About Victor Niederhoffer
Victor Niederhoffer has specialized in trading futures and options since 1979. 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. 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. Disaster struck the following year, mainly because of excessive speculations in Thailand. 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. 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. From 2000-2003, Niederhoffer wrote a widely read weekly column on the markets with financial journalist Laurel Kenner for CNBC MoneyCentral (www.moneycentral.com). Their book, 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, Stu Rose, John Hummer and Roy Niederhoffer, all of whom are famous in money management or M&A. Niederhoffer’s interests include the study and implementation of counting, ecology, electronics, entrepreneurship, free markets, music, sports, statistics, and strategy in checkers and chess. Favorite authors include Patrick O' Brian, Cervantes, Galton, Rand, Jack Schaeffer, Hugo, Melville, and Twain. He is well known in the field of racquet sports, where he was the undefeated national squash champion for a decade (1965-1975) and claimed the world squash title in 1976. Victor Niederhoffer is married to Susan Cole Niederhoffer and has seven children. Victor Niederhoffer believes the purpose of life is the pursuit of happiness and achievement, and that the voluntary transactions that flow naturally out of an enterprise system are the key to material and personal freedom, and peace.
Twitter: @VicNiederhoffer @NYCJunto
Media coverage
"The Re-education of Victor Niederhoffer" by Deepak Gopinath in "Bloomberg Magazine," July 2006)
"Resurrected" (Profile of Victor Niederhoffer by Bob Hirschfeld in "Registered Rep," Nov. 1, 2005)
Refco Notes: Victor's Statements on Refco; Media Coverage; News Story Correction Tally; Letters From Readers (September-October 2005)
Victor Niederhoffer on The Biggest Market Cons (Interview by Dave Goodboy of Real World Trading). RealWorld routinely posts its interviews with traders on Yahoo — but not this one! Read it and see for yourself why we were censored. Was it our comments about trend following? Technical analysis? Ben Graham? Warren Buffett? Read Vic's review of "Trend Following: How Great Traders Make Millions in Up or Down Markets" by Michael Covel "Thanks to Vic Niederhoffer and Laurel Kenner, for teaching us all how to fish" (Jon Markman, CNBC Money, Sept. 10, 2003). Our weekly column, "The Speculator," appeared on the CNBC/MSN Money site from April 2000 to September 2003, during one of the wildest rides in stock market history. We tested investment theories of every conceivable provenance, both in and out of the test tube. We both regard these columns as the best work of our lives. MSN editor Jon Markman — writing coach, critic and friend — memorializes our run. Global Investing: A Renaissance Man's Nine Lives (The Financial Times profile of Vic, May 1, 2003) "The Iconoclast of Brooklyn" (Navroz Patel, Risk.net, March 2004) Victor Niederhoffer: Opened Up Squash ("Squash Talk" profile, 1978, updated July 2001)
Key writings:
The Speculator as Hero (The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 10, 1989). Vic explains the speculator's crucial economic role. Education of a Speculator (New York: John A. Wiley & Sons, 1997). In his first book, Vic tells the story of his rise from a Brooklyn childhood to groundbreaking financial academic, world squash star and top trader, and shares lessons from a remarkable series of mentors beginning with his father, Artie. Practical Speculation (New York: John A. Wiley & Sons, 2003). While recouping from a devastating fall in 1997, Vic takes a Rabelaisian survey of the panorama of investment ideas and shows the reader how to avoid being prey in the market ecology. With financial writer Laurel Kenner. Academic articles by Victor Niederhoffer Daily Speculations posts by Victor Niederhoffer 60th Birthday Congratulations to Vic from the many friends we met through our writings and this site.
What is Daily Speculations?
We believe that perhaps the most important part of the scientific method is asking the right questions — rich questions that if properly validated or refuted give information of a fruitful nature. We find the classic metaphor as to what a speculator does in The Wealth of Nations. Smith points out that the speculator plays the same role as the ship captain who when confronted with a voyage that's going to last longer than anticipated starts reducing the rations so that there will be enough food for any contingencies. Another nice example is contained in Jane Marcet. She says, consider a farmer with just one blade of seed corn left. What would best be done with this? Consume it? Or plant it, so that more corn will be available in the future? The speculator does the same. Heyne and Boettke in the Economic Way of Thinking extend the analogy with discussion of what farmers would do in a corn blight. People will expect a higher price. They'll pull some corn out of current consumption in order to carry it over to the fall when they believe the price will be higher. "The effect of all these activities is to reduce the quantity of corn currently available in the market. The price consequently rises, but that is only part of the picture. These speculative activities cause corn to be transported over time from a period of relative abundance to one of greater scarcity."
Archives
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- Older Archives
Resources & Links
- The Letters Prize
- Pre-2007 Victor Niederhoffer Posts
- Vic’s NYC Junto
- Reading List
- Programming in 60 Seconds
- The Objectivist Center
- Foundation for Economic Education
- Tigerchess
- Dick Sears' G.T. Index
- Pre-2007 Daily Speculations
- Laurel & Vics' Worldly Investor Articles