Bruce Kovner: One of the Least Known Billionaire Traders

analyst75 · 2015-08-13T09:11:55+00:00

INSIGHTS INTO THE MINDSET OF SUPER TRADERS Part 11 The biggest risk in trading is hubris This is because being wrong is actually an integral part of success. A successful futures trader makes many more losing trades than winning ones. The key is to recognize and concede the mistakes and cut losses. And ride the winners. Bruce Kovner Name: Bruce Kovner Date of birth: February 25, 1945 Nationality: American Website: Caxton.com Career Born in New York, Bruce is from Jewish ethnicity. His family came from Czarist Russia, fleeing persecution for their political and religious beliefs. He loved football and piano. He went to Harvard for a PhD program but he was unable to finish the program. Following that, he tried a number of jobs, like playing harpsichord, writing and driving a taxi. He discovered trading as a career shortly after his first marriage (hes been married twice). He began trading in 1977 with a borrowed 3,000 USD and ended up making 23,000 USD with it. During the volatility the position was exposed to, the open profit even went up as high as 40,000 USD. This made Bruce fall on love with the markets. He worked under Michael Marcus - one of the trading geniuses featured in my past articles and soon gained respect as a disciplined and reality-based trader. Eventually he founded his own firm; Caxton Associates, LP. The firm became so successful and managed around 14 billion USD at the apogee of their achievements. Outside trading, Bruce Kovner isnt well known, for he seldom grants interviews and loves privacy so much. One source says that his Fifth Avenue mansion in New York City, the Willard D. Straight House, features a lead-lined room to protect against a chemical, biological, or dirty bomb attack. Hes no longer working as CEO of his firm: hes retired from that position. As of March 2015, Bruce was worth 5 billion USD. Hes an active philanthropist and hes also engaged in other interesting activities. Insights: Bruce probably wouldnt make billions of dollars as a writer, or as a harpsichord player or as a cab driver. Or can you tell me of anyone who makes billions driving a cab? He was so lucky to discover trading. Youre so lucky to be reading this article. Few jobs can be as high paying as trading. Imagine someone who started trading with $3,000 in 1977 and is currently worth $5,000,000,000. Thats Bruce Kovner. What can you learn from this? Trading success will, undoubtedly, cost you hard work and unrelenting desperate effort to achieve trading mastery. Without accepting this reality, you cant be a good trader. Anyone telling you otherwise is a liar (and your experiences will later confirm the facts). Theres one thing that cant be avoided in trading: you must make mistakes constantly and learn from them. Thats normal. You make a trading decision, and lose. You repeat that and lose. You repeat that and lose. You make another trading decision and lose. Then a good winning period comes out and you recover the loss and move ahead. In time, you proficiency increases as you make less mistakes (which is defined as not following your rules). Dont follow the masses, for theyre always wrong. When most traders move in one direction, then the trend is about to change. If the masses were always right, most traders would be rich. But this isnt so. For example, therell soon be a breakout after most traders have noticed an equilibrium phase. Short rallies in bear markets and the other way round for bull markets. Bruce said risk management is the most important thing to be well understood. Undertrade, undertrade, undertrade is his second piece of advice. Whatever you think your position ought to be, cut it at least in half. This piece is ended with a quote from Bruce: My experience with novice traders is that they trade three to five times too big. They are taking 5 to 10 percent risks on a trade when they should be taking 1 to 2 percent risks. The emotional burden of trading is substantial; on any given day, I could lose millions of dollars. If you personalize these losses, you cant trade. Source: www.tallinex.com

Thread starter analyst75
Start date Aug 13, 2015

analyst75

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Aug 13, 2015

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