Putting your money where your mouth is:

The Larry Williams

$1,000,000 challenge
Traders have always appreciated a good seminar. However, in
recent years, the choice of seminars has grown dramatically,
making it more difficult to assess which are actually worth the
time and money. German trader Erich Florek believes the “Million
Dollar Challenge” (MDC) seminar, offered by Larry Williams is
one of the best available for ambitious traders. As Florek is one
of the few Germans who has actually attended this exclusive
seminar in the US, we asked him to share his experiences with
TRADERS’. One of the last seminars offered by Williams will
occur this September.

To Germans, the first impression that Larry Williams and other top Prior to the start of the seminar, I had the opportunity to meet the
traders create with their self-promotion can be disturbing. After all, in a 100 or so other participants for a day at the exclusive resort hotel. This
country in which loud and overconfident advertising is often considered gave us the chance to meet and exchange views.
to be in poor taste, such an approach can backfire. Indeed, it can actually One person I met was attending his fifth Williams seminar, which
spark doubts about the quality and seriousness of the event. In many seemed surprising. He explained this by saying that Williams was an
cases, a healthy scepticism is a good idea. However, in the case of the “idea machine” and presented something new at every seminar. Also,
“Million Dollar Challenge”“ seminar, if one manages to filter out the he enjoyed meeting with Williams and others at the seminar, as it offered
American style presentation, many unique ideas come to light. opportunity to build networks and to continue his own development as
In spite of, or perhaps because of his exceptional achievements, a trader. During the event, others who said that they also had attended
doubts have always emerged regarding Williams’ performance. Because many of Williams’ seminars confirmed these ideas.
of these doubts, Williams developed the MDC seminar some years ago. The seminar began on a holiday at 3:00 p.m. local time. Williams
During the three and a half day seminar, Williams actually demonstrates
in a live, real-time basis how he implements his actual trading strategies.
For this purpose, Williams opened a trading account, capitalized with
one million dollars. His goal was to continue the MDC seminars until Equity curve
the trades, which he put on in the presence of attendees, had achieved a
100% profit. Currently, his profits have grown to roughly $900,000 so 105000

time is running out to attend the MDC seminars.

104000
It is astonishing that this sum was accumulated in a relatively few
trading sessions. To the best of my knowledge there have only been 20 103000
MDC’s. (20 x 3 = 60 trading days). Additionally, Williams turns over
Equity ($)

20% of his seminar trading profits to attendees. But, even more important, 102000

perhaps are his views on helping others and “knowledge transfer.” In

101000
line with the motto, “he who gives, receives,” the seminar manuscript
runs roughly 200 pages long. It is chock full of trading strategies, their 100000
valuations, program codes, and trading rules. Finally, he offers many
ideas, from his years of research, answers endless questions and illustrates 99000
10 20 30 40 50 60
his trading lifestyle for attendees.
Trade Number

The idea machine

My MDC seminar took place at Rancho Santa Fe, near San Diego, Equity Peaks
California, in May 2001.
utilised the non-trading hours to outline the concept behind his seminar
and to explain his five main trading strategies. At that time, these
strategies included the TDMOS (= best trading days of the month, a
Performance report
seasonal approach), his best-of-the-best gold-star-price-pattern (trading Performance Summary: All Trades
Total Net Profit $4.662,50 Open position P/L $0,00
according to end-of-day price patterns), “oops-pattern” variations, the Gross Profit $8.400,00 Gross Loss ($3.737,50)
“first trade of the day” concept (opening range breakout idea) and the
“trade no one wants” (a pattern trade). With this information, and the Total # of trades 65 Percent profitable 66,15%
Number winning trades 43 Number losing trades 22
remark that the seminar would continue at 4:30 a.m. the next morning,
the first day of the seminar ended at 7:30 p.m. Largest winning trade $375,00 Largest losing trade ($362,50)
The next morning, a look at the faces of the attendees and their Average winning trade $195,35 Average losing trade ($169,89)
Ratio avg win/avg loss 1,15 Avg trade (win & loss) $71,73
level of coffee consumption clearly indicated which time zone they had
travelled from. Williams first checked the European markets and then Max consec. Winners 5 Max consec. losers 3
the US futures markets. He discussed with participants the various Avg # bars in winners 3 Avg # bars in losers 3
strategies and together decided which to implement. At the open, the Max intraday drawdown ($712,50)
first orders of the day were placed, via cell phone, which seemed rather Profit Factor 2,25 Max # contracts held 1
out-of-date by European standards. During breakfast the positions could Account size required $712,50 Return on account 654,39%

be followed on two large screens and other charts were also studied for
possible trades. Then came the first seminar block, in which, the test
results of the main strategies were discussed in detail. from the Caribbean, who specialised in patterns, as well as a mathematics
After lunch came anecdotes and a question and answer period. professor of Chinese descent, who had very original trading concepts.
Williams gave a myriad of examples of how trading can be systemized On my left was an overweight farmer from the Midwest with overalls
and why this move is the most important in the life of most traders. and a checked flannel shirt, who happily chewed tobacco during the
Williams also went to great lengths to convey his philosophy of stress- seminar.
free trading. The first trading day ended around 2:00 p.m. with a small One of the brokers present later told me that “the overall” was one
loss. The markets had been very quiet and so very few trades had been of the largest pig farmers in the US and was also considered to be one of
made. The rest of the day was spent at the hotel’s golf course or pool. the best commodity traders. Finding such a person in a seminar in
Germany would be a long search. The second day of the seminar ended
Day two: loss again with a loss. The evening, however, finished off with a garden
The second day began with a market check before the open and the party at Williams’ home, and the variety of the guests present made it
placing of the first orders of the day. Several of the trades from the first particularly worthwhile.
day had increased their losses overnight, so stops had to be set or On the third day, the market situation finally permitted a number of
triggered. From 7:30 to 11:30, Williams addressed the participants again. strategies to trade. Included in these were a couple of top trades.
He dealt with particular requests, including stop-placement, answered According to the rules, these are closed several days later, which enriched
questions regarding various software programs and did his best to share the MDC account by some thousands of dollars. Williams invited a
his trading wisdom. number of other traders for the final day in order to have them present
As the markets remained extremely quiet, in the afternoon, he their approaches. This was followed by a several hour-long presentation
presented some of his new trading ideas, some of which were contained in which systematic trading ideas were created, new chart patterns were
in the manuscript. These included his “bailout” and “noon balloon” identified and then tested on live charts. The seminar ended at 2:30 p.m.
concepts, as well as zone trading volatility breakouts. He also outlined with an MDC account which following two loss days, was now in profit.
his new daytrading concept “triple trend,” which has now evolved into A check arrived in the mail some weeks later.
one of his main strategies. At the time, there was a problem using this
strategy in a computerized system, but a programmer from Texas resolved Take this chance
this during the seminar. The first results were quite promising and they The days with Williams were enriching from a personal as well as a
still are today (see figure 1). The “triple trend” system is a trend-following professional viewpoint. His extensive and in-depth knowledge, combined
channel trading idea for daytraders using 15-minute bars. with his openness and lively presentation is fascinating and inspiring.
The seminar is well-suited for short-term traders who don’t want to sit
Socializing in front of the computer, but simply hope to place orders once a day or
One of the great advantages of the MDC is that one can hone in on week, as well as passionate daytraders or those who are trying to become
a trading style, out of the many presented, which best suits one’s individual such. In my case the “triple trend” alone fully paid for the high seminar
tastes. The Texas programmer illustrated another advantage of attending costs, so the “Million Dollar Challenge” seminar was worth the
such seminars; one meets very interesting and accomplished people! investment. It was unfortunate that it was impossible to get to speak to
Sitting in front of me were three traders from Florida who had attended 110 different people over such a short period of time. This might be
many seminars and offered me many useful ideas. On my right were somewhat easier in Frankfurt. My tip: take this chance to meet one of
two pilots, from a US airline company, who developed trading systems the top traders in the world. The seminar runs from September 27-29 in
in their free time. Judging by their performance reports on their laptop, Frankfurt. More information and registration can be found at
they were quite successful. Seated behind me was a hedge fund manager www.tradersworld.net/mdc.