Athletes - Victor Niederhoffer

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	Athletes - Victor Niederhoffer

Victor Niederhoffer (born 1943) is an American futures and options trader, and investment author. He began his business career after studying statistics and economics at Harvard (B.A. 1964) and the University of Chicago (Ph.D. 1969), and teaching at the University of California, Berkeley (1967-1972). In 1965, he founded Niederhoffer, Cross and Zeckhauser, Inc., which became one of the leading finders involved in selling privately held firms to public companies. This firm is now called Niederhoffer Henkel, and is run by Lee Henkel, the former general counsel to the IRS. Victor pioneered a mass marketing approach in investment banking, and did a large volume of small deals at this firm. With Dan Grossman, his partner for 40 years, Niederhoffer also bought many privately held firms. In the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote numerous academic articles about markets that led to the founding in 1980 of a trading firm, NCZ Commodities, Inc. (aka Niederhoffer Investments, Inc.). Niederhoffer Investments became one of the top financial advisers in futures, options and stocks. George Soros said in one of his books that Niederhoffer was the only one of his managers who retired voluntarily from trading for him while still ahead. Niederhoffer Investments returned 35% a year from inception through 1996, when MAR ranked it the No. 1 hedge fund manager in the world. In 1997 Victor published a NY Times bestselling book, The Education of a Speculator, considered by many to be the best trading book ever written.

On October 27, 1997, Niederhoffer Investments lost $130 million in a single day, this caused him to close down his firm. The loss was due to the a large movement in the Thai financial markets in the midst of the Asian financial crisis. Since that time, Niederhoffer has been crawling back up the stairs, not entirely without success. He began trading for his own account in 1998, after mortgaging his house and selling his collection of antique silver trophies. Rumor has it that his returns in 1998 and 1999 were amongst the highest he has ever had. He began managing money for offshore clients in February 2002, investing his own money pari passu with the fund. The firm employs proprietary programs that predict short-term moves based on the interactions between multivariate time series. In the five year period since 2001, Victor Niederhoffers fund has returned 50% a year(compounded). His worst year in this period was 2004 returning 40%, in 2005 he returned 56.2%(as reported in eFinancial News)

From 2000-2003, Niederhoffer (with Laurel Kenner) wrote a widely read weekly column on the markets for CNBC MoneyCentral (www.moneycentral.com). His book (also with Laurel Kenner), Practical Speculation (John Wiley & Sons, February 2003), was called "the best trading book of the young millennium" by Active Trader magazine. Niederhoffer's life story, tips for studying markets and love for his father, Arthur, were detailed in a previous book, the 1997 best-seller Education of a Speculator.

Niederhoffer is proudest of having a benevolent influence on people that came in contact with him. At least a dozen employees whom he started out or taught became billionaires or multi-centimillionaires, including Monroe Trout, Toby Crabel, Stu Rose, John Hummer and Roy Niederhoffer (Victor's younger brother), all of whom are famous in money management or M&A.

Victor Niederhoffer is famous for hiring young and extremely bright traders, who he mentors. He encourages them to develop their own trading strategies, and runs his firm more like a science lab than a traditional trading firm. Top traders currently at his firm are: Steven Wisdom (a long time business associate, and the office manager), Gitanshu Buch (developer of the market heatmap), Robert Wincapaw, Shi Zhang (Mister), Patrick Boyle, Tom Downing, Dr. Alex Castaldo, Dr. Charles Pennington and GM Nigel Davies.

Niederhoffer is one of the greatest Squash players in history. When he entered Harvard University in 1960 he was not a squash player. One year later he won the national junior title and by the time he graduated Niderhoffer was the National Intercollegiate squash champion. He won the U.S. Nationals five times (a record exceeded only by Stanley Pearson who won his sixth in 1923) and would have won more if he hadn't stopped playing between 1967 and 1972, three national doubles titles and one U.S. Open. He won the open in 1975 by defeating the great champion Sharif Khan.

Niederhoffer's interests include the study and implementation of counting, ecology, electronics, philosophy, entrepreneurship, free markets, music, sports, statistics, and strategy in checkers and chess. Favorite authors include Patrick O'Brian, Cervantes, Galton, Jack Schaeffer, Hugo, Melville, Mark Twain, but most of all Ayn Rand. An enthusiast of Objectivist philosophy, all six of his daughters were given Rand related names.

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