Sinewave's analysis of the signs and symptoms is accurate and to the point. There were other factors involved which made it seem as though he wasa very positive force. For traders at large, and in his immediate community. It was hard to ignore how he was revered by the people in Sevier County. How his wife would bend over backwards to help young families in a jam. Those stories could go on and on, but now we know that it was a carefully constructed image designed to both entice and obscure. His wife's intentions were pure and he used her terribly in this way. As for the rest of us. Well, they say a conman can only get to the greedy. A lot has been posted back and forth as to whether the investors were to blame for not performing due diligence. I think that the profits dangled in front of them, along with the fact that most of them were brought in based on referrals from friends who had already seen what they thought were profits, caused them to overlook some factors which should have raised red flags. When I read the information sheet and agreement he provided to the investors, available for download on several of the news sites covering this story, I can't help but think that it appears to be written by an illiterate child. I can only imagine that if I were presented with this sort of documentation I would run to an attorney for advice before considering an investment. And you know, we'll probably never know just how many people did something along those lines. That would be his fish that got away. The ones who got hooked had a close friend, previously scammed by Dennis, to encourage them to overlook those inconsistencies. That's part of what affinity fraud is. Same thing Madoff did in taking the country clubs by storm. Word of mouth overcame red flags. The reason I say "the rest of us" is that you ask about the cohorts. I may have been borderline in that camp, although those of you who have worked with me over the last few years may also recall that I raised a lot of red flags and pointed out inconsistencies too. However one of the most difficult things in these developments for those of us who considered ourselves his friends is this: We had to come face to face with how we were scammed too. Not just the fact that we were scammed, but HOW was it done? If a conman can only get to the greedy, what did he see to hook us in? The answers are varied. In some cases it was just the idea of being validated by someone who had such a positive image of success and philanthropy. In some cases he promised help in supporting specific goals, financial or otherwise. There was always some sort of carrot dangling out of reach. One of the things he used to do with just about anyone he wanted to reel in was he'd ask point blank, "Where do you want to be in 5 years?" And then he'd make it seem as though he was helping you in that direction. The first signs I had that all of this was unraveling was that I started to get phone calls and emails from people who he had left in a lurch. Contracts unsigned, investments in their own businesses never showed up, etc. Deals I knew nothing about. They were contacting me because I was a presence in his chat room last year and they thought I might be in a better position to know how to contact him. But a pattern emerged about how he bound people to him with promises. And so that's what happened with the cheerleaders and cohorts and friends. Betrayed by someone they looked up to who had promised to make their dreams come true, and who appeared to find special value in them. It's not easy to face that kind of betrayal since you also come face to face with the idea that "wow, maybe I'm not that special after all". TradingRooms fell into that category, at least partially. The people who were directly involved with that suddenly lost Dennis' support. There was a lot of "he said - he said" around that issue, with Dennis saying that those involved with TR weren't meeting goals or keeping promises. But I think we know how much we can trust his word on things, albeit at this late date. I had intended to describe the "development" of the first bar trade and got sidetracked a bit there. But hopefully this answers some questions about the behind the scenes stuff and how he operated. At the very least it may be an interesting read. If any of you attended the workshops Dennis led BEFORE the ones at his house, you'll remember that the First Bar Trade was introduced as a psychological tool. Nothing more. It was just supposed to get you into the market fast in the morning so that you wouldn't get stuck in analysis paralysis. The very basic setup itself, combined with extremely tight money management, limited the risk and provided an opportunity if the market should happen to take off in your favor. While I saw the point to it, I never liked it. Seemed like an expensive tool to me. I guess it might work for some, since we each have various trading fears to overcome during the course of our careers as traders. But he never discussed win rates or made a big deal out of it. It was explicitly "let's just get one out of the way and then it'll be easier to get back in later". Then several years ago, around the time he started his blog, the FBT had an extended successful run. It was something like 1 loser in 10 days. Dennis popped in to various chat rooms, including one where I was a volunteer moderator (no, not THAT one!) and talked about how great the FBT was that day. People jumped all over it. Mostly the grail seekers who wanted something simple, since that was as simple as it gets. All of a sudden the FBT became a focal point of what Dennis was teaching, and the rest of the stuff based on solid trading techniques fell by the wayside to some degree. I remember telling people in the room that they better be careful with this. The FBT was supposed to be a tool for overcoming psychological inertia in the morning, not some magical key to success. Of course the people who wanted to believe made me out to be the bad guy at that point. And so it goes. Over the years the FBT morphed into something it was never intended to be, and passed along to people who never saw it in its original form. Dennis played this up of course as it gave him the chance to play guru with the info once again. And then if you study his blog posts on it, especially the most recent ones, you'll see that he changed the rules on it and also made it seem as though these were the rules all along. Not so. The reality is that it wasn't working and he had to cover that up by basically saying that people hadn't been executing it correctly all along. At that point I realized that he was going off the deep end. We still use a few of the tools in my chat room that Dennis used too. Just not in the same way. They are not "his tools" or even his ideas. The Blau ECO is a great indicator and it's been around since well before Dennis Bolze came on the scene. And we certainly don't put any weight on the First Bar Trade. So if you've read through this, hopefully you've found it at least entertaining and possibly informative too. MarkB therapy hour over and out!
Mark, I was an online viewer of his seminar from may 2008. In the second day in the morning, he closed the online feed for an hour. I'm still curious why....was he raising new investors ??? Yeah, at first I thought I was doing something wrong with the first bar.... One lesson learned : do my own research.
Actually in his tradersparadise blog he always exhorted the reader to do his own research with regard to any trading idea. Dennis' ideas were a breath of fresh air for someone struggling and looking for direction. Too bad his blog was filled with non-trading political diatribes. His apparent kinship with Rush Limbaugh was the one thing that kept me from jumping on the Dennis bandwagon. Still, I took away quite a few good, simple trading concepts. BTW, I just heard he's apparently cooling his ass in a jail cell in Scranton awaiting extradition to TN.
Benny, No, there was nothing at the workshops going on about investors at all, not publicly. He kept that all under wraps as I've posted previously. I think that 90% of the people there didn't even know he had any investors at all, including those of us who were helping at the workshops. It would have been a very different story if we had since it would have been THE major red flag raised for those of us who thought we were helping out charities. That hour or so was a teary weepy performance by him about how he had fallen on hard times, been rejected by his family, picked himself up by the bootstraps with the help of faith, and now was determined to give back to all because of it. It was pretty over the top and really could have benefited from a set of Tammy Faye eyelashes. Steve, exactly - that's what I said in earlier posts. There was a lot of truth in many of his trading related posts. I'd hate to see the baby thrown out with the bath water, filthy as that water may have become.
Sorry that doesn't cut it. Hearsay and rumours. Apparently zanger did well for awhile but now his calls suck. See for yourself. No consistency. See my first post on this thread. Can anyone provide the requested info. Info any investor would require prior to investing with any of these guys.
Zanger "did well for awhile"? Better to replace you statement with... "made more money in a couple of years trading than my entire family tree is worth" and it's probably more accurate. That everyone here would do 1/2 as well in their trading career. ** I don't know Dennis, never had any contact with him but was repeatedly asked about his massive success trading ER2 in the past. It certainly was (and again now is) possible to flip 20-lot positions with acceptable fills in & out. Actually, it is possible to fill several times that in a range scale and exit for massive profits OR staged losses in an adverse scale out rather than en masse. But all of that takes time, effort extreme focus, patience, discipline and patience. The actual grind of trading wears many people down... especially the ones who just want the massive reward at end while skipping massive effort needed to get there in the first place. If Dennis' tactics were sound in merit, he had the opportunity chance to create his own (honest) massive wealth WHILE working with others in the process. That would require time, effort, self-discipline and patience all the way. Going "Madoff" as a short-cut was merely detaching himseld from reality to enjoy the end result without effort spent to get there. At least for awhile. Dealing with reality now will not make the fantasy period worthwhile. ** Years ago I ran into a guy who was woodie-CCI blinded. He actually flipped 20-lot emini contracts (forgot what symbol) with nothing on his chart but CCI. He was actually led to believe AND chose to believe that trading an indicator pattern without the underlying visible on a chart had some chance for profitable success. The longer I'm in our profession, the more astounding things I see.
MarkB, thanks for that very thoughtful and detailed recounting. Just to make something in my previous post clear, I never considered you a collaborator of his with any of his schemes. I hope you know that already, but I apologize if it wasn't clear. I've said it before: you're one of the very few successful traders that I've known who can also analyze and teach extremely well. Thanks again!
Sinewave, You're making me blush, but thanks. I wasn't really responding to you with that whole cathartic post. But that's what it was, a cleansing process - getting it all out there in public. Happy trading, Mark
"By DEREK HODGES at The Mountain Press WILLIAMSPORT, PA. â On his first appearance in a Pennsylvania District Court Friday afternoon, Gatlinburg investor Dennis Bolze pleaded not guilty to the money laundering and wire fraud charges against him, and agreed to be extradited to East Tennessee for trial.In addition, the man who now stands accused of swindling countless investors out of tens of millions of dollars requested a public defender be appointed to assist him, submitting a financial statement to suggest he cannot afford to hire an attorney.That statement claims Bolze made $150,000 in the last year through self-employment, though he says he's now unemployed. He also claims about $300,000 in debt - including car loans, mortgages on his 16,512-square-foot home and credit cards - and says he knows his home has been seized because he stopped making payments on it.Bolze was represented by attorney William J. Miele in the brief hearing just after 2 p.m. Friday in District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Both Bolze and Miele signed off on Bolze's plea of not guilty to the pair of felony charges levied against him.With Bolze waiving extradition, U.S. Magistrate Judge William I. Arbuckle ordered he be transported back to Knoxville by U.S. marshals to face trial in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.Bolze was arrested Thursday in Jersey Shores, Pa., after months as a fugitive and with a case for his guilt in the matter growing with each day. Agents from the IRS, FBI and Commodity Futures Trading Commission have spent the weeks since Bolze disappeared from his Gatlinburg home in mid-December investigating his daytrading businesses.They allege Bolze bilked a number of clients here and in Europe out of untold millions with promises of high yields. As they have investigated, they say they have found evidence to indicate Bolze may well have never put the money he was given to invest into the stock market.Additionally, it turns out Bolze did not hold the proper license to represent his clients in daytrading activities.Since his disappearance, a number of financial institutions and others who say he owes them money have come forward, including Mountain National Bank, which has repossessed his car, and Regions Bank, which is working to auction his home after foreclosing on it. Two local residents, Jerard and Carol Muszik, have filed suit to reclaim more than $470,000 in a lien they hold against Bolze's home, while Hawaii residents Robert and Dannette Warren claim Bolze forged their signatures on documents releasing the debts they hold against his estate. The home itself is owned in the name of one of Bolze's businesses, Advanced Trading Services." The interesting part is that he asked for a public attorney because he is broke. WOW On another note..the fellow he was in business with in Spain, died at 71 years old. He was in a hospital in Mallorca. The death is attributed the shock. This tale just keeps getting sadder all the time.:eek: