(Timely) Larry Williams Quote

Discussions about personal psychology for the individual trader.
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DPH
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(Timely) Larry Williams Quote

Post by DPH »

Most of you are familiar with legendary commodity trader (and circus side show act) Larry Williams. His favorite book of mine has nothing to do with trading; rather it was a book about sleazy lawyers and legal tactics called “How to outfox the foxesâ€
Last edited by DPH on Wed Nov 16, 2011 11:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Bravochico
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@dph

Post by Bravochico »

I love that quote.

Its so true.

I also know friends who are in mf.

Cme will have to make good on the shortfall or else they going to ruin the long term credibility of futures trading. Everyonenis only going to deposit bare minimum to cover margin. Fcm,s will be sending out 10x more margin calls then pre mf era.

Corzines behavior is criminal. He knew he was stealing.
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Post by Moto moto »

it is a great quote, and can be summarized as - cut your losses

while I largely agree with it.....
the only thing here is often this can be the final straw for some people and sometimes we need people like your friend who will give up everything for 'justice'
If we all just cut our losses and did not chase these 'injustices' then I think the world would be a poorer place than it is today.

(i use the word injustice to describe something that was "legitimately stolen from you")

If you think it economically then if you have nothing more to lose, then maybe your friend will get greater pleasure/gain out of fixing the system, (or getting revenge) than he would out of rebuilding his wealth. Passion often has a price too.
As everything has a trade off in life if he is prepared to follow it through and knows the trade off - good on him.

(now I am not talking about rabid crazy passionate insanity or ideological rantings as a passion, sometimes thats just plain nuts :)
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Post by Chuck B »

Moto moto wrote:while I largely agree with it.....
the only thing here is often this can be the final straw for some people and sometimes we need people like your friend who will give up everything for 'justice'
If we all just cut our losses and did not chase these 'injustices' then I think the world would be a poorer place than it is today.
Definitely. Without that check and balance (so to speak), things would degenerate quickly. I once knew a guy who had a ~$10k beef with a small company, but what the company wasn't prepared for was that he was willing to spend unlimited funds to punish them. Zero economic sense to it, but that wasn't a concern to the guy.

Of course in the MFG case, there is nothing legitimate about theft of funds from customer accounts. However, as in all things, balance in approach is the key. My assumption is that it will be months before I see any account funds from MFG, so I've moved on and will let this play out with whatever input I need to provide along the way. However, I can sympathize with those who had all or a substantial portion of their net worth there, CTAs et al whose business is frozen and might be sued by their clients even, small company hedge accounts that are frozen, etc, etc... Holy crap what a mess. I imagine if I was in that position, I'd be massively involved in every nook and cranny.

I was saved by two things: diversification of asset locations (four different major firms, now three but soon to be four again), and, more importantly, advice I took from a good friend in the UK who long ago scolded me for not notionally funding an account at an FCM. His shock, surprise and scolding initially made me think he was a bit whacked, but he'd lived through the '87 crash at the CME along with many other situations over the years (LIFFE member from the beginning), etc, and had seen too many issues with funds being tied up (but not yet stolen). I took his advice finally about 3 years ago (2008, lol) and just notionally managed the "total equity" of the futures account myself. Hence less than 25% of what could have potentially been at Man was there, thankfully.
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Post by AFJ Garner »

I agree with DPH that the important thing is to get on with one's business. I disagree that everyone should take a backseat and do nothing, patiently waiting for however many cents in the dollar the liquidator can eventually hand out.

Unfortunately this is a dog eat dog world and in a situation like this everyone has to fight his own corner. I am thankful for people like James Koutoulas and his Customer Commodity Coalition. I believe the more fuss made the more likely we are to get swift and greater satisfaction. If everyone sits backs and hopes, we will all be worse off.
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