Victor Niederhoffer, a polymath who pioneered the use of computers to predict short-term movements in stocks and commodities — a volatile, high-stakes trading techniq1ue that made him and his clients a fortune, which he subsequently lost, regained, then lost again, died on Aug. 4 at his home in Weston, CT, a 20,000-square-foot Tudor-style mansion.  He was 82.

Determined to find patterns in stock movements, he recorded prices in large ledgers and entered them into a computer program that he had written to track patterns. In 1979, Mr. Niederhoffer began trading for himself with $50,000. Eighteen months later, after turning that sum into $20 million, he started his own hedge fund, leaning heavily on his computer program. He made millions, lost millions, and always regained his fortune. In an essay for Vogue, his daughter, Galt Niederhoffer, wrote: “He is still awake late into the night, alert for the morning bells of the European and Asian markets, studying every permutation, setting up for every angle.”