Ed Seykota Trend Follower Market Wizard
Ed Seykota turned $5,000 into $15,000,000 over a 12 year time period in his model account - an actual client account. Ed is self-taught, but influenced early on in his career by Richard Donchian. He is a commodities and futures trader and a Trend Follower.
He has served as a teacher and mentor to some great traders including Michael Marcus, David Druz, Jim Hamer, Jason Dekker and Michael Stephani of Dekker Capital Management and Jason Russell of Salida Capital.
What makes Ed especially unique is his continual self-examination and commitment to studying the psychological components of trading while also helping other traders achieve their potential.
Ed holds degrees in Electrical Engineering and Industrial Management from MIT, 1969.
Although completely unknown, not only to the public, but to most of the financial community as well, Ed Seykota's achievements must certainly rank him as one of the best traders of our time.
In 1970 he pioneered Systems trading by using early punch card computers to test ideas on trading the markets, Seykota was then hired by a major brokerage firm. He conceived and developed the first commercial computerized trading system for client's money in the futures markets. His system proved quite profitable, but interference and second-guessing by management significantly impeded its performance. This experience provided the catalyst for Seykota going out on his own.
In the ensuing years, Seykota applied his systematized approach to trading a handful of accounts and his own money. During that period, the accounts Seykota managed have witnessed an absolutely astounding rate of return. For example, as of mid-1988, one of his customer's accounts, which started with $5,000 in 1972, was up over 250,000 percent on a cash-to-cash basis.
Seykota works from an office in his house on. His trading is largely confined to the few minutes it takes to run his computer program, which generates signals for the next day.
Ed Seykota runs 60 tribes from around the world. These tribes are a group of traders who meet regularly to discuss trading and emotions and create a place to discuss issues that arise. Ed encourages members of his Trading Tribe to experience their emotions and share them openly with everyone. The information and meetings are all free and all are welcome.
You can read much more about Ed in his website Trading Tribe or the books Market Wizards by Jack D. Schwager and Trend Following by Michael Covel.