/minimizing drawdown comes at the cost of lowering overall system profitability."



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Trading is simple even if it's not always easy to stick to the rules during the inevitable rough patches, but it most definitely isn't even remotely nuclear science, although some egos would like to portray it so to soothe their admiration starved egos, but that's just counterproductive noise.

Good trading all :)
 
Did you guys learn anything from Zanger , something that you could apply to your own trading?
 
Well above all I found his story pretty inspirational as he clearly proved that pretty much anything is possible through trading, and that outstanding returns can be achieved through simple, robust methods.

I first heard about him somewhat after starting out, and found him very confidence inspiring, and getting to a point where you really have confidence in your abilities to take money out of markets regularly is imo one of the most important elements to net profitable trading.
 
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