Gary Davis was just about to turn 34 as he started trading with a trend following program he had learned from author J. Welles Wilder, Jr. He lost on his first 17 trades, but once he made one tweak, which he believed is the only reason he is still trading now, he was back in the game.
Davis [then] came to the conclusion, after a period of rigorous and profitable testing with his own money, that there was significant potential in scaling the size of his trading strategies. He sought the help of friends and family for capital to seed a larger pool of money.
Davis founded and launched what would come to be known as Sunrise Capital Partners (known as Sunrise Commodities at the time of inception) in 1980—with the gentle prodding of Ken Tropin (who then was with Dean Witter brokerage, but who today runs one of the most successful trend following firms in the world).
Davis was not super high tech at the time. He preferred handwritten charts and price quotes from the print version of the Wall Street Journal. That should be an inspiration for those of you who want to make excuses for not having the perfect this or that. Just do it, right?
Note: Excerpt from The Little Book of Trading.
Learn the rules behind trend following, and the systems to apply them.
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