Peter Thiel: A Foremost Investor

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MASTER TRADERS – PART 1

“One of the secrets few know and fewer implement when it comes to trading success is that you have to really care about doing well. These days, I see a lot of traders not caring enough, not prioritizing learning about trading, and making pathetic weak-willed excuses.” – Chris Tate

Name: Peter Thiel
Date of birth: October 11, 1967
Nationality: German, American
Occupation: Businessman and investor
A RARE GENIUS
Peter was born in Germany, but his parents took him along to the United States, where they settled. He studied philosophy at Stanford University, earning a B.A. (1989). He also got his J.D. from Stanford Law School (1992). He was very good at playing chess, even to the point of being rated a Chess Master.

With Elon Musk and Max Levchin, he co-founded Paypal. He co-founded Palantir, serving as its chairman. He was the first outside investor in Facebook, acquiring a stake which was worth 10.2% in 2004 for $500,000. Therefore he’s a member of the board of directors.

He presides over a hedge fund named Clarium Capital. The fund was worth $700 million. He’s also a managing partner in Founders Fund, a firm which was worth $2 billion. He also co-founded, chairs Mithril Capital Management and Valar Ventures.

In the year 2011, his position on Forbes 400 was 293rd, being worth $1.5 billion. As of August 2015, he was worth $3.3 billion.

Peter is interested in other intriguing issues, causes and futuristic ideas, participating in some of them, funding some of them and advocating some of them. He’s won awards, honors, and an honorary degree from Universidad Francisco Marroquin.

What You Need to Know:
1. Peter really has a Midas touch. Are you successful in other areas of life? You might want to try trading and/or investing. Perhaps you success in other fields might be translated to success in trading as well. As you can see, Peter Thiel has been successful in most of the ventures he took, including investing. He correctly forecasted the weakness of USD in the year 2003, plus forecasting that the strength in USD and energy would be strong in the year 2005.

2. You can’t be right always. Peter wasn’t always right. His hedge fund, Clarium, dropped in value within years 2008 – 2011. This was largely due to incorrect bets. However, you should be successful overall, just as Peter is.

3. In trading, courage is more important than genius. Brilliant traders are rare. No wonder there are so many losers.

4. Peter says monopoly is the condition of every successful business. This can be applied to trading. You just got to develop your own unique trading approach and stick with it. That unique trading approach is your edge, which will give you breakthrough that many millions of traders can only dream of.

5. Nobody cares about you unless you become a successful trader with years of a nice track record. Consistent profitability is an elusive thing, and once you can achieve that, more and more people would be interested in you, because you’ll appear unique. Without this, you’ll just be like many other millions of people who’re failures.

6. Don’t be afraid to fly in the face of a conventional trading wisdom. You trading approach is good as long as it makes money, no matter how odd it seems.

7. Always make sure that in a quarter or on annual basis, you make average profits that are bigger than average losses. Your few winners ought to compensate for your numerous losers.

Conclusion: When problems and challenges arise in your trading career, do you feel overwhelmed? I no longer feel helpless and without hope. Today, I can truly say I’m happy as a trader, although previously I never imagined it possible, I now feel that I can help others.

This piece ends with a quote from Peter:

“The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.”

Firs published on ADVFN