How to reverse-engineer William O'Neill?

I know he wrote one 'classic' book, now in its fourth edition (http://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Money-Stocks-Winning/dp/0071614133), I just skimmed through it, nothing special at first impression. OK, I might want to actually read it thoroughly, but I wonder how much marketing it is to his own products or services.

Anyways, to get to the gist of him, I though why not take a look at his web site first, go to http://www.investors.com/default.htm
Then click on 'IBD University' > 'Featured Courses' > 'COURSE 1' > 'CAN SLIM®' > 'Lesson 1: The C & A in the CAN SLIM® System' (now that '®' already bothers me), then see the top comment under it: 'to bad that all the information you need to really understand this cost 999.00'
Now I have to admit I didn't read lesson 1 in the course to understand the '®' course but too much marketing already bothers me to start with.

To give you an analogy. It might be a good or bad idea but just for fun: automated bitcoin trading robot:
- you can pay for it - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=197175
- or you can do it all free - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=209149
Strangely, the paid one is so much more popular.

 

Well, there's your problem. You "skimmed" through it. I know the guy's method inside and out. What do you want to know? There is no secret. There are a ton of knockoffs out there trying to sell his work and profit off of it similiar to that of the turtles trading methods. Everything you need to know about it is outlined in that book. Of course you actually have to read it and that of course stops 99% of the people from moving forward.

BTW, they do have a money management service with a public track record. It's not run by him but rather a firm that uses his methods and the results are pretty impressive going back about 15 years or so. I think they might have an actively managed ETF as well.

 

Actually it's on my possible list to read, now I'm reading Darvas. Just fast forward skimmed it, what may come next.

But to put the record straight: Are the website investors.com, CANSLIM (r) just knock-offs or straight from the guy himself?

OK, maybe I came from too much of a marketing background but in marketing you generally give crap info in your book (a book is just for publicity) and you give the gist of your knowledge in an 'upsell', seminar or something.

Related to trading: Steve Nison said in his - not so long, a few hours in length - seminar that if the value of info he gives in it is 10, then the value of his 3-400 book is only on the scale of 2-3 compared to it. Translate: a waste of time according to the man himself.

To sum it up: unlike Steve Nison, this O'Neill guy gives 100% of his knowledge out in his book, and the website, expensive upsell are just a 3rd part knock-offs? Okay.

Btw. I read the turtles method (the original, as it is - is this it? http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/files/turtlerules.pdf) does not work now without modifications. True? I read it on the Internet so it must be true. So it may be reasonable someone still peddles a variation of it but I don't know.

 

Since I'm the one who brought up O'N in the first place, I suppose I should point out that I became familiar with the book decades ago, before websites even existed. At the time, it was gold. Now, not so much. For one thing, the role of funds is considerably different now. And the objectives of funds are considerably different, particularly after '94 to '99.

But what continues to be important for the trader with a timeframe longer than a few days is the idea of choosing a stock primarily for the fundamentals, then finding the right time to buy, then managing the trade properly thereafter. The focus changed substantially during the dotcom bubble and became too much a momentum strategy which became closely tied to relative strength and so on because fundamentals became pretty much useless.

I'd still recommend it to anyone interested in stocks, even if only for the short term. But so much is available for free now, such as group and subgroup charts, that I see no reason to subscribe to anything. OTOH, if the services save time and one's time is at a premium . . .

Incidentally, O'N is 81 now, so I suspect he's handed off a lot of the day-to-day to others.

 

I don't know all the details but here is the site: http://www.northcoastam.com/investors.html#performance

I think they are officially endorsed by O'Neill. They are using his trademark. I've attached their fund fact sheet. As you can see they have killed the S&P but most of that performance has come from solid risk management as they actually made money in 2001 and 2002 and were only down a little in 2008. They tend to underperform in bull markets partly because the strongest moves come off the lows where they are still heavily in cash.

The book is legit and probably the best book on investing you'll ever read. There are no secrets. I've said this a million times on ET and I'll say it again, it just comes down to hard work. The CANSLIM method is a long tedious process. It involves a lot of time which most people are not interested in. They want to get rich quick so they will move on from this pretty fast. But the methods still work today but honestly, I hate even calling it a method because it's just research man. Put in the time and you'll earn your dime.

 

You brought it up? with your first post in this thread? Okay, I didn't notice. But I see you use to bring him up here and there across the whole board.

I do not consider books a premium monetary investment. Just a premium of time investment, especially if they cover information worth not much. (See my 01-12-14 04:39 PM post on basic marketing principles). But yes, in general I feel like my time usually worth much, so I am open to consider even courses, seminars based on that. As I said, books are just the price of paper and more like a time investment only, valuable or not; depends on the book.

Maverick74: Oneill's book is the best ever
dbphoenix: not worth that much in 2014

Different point of views! I have to decide this for myself or (cliffhanger)

 

Okay. If, say I am interested in this (though not yet sure what it is about I just have some vague ideas) can I learn it best from his (up to date?) course on his site (see my 1st post), or the now 5 year-old latest edition of his paperback?

And about the topic title, reverse-engineering: I understand he sells some $999 package on his site , so just to know is advance I prefer to use free and available tools for whatever purposes.

 

From their email communication:

...

Subscriber-only features on Investors.com include:

• IBD Stock Checkup® – A powerful evaluation tool that will assess the health of your stocks.
• Stocks On The Move™ – A continuously updated list of stocks experiencing unusually heavy buying and selling.
• IBD SmartSelect® Ratings – Six proprietary and exclusive research ratings designed to screen out deficient stocks, identity potential market leaders, save time, and significantly improve stock selection.
These ratings are accessible from the lists described below and from "My Stock Lists."
• Screen Center – a new timesaving feature that puts all the IBD screens in one place. These screens include:
o Screen Of The Day – A timely source of winning stock ideas every day featuring exclusive ratings.
o Sector Leaders – A look at some top-rated stocks in top sectors.
o CAN SLIM® Select list - Tracks market-leading stocks every day.
o Tech Leaders – A look at top performing stocks in specified technology sectors.
o International Leaders – A list of ADRs of some of the top international companies with solid fundamental and technical characteristics.
o IBD 50 – A list of 50 top-rated growth stocks in IBD’s database.
• “The Big Picture”, “Research Table Review” and other articles which can be accessed using the News, IBD Editorials and Education tabs on the main navigation bar.

...

Wow. They just have so much stuff to sell on me! Did I say that http://www.amazon.com/All-Marketers-Are-Liars-Works/dp/1591845335 ?

 

I brought it up in another thread today or yesterday. Sorry. I thought you'd seen it since the subject came up again so quickly.

As to what it's worth in 2014, I have no idea. As I said, I hadn't looked at it in decades, and I haven't traded stocks in 15yrs. If you trade stocks, it may be worth as much to you now as it was to me back then.

 

Have you ever joined a gym? Pay a monthly fee for their equipment? Well, what do they do after you join? They try to sell you more stuff right; personal training, kickboxing, yoga classes, 2 week boot camps, protein shakes, gym t-shirts, etc. Well, that is what they are doing. The book was written 20 years ago and simply gets updated with new stocks and new charts. There is nothing more to it then that book. But guess what? America is fat and lazy right? So if they join a gym, they NEED someone to make them go. They NEED someone to show them how to exercise. Well, a lot of people will buy the book and go "and?". They have no idea how to apply it. They need handholding. They need someone to do the work for them. So they buy all the extra stuff. There is nothing new under the sun here. Nobody wants to put in the work. So they pay more and more and more to get extra software, personal training, seminars, e-mail alerts, anything so they don't have to actually put forth an effort. And there are plenty of companies out there that will enable this type of behavior and try to make a buck off of it.

So that was the long answer. The short answer, no just read the book and do the research. Everything you need is in the book. You have to provide the labor.