Talk:Victor Niederhoffer/Archives/2012

Sept 11, 2001

Did he not lose a huge pile of money in 2001, blowing up again?

Over his career, has he generated any value, or been a net source of alpha for his counterparties?

His fund returned 48% in 2001. Swism (talk) 11:36, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

"Galt"

Is there a source for his child being named after Galton? Given his love for Ayn Rand, wouldn't it make more sense that she was named after John Galt? ur_land

Yes, it has been mentioned in both of these articles http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/28/features/galt.php http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_04_29_a_blowingup.htm

Seems likely that he intended it to refer to both, but publically he has said it comes from Galton.

Daviegold 07:40, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I asked her (did any of the "experts" who authored this page bother to do so?) and she confirmed: Galton is the allusion.

Refco debacle

I know the brief information exists in the REFCO article, but their should be some sort of mention of his role in losing massive sums of money in trading, and then being kindly bought out by REFCO (his apparent trading platform)...which helped lead to the companies bankruptcy.

There's no mention of it in the article...I would edit the article, but I do not think I can maintain a professional veneer when speaking about the issue.

Laurel Kenner replies on behalf of Victor Niederhoffer:

Refco did not buy Victor Niederhoffer out in October 1997. An accurate description of the agreement appears on Dr. Niederhoffer's Web site, www.dailyspeculations.com, a pertinent excerpt of which appears below. Any possible loss to Refco was not big enough to affect Refco's compliance with capital requirements at the time, and it is inconceivable that it caused Refco's bankruptcy eight years later. The agreement was scrutinized by all authorities at the time. As Dr. Niederhoffer explained in a statement on his Web site, an excerpt of which appears below, "There is no way that it could have grown or morphed subsequently that had anything to do with my funds, me, or any subsequent market moves, hopes for collections, or other transactions."

Numerous stories have appeared since Refco's bankruptcy concerning the key roles of Bawag Bank and the multibillion payouts that occurred in advance of the public offering. The media have stopped speculating that Dr. Niederhoffer had any role in Refco's debacle because the investigation has moved on. Dr. Niederhoffer has had no contact with Refco since early 1998. Any attempt to spread innuendos and rumors of wrongdoing will be addressed. -- Laurel Kenner, editor, Daily Speculations

"Yes, there were losses that my fund and I suffered in conjunction with the market closing early on October 27, 1997. But there were also considerable assets. I was confident at the time that my funds and I would have more than enough assets to cover any losses that might accrue, if I were able to close out my positions in an orderly fashion. Indeed, I achieved this for all accounts that desired and allowed me to handle their disposition. For the benefit of those interested in what happened that day, this is an accurate capsule summary of what happened.

On Oct 27, 1997, the Dow dropped 550 points by 3:30 p.m. EST. Based on circuit breakers in existence at the time, all trading in stocks was closed for the day, for the first time in modern history. Under these chaotic conditions, the accuracy and stability of the pricing of our options portfolio was uncertain and variable, relative to the exchange, clearing house and time at which they were marked to market. Nobody was certain what would happen if the chaos continued. Refco, on its side, had to meet capital and liquidity requirements to satisfy regulators and their clearing company. They expressed their desire to have control of the timing and treatment of the positions outstanding. They asked that all the transactions between us, all the debits and credits, all the assets and liabilities, and all the obligations and commitments of my funds be for their account, and that we should each call it a day.

For 15 years before these events, my firm had enjoyed a mutually profitable relation with Refco. During this time, we often had stretches where liquidity was an issue and positions had to be adjusted or downsized, and other assets had to be sold or liquefied to meet unsettled market conditions. Special rules regarding market closure under conditions of extreme volatility had been in existence since 1988, but had never been triggered. Neither we nor Refco had experience or expertise in how to handle this market closure.

While we were not happy with this suggestion, and would have much preferred to be allowed to treat these transactions as we had in the past, we understood the forces that led to Refco making this request. Under the circumstances, and taking into account the illiquidity of our other positions, we reached a harmonious agreement that at the time seemed fair to us and them.

As part of this, we agreed that we would both release each other from all debts and obligations, that the proceeds and timing of all the assets and liabilities, debits and credits, realizable from the funds would be for the benefit or detriment of Refco, and that we would release each other, and hold each other harmless, for the future, with no amounts owed either way between us except that I personally would owe them $2 million, which I paid within a year, on schedule. That agreement was executed and perfected two days later by two major law firms, under intense scrutiny and close monitoring then and thereafter by all proper authorities, including Refco’s clearing association. Refco continued to do business throughout these events and met all its accounting, capital, liquidity, equity and other requirements. My firm was forced to reduce its activities to a snail’s pace. Almost all employees left. I then started rebuilding by liquefying my personal assets.

I am not privy to whether Refco lost or made money, on balance, when the proceeds of the assets received from me were netted against the trading losses or profits on the positions that they ultimately traded out of. I have seen estimates in the media that their losses totaled $45 million and I have heard rumors that on balance they made money on the transaction. I don't know how they may have recast those transactions since that time, or what explanations they have made to third parties. I do know that there were no financial obligations, receivables, debts, loans, accommodations or open-ended aspects of their transaction with respect to us. I also know that all the financial aspects of the transaction were completely transparent. The loss was not big enough at the time to affect Refco's compliance with capital requirements in 1997. And there is no way that it could have grown or morphed subsequently that had anything to do with my funds, me, or any subsequent market moves, hopes for collections, or other transactions.

I am also confident that the amount of any net loss that Refco had on the transaction if any was minimal relative to the amounts that have been disclosed about receivables improperly accounted for on their books, or payments to their key executives and owners, or other losses that they suffered in the subsequent eight years on transactions completely unrelated to mine. I have no idea why my name and my transaction with them eight years ago has been mentioned repeatedly by anonymous sources as a key link in the Refco debacle. It seems inconceivable to me that they could have kept open on their books any aspect of it, whether related to my funds or not. These nebulous reports of my involvement are inaccurate, based on partial information and may be self-interested attempts to deflect attention from other, more substantial sources of Refco’s problems.

I behaved quite honorably in all aspects of the transaction, seeking and gaining partial restitution for my customers as my own expense and effort. I sold off many of my holdings to gain liquidity and get back in business, I have relations with numerous brokerage houses to whom I have fully disclosed all aspects of the Refco transaction that I was party to, and they have made their own independent investigation and inquiries. I am again one of the best customers of the exchange on which these transactions took place. I have shed considerable light and focus on the transactions in my articles and books. I have hired many highly qualified individuals to build my firm up again, have tried to learn and improve from my past mistakes and have made a very successful and substantial recovery from the 1997 disaster for my own account and my new funds.

Yes, I had a disaster and I have attempted to bounce back from it. That is the American way. Kindly tell me why it is justified to cast further slings and arrows against someone who has suffered a debacle like mine, accepted the burdens that arose from it, acknowledged his own complicity for same in a most honorable and proper fashion, and succeeded in a recovery to the extent that I have. Your story has put me in a most untenable and unfair situation. My achievements have been unfairly denigrated; my business has suffered and will suffer; and my customers, associates and family will through no fault of their own be disadvantaged as a direct result of these irresponsible stories."

Objectivist philosophy

I will like to add again the following line:
"An enthusiast of Objectivist philosophy, all six of his daughters were given Rand related names"
Trade2tradewell 07:13, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

"Weather maps were invented by the ingenious English scientist Francis Galton, whom I consider the greatest mind to have graced the Western world in the past few hundred years. When I make my escape from this all-too-hard current world, should I ascend the stairs to heaven before being thrust below, I would wish first for a hug and conversation with my dad, and then to sit at Galton's feet for a few hours to observe his great mind at work." (p 103 of Niederhoffer's "The Education of a Speculator") 72.235.251.198 (talk) 13:30, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Need sourcing

This article need sourcing.

Copyvio

It seems best to delete and start again.

Large chunks are copyvio from [1]. That however is the web site of Niederhoffer and Lauren Kenner so another issue is that it cannot be regarded as a valid source. Claims of various financial achievements have no reliable sources. There is also an apparent vanity element, a knowledgeable editor of the article was named LKenner.

Subject should have an article but not this one! Dlyons493 Talk 00:20, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Seems Mr Lyons has some sort of grudge against Victor Niederhoffer, and other people associated with his firm, having removed content on almost all of the pages linked to from here. examples are the Laurel Kenner page, the Toby Crabel Page, the Steve Wisdom and Gitanshu Buch pages. Such personal grudges do not benefit the community of Wikipedians who are searching for information.

Information on Niederhoffers returns is easily looked up on MAR hedge where he recently won an award, or eFinancialNews.com, which posted an article on his recent returns.

84.9.15.29 08:35, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

"Information on Niederhoffers returns is easily looked up on MAR hedge where he recently won an award, or eFinancialNews.com, which posted an article on his recent returns." Then please add it to article. As it stands, the article is copyvio. Dlyons493 Talk 08:45, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

This Information was included in the articlle before Dlyons493 Talk edited it and a significant amount of other information out, and called the remainder copyvio. All of the information from dailyspeculations.com had been properly cited. Dlyons493 Talk should probably stick to his French translations, and stop vandalising finance articles. Swism 06:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Starting over with this page

Please see Talk:Victor_Niederhoffer/Temp, which represents an attempt to start over without any copyvios. TruthbringerToronto (Talk | contribs) 18:07, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to see this article messed up as it is, but I will suggest that the information is not bad (being provided by VN's own website and by his wife LKenner - see edit on Sept 11, 2005). I'll suggest that it just needs to be rewritten and other, more objective, sources found. We can certainly cite his books. BTW the Wall Street Journal Europe (p20) has a fairly good, fairly long article on him today. I'll try editing the new "start over" article tomorrow. Also the pre-LKenner edit is not bad.Smallbones 18:58, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I just did a fairly comprehensive re-write. I went through the history of the doccument, and tried to include all of the contributions of various users which were largely written over by a writer claiming to be Laurel Kenner, which started this copyvio issue. Hopefully this version is ok, and is respectful to all of the prior users who built up the page. I will try to add a paragraph later on the back and forth between Niederhoffer, and his former employee Taleb as detailed in the Gladwell article, provided in the links. I did not see the WSJ piece Smallbones mentioned. I'll try and find it today. Daviegold 08:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the current status of edits is, but FWIW there still seems to be some copyvio from [2]. Dlyons493 Talk 08:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Could you provide examples of the copyvio? Other than that both profile the same person, I can not see any. Statements of fact like "he attended x college on y date, graduating with z degree" are statements of fact and not copyright violations. Daviegold 09:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Edit War / Nassim Taleb

Seems to be an ongoing edit war between anons related to to various traders associated with Niederhoffer (most frequently Steve Wisdom). FWIW the version I've just reverted to seems the closest to being sourced and NPOV. Dlyons493 Talk 15:40, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I removed the list of current traders/employees, as none are well known, and the list is unverifiable. I re added Nassim Taleb, as he is a notable wall street personality who worked there in 1998. I'll add a link to the Wisdom page at the bottom next to the outside link to him. Daviegold 07:30, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Another Blow-up??

Anybody know if he blew up again or not? He reported a 28.6% loss in May 2006 and then stopped reporting numbers after that.--Ancile 21:40, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Dailyspeculations.com blog practices

That website always leeches images from other sites' bandwidth (an internet no-no) and never asks permission from the image creators. Does anyone know why the site is so lazy?

...This remark reads like "Wikipedia as seen by The Onion".. Is this really the most germane aspect of the life of Vic Niederhoffer? Do you really believe he personally edits or updates that blog?67.86.82.215 16:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

POV

Some of this article reads like a vanity page. I don't have time to correct it - perhaps someone else would. Ben Finn 15:43, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Just to add, the tone of the article is terrible. You could casually read it, and miss the fact that Niederhoffer has twice had his funds implode. JustinBlank (talk) 02:43, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely. The history looks like it started as a vanity article and improved a little. It still has a ways to go! Trilobyte fossil (talk) 22:01, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

readded material

this was readded with an edit summary that said to keep your hands off this (approx) I've left it in, but it needs to have a credible source. The link now does not go to the article, and since it is only a website (not a newspaper or journal), I'll suggest coming up with a better reference, or taking it out. BTW, VN might have said this then changed his mind, so this might just be an ordinary updating type thing. Smallbones 16:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

In January 2007, Victor turned over most of the day to day trading at Niederhoffer Investments to his Partner Steve Wisdom, who has worked with him for 15 years. While he is still involved in the business he now devotes most of his time to his children, and reading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smallbones (talk • contribs) 16:56, 2 October 2007

I just emailed back/forth privately with James Altucher, the purported author of an article "Niederhoffer Retires" that's given as a reference in the Notes section, and quoted in the Wiki entry. Mr Altucher confirms that he never wrote such an article. His comment re "^ Altucher, James. "Niederhoffer Retirement", Realmoney.com, February 08, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-09-26" is: "jaltucher1@####.net to me 12:47 pm (1 hour ago) I just checked. No url exists for that. I searched everything and there's zero mention by me EVER of vics fund. So write what you want in wiki." So I'm at a loss as to why the "keep your hands off" gentleman continues to re-instate "content" that's totally false -- was never written or published by Mr. Altucher. I'll try again to remove it..rmsig —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.86.82.215 (talk) 18:23, 2 October 2007

There appears to be a history of Steve Wisdom related vanity pages being put up here. I have a real money login, and followed that link, it has no reference to either Mr Niederhoffer or Mr. Wisdom. It appears that someone is promoting themselves. STKTRDR has made no other posts to Wikipedia other than to add this piece. rmsig —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daviegold (talk • contribs) 14:26, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Something wrong with this page?

I'm having trouble locating the last couple of edits on this page - something like disappearing edits, e.g. search "Wisdom."

In any case, the link referred to above - which only goes to an ad - has shown up again in another place. It's now toast in my book, unless somebody explains what it WAS trying to do. rmsig —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smallbones (talk • contribs) 23:11, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Fixed page

Since a bad edit was added, it broke parsing on the page. I added "rmsig" to posts that were correctly signed (with ~~~~) but ended up not parsing correctly, then I added {{unsigned}} templates after them to designate who added them. Sorry if there is any confusion. --slakr^\ talk / 02:11, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Irrelevant material

So he has children. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trilobyte fossil (talk • contribs) 00:54, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Mentioning whether a person has children is a normal part of a bio. In this case mentioning the children's names is interesting because there is a pattern there, they are all named in reference to novels. In any case 'notability' is required for the subject of a wikipedia article, not necessarily for persons named incidentally therein. I support the decision to restore the section. Encyclops (talk) 02:37, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

OK that makes sense. Maybe I was a bit carried away by the obviously dubious claims that he was the "father" of some technical areas. Trilobyte fossil (talk) 11:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Slippage

"In statistical terms, I figure I have traded about 2 million contracts, with an average profit of $70 per contract (after slippage of perhaps $20). This average is approximately 700 standard deviations away from randomness." Niederhoffer, Victor. The Education of a speculator. (1998) p156 ISBN 0471249483,/ref> It is not clear why this quote has been made by Gold. Gold is speaking to us. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.148.18.65 (talk) 11:34, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

• What this is doing here is entirely unclear. Drmies (talk) 17:03, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

1997 losses

"Traders" are mentioned under the above heading. I am not sure that the reference substantiates this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.157.29.1 (talk) 11:13, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

1997 losses (2)

Refco and Niederhoffer both blamed each other for losses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.157.29.1 (talk) 11:16, 22 May 2010 (UTC)