Trader Gary Smith - Start with One Stock
Gary Smith has become a very famous person in the trading world thanks to his book entitled How I Play and Win on the Stock Exchange. His biography is radically different from the template success stories, because he fought his right to wealth from fate for 20 years.
Unlike many, he did not seek to create his own hedge fund or large investment company, but his goal was to get rich and be as independent as possible from anyone.
This is why Gary Smith’s name cannot be found on the list of top asset managers, but he has become an excellent example of self-realization as a private independent trader.
Love for easy money
Gary Smith knew from childhood what he wanted to become and persistently pursued his goal. He began to show his love for easy and quick money back in high school, when his class went on an excursion.
He attributed this to the fact that the roulette wheel's axis wears out, causing a slight tilt, and that each croupier has his own unique spinning force. Having discovered this simple pattern, Gary Smith used roulette as a supplementary income for many years.
The second incident Smith recalls occurred when his father gave him his coin collection. Instead of continuing his father's hobby, he immediately began actively selling the coins. Moreover, he became so fascinated by the prospect of making money from the coins that he began actively finding them in banks (changing large bills) and reselling them to collectors for large sums.
As Smith himself recalled, the demand for coins was so great that he managed to earn around 150 percent from a single resale transaction.
The third instance of Gary Smith's love for quick money arose when he mastered the card game Bridge. While he lacked the mathematical ability to create specific game plans at a young age, unlike many, he possessed a photographic memory.
He only needed to see a card once to memorize it and understand which cards were left in the deck. Like roulette, bridge was a constant source of additional income.
Getting to Know the Exchange
In 1961, at the age of 14, the young man came across an intriguing book by the great trader Nicholas Darvas, which described his path to success in the stock market. The boy was so captivated by the dream of becoming a trader that by the age of 14, he had already decided on his future profession.
From the age of fourteen, Gary Smith began actively learning and building his collection of useful books, which currently numbers over 450. However, he only experienced independent trading for the first time during his sophomore year at the University of Dayton in Ohio.
The first five Chrysler shares he purchased cost him $200. After his first stock purchase, Smith sold his coin collection for $2,000 and funded his first deposit.
A series of failures
The rosy prospects Smith had envisioned for himself from a young age began to crumble as he began trading independently. His first and most notorious mistake was entering the commodity market without a stop order, which immediately resulted in the loss of his deposit. In fact, Smith's mistakes spanned a 19-year period in which his deposit was almost always wiped out or remained between $2,000 and $4,000.
Because the stock market consumed his life, he had no interest in any job, and he was constantly fired from various positions due to a simple lack of interest. The only thing Smith remained good at was gambling. However, no casino wants a successful gambler, so they began to hinder him in every way and kick him out of the establishments.
Long-awaited success.
In 1985, when Gary Smith had practically given up and decided to quit trading, he decided to conduct a thorough analysis of his trades. Just think, it took Smith 19 years of unsuccessful trading to begin correcting his mistakes. Realizing he was trading aimlessly and not adhering to money management rules, Smith reconsidered his trading tactics. His primary trading instruments became futures and mutual funds.
Since then, trader Gary Smith has always closed the month with a bang, and his success statistics are simply unsurprising, with an average profitability of 50% per annum. He shared his annual statistics with his readers in his book, "How I play and win on the stock market».
