5 Inspiring Stories About Money

Edward Arthur Seykota: the father of trading systems

This person made his first trade at the age of… 5! A kid from an immigrant family who moved from the Netherlands to the USA, he traded a gold-colored medallion to his neighbor for five magnifying lenses.

Seykota is famous as the father of trading systems. Right from his start as a trader in the 1970s, he was fascinated by the idea of an automatic money-making machine and technical analysis.

He developed mechanical algorithms for trading systems and began to use computer programs in exchange trading. The amount of profit he reached on one of his clients’ accounts is still an absolute record. The profit made by the robot he was using was over 250 000% from the period of 1972 to 1988 – that means Seykota’s client made 15 million dollars from $5000. This can’t be a single lucky case – it was the steady algorithm.

Ingeborga Mootz: the million-dollar granny

While Ed Seykota started at the early age of 5, Frau Mootz represents the other side of the age spectrum on Forex. Some grandmothers bake pies, some trade to be millionaires.

Ingeborga Mootz is a 96 years old millionaire, who was just an ordinary German widow 15 years ago. Now, she is one of the most well-known people in Germany.

She was born in a poor family, and got married at the early age of 17 to escape poverty – but it didn’t give her much relief. Until the age of 75, she had to beg her husband for every mark to spend. Whenever she tried to get a job, her husband would bring her down, calling her a stupid old woman who’s unable to earn money. “If you think I can’t work, I’m going to trade on the market!” she said one day when she lost her temper. She wasn’t lying.

After her husband died, Frau Mootz found 1000 shares of a concern where he had worked all his life. She decided to take the risk and put that money on the line to finally end her poverty. It was the right decision: during her first 8 years of trading, this energetic elderly woman has earned more than 500 000 euro!

She’s admired because of her trading style – she doesn’t use gadgets, the internet, or trading signals. All she needs to know, she gets from good old morning newspapers. If you’re interested in how this kind of strategy brought millions to the old lady, browse her book “Borsenkrimi” or “Stock market detective”.

Nassim Taleb: a black swan of the market

This trader created one of the most interesting and controversial theories in the trading world – the Black Swan Theory, or the theory of events that seem improbable but aren’t.

Born in Lebanon, in a family of Greek Orthodox believers, Taleb started out as a trader after graduating from the University of Paris. The more he studied statistics, the more he became convinced that the entire financial system was a keg of dynamite that was ready to blow.

He became truly famous after releasing his book “The Black Swan”. According to Taleb, almost all events that can crucially affect the market are completely unpredictable. Most risk managers are working with the past to predict the future, but the past doesn’t give any ground to what can happen in the future. The turkey, fed nicely for 1000 days, doesn’t expect to be killed on day 1001 for Thanksgiving dinner – but that’s what is going to happen. Being killed on rthe 1001st day of feeding is a “black swan” for the turkey, but not for the butcher. Thus, according to Taleb’s theory, traditional risk management used by government agencies and companies is useless. The theory gained popularity against the backdrop of the unfolding 2008 financial crisis.

Taleb’s strategy as a trader is based on safeguarding investors against crises while reaping rewards from rare events, and his career is more of a trial of several jackpots. Like the one he had on Black Monday, October 19, 1987: after the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 22.6%, Taleb made a profit of $40 million.

George Soros: the man who broke the Bank of England

Soros is probably known as one of the most famous traders of all time. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family, he barely survived the Nazi occupation. While studying, George was working as a railway porter and nightclub waiter to earn a living.

After he moved to New York and worked for several Wall Street brokerage firms, he emerged as a financial genius. He’s mostly famous for being the one who broke the Bank of England in 1992 by making a huge bet against the British pound. He gained a billion dollars in just one night.

Soros is also known as the world’s foremost philanthropist. The virtuous billionaire used his fortune to create the Open Society Foundations - a whole network of foundations, partners, and projects in more than 100 countries.

In 2018 the Financial Times recognized Mr. Soros as “Person of the Year”. The magazine says the decision was based not only on Soros’ achievements, but also on the values that he represents as a philosopher and philanthropist.

Richard Dennis: Prince of the Pit

Dennis’s story is the stuff trading legends are made of, and can still fire the engines of aspiring traders today. Astonishingly rich, a genius and a pioneer of commodity trading – that’s how Richard Dennis is known.

He was born on the South Side of Chicago in a poor Irish family. He started as a runner on the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange at age 17 – and turned a borrowed $1600 into $200 million in about 10 years by trading commodities.

He’s famous for his Turtles experiment, where he trained a group of people for two weeks. When his experiment ended five years later, his Turtles had reportedly earned an aggregate profit of $175 million.

Dennis was a trend trader. He preferred to find a trend and place more and more trades in the direction of the trend at an increasingly higher leverage – that way, in the best case, you make as much money as possible.

From rags to riches – this can be anyone’s story

Every trader has a different story. All of them go through ups and downs, but the thing that they all share is the will to stand up and succeed in spite of adversity. The morale of every story of trading success is the same: it’s not over unless you decide to give up.