Wall Street Billionaire Thomas Peterffy Discusses His 'Worst Trade' And More: 'It Was A Huge Hit'

Wall Street billionaire and Interactive Brokers' founder Thomas Peterffy might have amassed wealth over the years, but just like almost every trader, he has also suffered losses while dealing in options.

What Happened: In an interaction with Forbes, Peterffy opened up about his worst trade ever, alongside revealing some more details about his life and investment philosophies.

Peterffy is currently the 59th richest person in the world and has a wealth of $27.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Peterffy is a Hungarian immigrant – he reached the U.S. shores in 1965 and began his journey as an architectural draftsman.

He learned computer programming skills over the next few years and got himself a seat on the American Stock Exchange in 1977. A year later, he launched his own brokerage firm, Interactive Brokers, which would go on to contribute to a significant portion of Peterffy's wealth over the next few decades.

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But it wasn't always a smooth ride for Peterffy. He recalled his worst trade ever in the interaction, underscoring a mistake that many traders have made at some point.

The trade involved chemicals giant DuPont de Nemours Inc. DD. Peterffy bought 300 call options at $18 per contract.

But his impatience resulted in a loss – despite owning only 300 options, he ended up selling 500 of them.

After a halt in DuPont’s stock trading and the announcement of its outstanding earnings and stock split, he was forced to repurchase the extra 200 options at $450 apiece.

“That [loss], of course, was something like $80,000, which was half my capital I’d spent 10 years saving up for. It was a huge hit. That was the worst trade I ever had in my life," Peterffy said.

"I learned never to sell cheap options, and be very careful that other people may be trading on inside information in these situations."

‘No Important Secrets In How To Invest'

Peterffy also believes that investing is not a mysterious task and that successful investing requires one to be logical and just deal with facts.

"I basically think there are no important secrets in how to invest, and there is not a lot you can learn from others. It’s all logical," he said.

"What I have learned through the many years I spent in these businesses is, there is no substitute for doing your own work."

He also says that he has "never read a book on investment."

"People who write investment books, you have to ask yourself the question: Why would they do that? If they really knew something, they would keep it to themselves."

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