Successful Traders: William Eckhardt

Successful Traders: William Eckhardt

Written by: PaxForex analytics dept - Tuesday, 22 January 2019 0 comments

William Eckhardt long ago gained a reputation as a successful trader and mentor in forex trading in the world of finance, and one of the founding fathers of currency trading. Eckhardt is the owner of his own financial company, which every year brings him more than significant income.

Back in college, he made friends with Richard Dennis. Both of them had only a few hundred dollars, but in only 20 years they increased their own fortunes up to the size of several hundred million. Such a result of the trading tandem rests on two whales: in the knowledge of Eckhard's scientific character and on the rules, the authorship of which belongs to Dennis.

Eckhardt all his life attracted a career in science. At one time he even prepared for the defense of his doctoral dissertation on mathematical logic. But in 1974 his supervisor left the position, and the new curator demanded that the young man change the theses of work in a most fundamental way. Eckhardt lost his temper, abandoned science and took advantage of Dennis's offer to open a trade as a "floor trader", having forgotten forever about his university career.

For a long time, he led a business at Drexel Fund as a partner. He continued to trade even after the hard times came in 1987 for the fund, bringing his income during this period to 234% per annum. True, his efforts could not "pull out" the fund from the pit, and after the Drexel Fund ceased to exist, Eckhardt founded his own company - ETC (Eckhardt Trading Company). It, under the leadership of its founder, has been successfully operating in the market.

In 1986 - 90, the average earnings of William Eckhardt was 20%, which allowed him to take a place in the twenty of the most profitable CTA (commodity trading adviser). Over the course of his career, Eckhardt achieved a 29% income level, thoroughly and automatically guaranteeing himself the place of one of the most efficient traders in the history of the foreign exchange market. This means that the opinion of William Eckhardt is worth listening to.

His experience clearly shows that for every Forex trader, the main thing is the nature of the transactions that are made in the first years of work: too frequent losses exclude a large income in the future.

William Eckhardt created the method of "turtles", which says that it is impossible in classical way to learn how to successfully trade. At the start of his activities, Eckhardt was convinced that the trader’s mental abilities had little effect on successful trades, but the experiment with turtles did not confirm this thesis.

The experience of this successful trader is reflected in the rules for successful trades for traders. Here are some of them that William Eckhardt set out throughout his career, talking to the press:

Top Rules:

  • If you run after the majority - the risk of losing everything increases. A trader is better off looking at minority actions;

  • Do not stick to trading systems that are too good. This kills the trader's propensity for financial trading;

  • No need to strive to reduce the number of deals that cause a loss. The success of a particular transaction is secondary. The primary performance of trade in general;

  • If a trader wants to survive in the market, he must feel the loss;

  • Exchange trading for a trader is a job of success, and not just for the satisfaction;

  • Trading should not lead to addiction, otherwise the trader will leave the market at a time when, from luxury, it will fall to ruin and will not be able to find the strength to rise;

  • The situation in the market should be calculated in advance, as if weighed up the decisions made when the market moves up, and think about your actions in case the movement starts down. The result of the work can only be profit or ruin.

William Eckhardt believes that if someone does not agree with his instructions, then this trader is not so long ago on the market, and does not understand much. In addition, this trading mentor is inclined to divide traders into effective and unsuccessful according to mental makeup. According to his judgment, traders are prevented from working safely and entering into successful deals with a host of factors, including the main ones: -

  • addiction to the current price on the market; 

  • desire to buy too cheap and sell as expensive as possible; 

  • changing pricing policies that prevent successful deals; 

  • poor capital management skills.

These factors can cause even experienced traders to lose, who believe that the price has risen enough. According to Eckhardt, if trading "turtle", a trader will form profitable deals that will be the foundation of his income. Similarly, during the year, the foundation of profitability will be created through the conclusion of several large deals at a profit, and small loss-making transactions will counter them.

William Eckhardt Strategy

The strategy of "Turtles" - the trader should not make hasty decisions alone. In accordance with it, effective trading activity in the foreign exchange market Forex depends on:

  • compliance with the rules of profit management;

  • the use of a strictly defined number of open positions, which makes it possible to avoid large losses, only partially losing income;

  • trading on the exchange in two pairs of currencies.

When trading is conducted, you should use 2 strategies based on a breakthrough of 20 and 55 days, respectively, making a distribution of profits, in accordance with your plans.

William Eckhardt stated that innate instinct and an analytical mindset lead to success in currency trading. In addition, he introduced the concept of "volatility": a way to predict the highest positions, which, if applied correctly, can help to increase revenue.