I recently learned about Nicolas Darvas and his box system and I found the story so interesting that I'm hooked. I'm sure there are other interesting stories out there. Any recommendations? What are some of the oddest or most interesting stories about people trying to find an edge?
Ehler has to be up there - applying DSP (Digital Sound Processing) algorithgms to market data to magic his way to a set of prophetic indicators. The book "Cybernetic Analysis for Stocks and Futures" is a must for any trading nerd.
You will be surprise how many people don't backtest and review their past 100 trades. Why because it's time consuming and takes a lot of work. which includes me. like a business, you need to keep a RECORD of everything. and your trading record shows you don't have an edge or edge. http://www.marketcentral.ca/expectancy/traderecord.xlsx it's a simple spreadsheet and tool of the trade that is automated by AI computers. You are free to use it for free or distribute it to your students etc. post it. You have to keep a track record of your performance. Don't analyze the market but analyze yourself. what you need is to design a system that fits your situation or account size.
There are tons of interesting stories. Jessie Livermore who turned almost nothing to a billion adjusted for inflation. But he died almost broke. He bankrupted thrice and was able to rebound the first two times. But the third bankruptcy plus mental issues nailed the coffin and he killed himself. There's two very famous Japanese retail traders CIS and BNF, who turned like 10-30k to 150-200mil in 10 years. This was like 10 years ago I think. No idea what are they doing now, what's their net worth (maybe billionaire?).
Currently, the most successful trader that is still alive and utilizing variety of clever edges, and obviously worth following, is Dave Portnoy.
Livermore, Darvas pre-date the world wide web, on line trading, ETF's & modern technical analysis makes you wonder how they did it & how we would do it without TA, charts, on-line trading & all the guru's out there trying to sell you the 'no lose systems'
They were manually enter trading data in charts during the day. They hired lots of clerks to do that. The quotes in the trading pits were manually given to clerks who use the erasure to make changes in price. literally the charts were manually drawn by hand and the guy read the ticker tape manually. people prior to the 70's were doing taxes with pen and paper and abacus calculations on paper and no calculators.