Larry Williams was born in 1942 in the state of Montana, USA, and graduated in Journalism from the University of Oregon in 1964. During his college years, he gained initial experiences in the stock market, but initially suffered a loss of half of his capital. In the 1960s, the Wall Street witnessed significant changes as the computer age slowly entered, and new industries emerged. During this time, companies like IBM and the United States’ defense industry became favorites among investors. At the same time, stock prices recovered, having fallen about 30 percent after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Traders on Wall Street still operated with traditional methods, including paper and pencil, along with simple technical analysis tools such as moving averages and trendlines. Larry Williams developed a growing interest in commodities and fundamental analysis. He began examining long-term cycles and formulated his own trading rules, noting that the best buying opportunities occurred in years ending with the digits two, three, and seven. This research led to the development of his own indicator, the Williams %R, which identifies overbought and oversold situations of an underlying asset.
Larry Williams not only analyzes long-term cycles but also focuses on movements on shorter time frames. He considers charts and technical indicators as crucial tools to identify the right timing for entering a position. In 1970, Williams published his first book titled “How I made one Million Dollar in the Commodity Market.” Although the book describes the general functioning of commodity markets, it lacks a specific trading strategy for making a million dollars.
During this decade, commodities experienced a prolonged bull market, and Larry Williams actively participated. In 1979, the Future Exchange for Commodities was established in New York, enabling trading in futures contracts. With his extensive knowledge from years of study and the increased use of computers in trading, Williams became one of the most successful traders at the New York Future Exchange and globally. He continued to leverage his expertise by publishing books for traders and capped his successes in 1987 by winning the World Championship for Future Trader, the “Robbins World Cup.” Within a year, the super trader Williams increased his account from $10,000 to over a million dollars. Another remarkable achievement followed ten years later when his daughter Michelle Williams, trained by Larry Williams, also won the “Robbins World Cup.”
