Inandlong's requests of me

This has been an important point that if you will go back through the archives and read the discourse between the person you compliment at the front of your post, you will see that gms did the very thing I have quoted you as saying. He took the time to decipher Jack's hundreds of posts, put together a very nicely done synopsis, and asked very clear and concise questions. To these questions he was greeted with disparageing and demeaning remarks from Jack, and a dialogue ensued between Jack and gms regarding the same. The record of this account is in the archives.

I am very happy for you that you are having fun and making money. Congratulations and continued good trading. But don't purport that civil behavior towards Jack receives the same in return. It has already been shown that it doesn't.

 

gms, you are comparing apples to oranges when you compare a trading method to becoming a doctor. The analogy made has ALWAYS been that of becoming a successful, well-disciplined trader compared to becoming a doctor. It has NOTHING to do with the method. Your analogy would have it that having a stethoscope qualifies you to practice medicine. It doesn't. It is a tool.

Physicians are always looking for newer and better ways to do things. So are all professionals. To accept the present as the future is not the way it is done. Questioning the motives of a trader looking at new methods misses the mark completely. Again, were it not so, we might still be on horseback, drawing water from the well, and using an outhouse. Fortunately, the search for the Holy Pail continued.

As far as the system on one page thought. The method canusually be given on 1-2 pages. But who is going to pay $50 for 1-2 pages? Not me. So it is accompanied by hundreds of pages of fluff and filler. Charts and examples of the method. There is not one book that makes the reader piece together the puzzle and wait for hundreds of pages to get to the bottom line. Well trading book that is. I suppose an Agatha Christie or Tom Clancy novel does.

 

I apologize ahead for the length of this post, in answering the points dbphoenix raised, I found I couldn't contain my answer to one page...

OK. Done. Agreed. Jack being easy to comprehend or not officially no longer an issue.

I suppose you're right that not only Jack but everything anybody puts forth is "only a variation". However, Jack does bring to the process his particular mathematics of assessing stock cycles, for example, which is not taught by O'Neil, and there's the use of volume "dry up" as the leading indicator for entries and "peaking volume" for exits. He's got a few other techniques he's discussed that sound foreign to me, that is, haven't seen them so stated anywhere else yet.

The putdown remarks in his posts I would agree with you are not very professional. Not that the following serves to justify the content of those posts, but what of all the critics' posts that run in the same manner? I can't recall if you've personally written any of them or not, but let's not make the issue be to what extent or degree of putdown is a qualifier because that would only be used to justify others' and villianize Jack's. I think more fairly we can agree that a putdown is a putdown, no matter who fires one off, and regardless if one uses vulgar language or mudslinging or whatever.

But as for no one making money with Jack's stuff, there are those who have publicly stated that they make money with Jack's methods, that's not even a debatable question anymore.

And those people must've gotten their learning of Jack's stuff from Jack's posts. So though difficult to read through, they must be comprehensible to some, no? At least, understandable to some that seem to be doing well with it. But we did agree that this is no longer an issue.

So unfortunately then there is the qualifier of one arrogance, putdown and answer-avoidance over someone else's. That's not right.

If you think MM's multitude of arrogant posts or his belittling putdowns and answer-avoidance, of which I was subject to, was exemplorary of forthcomingness and behavior over that of Jack's percentage of fewer such posts to overall postings, of which I was also subject to, that's in the eyes of the reader. I'm not going to become a Supreme Court Justice about this and try to rule on to what degree one is more objectionable (as in 'second degree arrogance' vs what constitutes 'first degree arrogance'), although I would concede that some content may prove more shocking, for lack of a better word, to any individual, again, in their eyes, than others. Both MM's and Jack's putdowns are demonstrably something. But if there isn't any true basis for a putdown other than society's norm of permitting humorous sarcasm, such as if someone gets riled and fires back, or if someone uses such content as a ploy, I can't always accurately assess their intent or motivation. But every poster does has the ability to control what he submits finally, and that helps me make a call as to how to regard the poster or that post. I far appreciate those posts that speak to trading methods

I agree with you, that's the thing I get out of nwb's post, as you wrote, that this is a viable stock trading method. Why then, after getting that point, switch the topic to whether Jack claims authorship of the methods he's teaching, or if you've seen evidence that convinces you whether Jack has or has not developed a superior methodology? I miss the point of doing that. It doesn't detract from it being a "viable trading method". What is superior anyway? If nwb had said 10% instead of 7% would that be superior? Technically it would be. Would you want him to have said 20%? Then wouldn't 30% be superior to 20%? Where does this end? If Jack's methodology racked 30% a month, I'd call that superior. I'd call 20% a month superior too. Even 10% a month compounds to over 300% a year. That's not bad either. In a broader sense, any method that consistently helps the trader achieve profitable returns is "superior", wouldn't you agree?

What i think is "superior" about it is the ability to get into a trade before the price breaks out.

I believe Jack has in fact deduced a few interesting observations and put them together, and that in fact does make him the "author", technically speaking, insofar as LBR can also be credited as author with a strategy that incorporates the already established EMA and ADX, or Keith Fitschen is the author of Aberration, even though that apparently makes use of Bollinger bands. (In fact, even the name "Holy Grail" isn't original. Come to think of it, she once wrote that the strategy was named "Holy Grail" because it was "the closest thing" she found to it. God forbid Jack ever made a statement like that, you guys would never ever stop tearing at him).

Oh, I do get from reading his posts that Jack very, very strongly believes in the methods he's been using and thinks it's rather darn better than most. But so do others about their methods. That's not really an issue for you, is it?

This is a rehash of the same immaterial "must be on one page" issue again. Jack's methods are not taught in an hour or less. Why is that paramount? LBR has a one paragraph or so explanation of the Holy Grail. In and of itself, is that sufficient to turn Joe Shmoe into a consistently profitable trader? Of course not. But I've written a bit about why this "one page" criteria is nonsense to me. And here look at us. It's taking more than one page to hash out our thoughts to each other about that. Does that imply a fault in either of us that we can't fully explain everything we mean to explain to each other regarding that argument? Come to think of it, makes me wonder why my divorce decree took more than one page to explain, the concept was so easy to grasp. Talk about neverending...

I don't know where he said he was. Are we now switching the topic to whether he said he's getting others to create their own methods? And again, how would this prove the criteria that Jack must not over time teach the methods he uses but constrain that teaching period?

dbphoenix, there's only one issue on the table, really, truly. "Does it make money". Otherwise, when we get tired of wrangling over the above inconsequential matters, we're gonna focus on newer fresher inconsequential matters to wrangle over. This one issue has to be the touchstone for further posts. That not only will cut down on the size of my posts, that will also serve to focus on the only thing that really matters instead of yet another neverending non-issue.

Speaking of interesting, wasn't it interesting that nwb reported that Jack helped him and others attain positive gains? It was far more interesting to me to read that than to concern myself as to how much of what Jack teaches is 100% Jack's vs others. But I'll beat you to the point regarding the idea that Jack is being credited as helpful, [humorous sarcasm] that's not original either, others have been helpful before him. [/humorous sarcasm]

 

Inandlong-- Thanks for your kind words and congrats

I did go back and read the equities thread in which gms was participating.

I am no psychologist, but I can see how things went wrong between them, and it's truly unfortunate. Text can be an inefficient and error-prone form of comunication. I suspect that a couple of private emails between them could have resolved the misunderstandings amicably.

Anyway, I wish that more ET threads could have the calm thorough discussion that seems to have happened here over the last 24 hours.

Regards,
Laz

 

I don't want this to go on into perpetuity. In fact, I wouldn't have posted what I did if my name hadn't been brought into it. But the fact that these are foreign to you does not mean that they are new. With regard to the CWH, for example, O'N makes it very clear that there should be a volume dryup in the handle. He also addresses the volume issue re exits. As do others.

For obvious reasons, I won't even suggest that one do a search on this, but the questions were prompted largely by Jack's claims that beginners could make something like 100k their first year if only they were to follow him. Given the scams that have been perpetrated on this site, particularly with regard to new traders, this elicited a predictable response. When Jack refused to provide examples of his methodology, the further responses were also predictable.

Were the critics justified in taking their cues from Jack with regard to tone and content? Maybe, maybe not. But none of this sprang fully-formed from the bile of some anonymous malcontent.

If that's true, great. But this was not the case when Jack was banned.

Partly because it is apparently so important to him to claim authorship of all this, which I find insulting to all those who came before. Even so, I would have left all of it alone (you may be aware that I left the "stochastic" thread early for several reasons) if Jack hadn't launched his campaign to hijack thread after thread and make it next to impossible to carry on a discussion that wasn't centered around him and "his" methods.

Last time I checked, Raschke hasn't spent a great deal of time at ET announcing that her way is the best way and that any other way that anybody else follows is the way of the loser.

And if you'll reread what I said, you'll note that I acknowledged that the method and the amount of time required to explain the method, which generally requires hardly any time at all, has nothing to do with whether or not the newcomer will be able to put the method into practice. His ability or inability to do so, rather, will have to do with issues that have nothing to do with the methodology itself but rather his reponse to it.

If that's true, then I assume you will also be the standard-bearer for Mr. Market.

As for "does it make money", you'll have to be specific about what "it" is. You'll also have to provide more than a few week's worth of anecdotal evidence. If Jack truly has something new to offer, I'd be happy to hear it. While I may be wrong, this is, I believe, the intent of ial's "put up or shut up" stance.

 

...these technical arguments are way over my head, but one thing you mentioned struck a chord, the word "scam". I am not making as much money as I would like, or improving that situation as fast as I would like. If you are knowledgeable about scams which have been successfully perpetrated here, would you please PM me? Just a bare outline of a successful scam system would suffice. Please, no more than seven scamming rules. Thanks. - Mike

 

My contrary views? What happens if I agree with you, you'd no longer wish to hear from me?

I agree that "mechanical system strategies" such as yours can be 7 lines in length. But that's not what I was writing about. To quote myself correctly, I didn't say "mechanical system strategies" such as yours couldn't be coded on one page. I said that Jack's methods/strategies/systems couldn't be completely contained to one page (it's not a mechanical system), nor is there a must that teaching strategies/systems and such be limited to one page (which BTW inandlong, was my point for bringing up the well worn analogy between medical training and learning how to trade. I wasn't 'comparing a trading method to becoming a dr.' I was using the analogy often given of how a dr. or any professional, studies long and hard and practices much to acquire skill at their craft, and that the same applies to traders in learning how to trade. Trading is not a skill picked up overnight. That's the analogy always given, am I right? So I was applying that analogy not to tools, but to the educational process, the length of time it takes to learn a profession and acquire the skills. In other words, just as a student cannot be expected to become a competent medical person without at least somewhat lengthy period of time to cover the educational process, and that if he's a good student, a trader - or any professional - also likewise spends quite some time learning their craft. The equating I did was about the time needed to impart education and to learn and master the craft, not about using tools. Bottom line: it can't be taught in a short time. So my assertion following that analogy: to criticize a learning period because it's not short and succinct is baseless).

I also made the assertion that one page of rules in and of itself is not sufficient to make a person a good trader, which to me means a discretionary trader over someone who follows a purely mechanical system where signals from a few lines of code are taken. No offense if that's what you do. You can argue that among yourselves, and I know you will. A mechanical system may make money for you, but it doesn't turn the system's operator into a good trader, which is the along the point I made. You may be a good trader who develops a 7 line code, and that's an entirely different matter, but that's not the discussion. More realistically, it probably took you a fair amount of time to learn about and understand the precepts upon which you based your lines of code. You didn't learn all that from reading one page, did you? Then you had to learn how to code your system. Does learning scripting languages take more than a page to learn? of course it does. How long did it take you to really become a good trader? I read in the forum that it takes years. even if it takes "months"... you're going to tell me that throughout the time it took for you to be a really good trader, you only absorbed one page's worth of material?

Jack seems to be turning some people into good traders, by their admission and they are talking about their trading results as proof. He is not giving them 7 lines or 70 lines of code. That has no correlation to his teaching trading. Why should it apply? No one (except you guys) decreed that there's this proviso, that the only valid method of teaching trading was to provide a one page exhaustive summary of the system. Yeh, I wrote a one pager summing up his method, like a book report, but it sure doesn't cover everything I can see. It was a summary. Did anyone become a good trader from reading my one pager?

Instead of a one page, from what I read, he gives them concepts and understanding of the market principles that apply to the strategies, he covers the nuances and going forward and imparts more education to them from his experience as he goes forth, repeats points so that by iterative effort these concepts sink in... that's the basis of education, is it not? Jeez, would you want to be treated by a dr. that got his medical training from reading one sheet of paper? I wouldn't want to have my money traded by a guy who learned how to trade from a couple of paragraphs.

So he doesn't teach trading in 7 lines. You may think it odd, even strange, and you evidently don't like it, but that doesn't mean that the method's not viable or that it has to be on one page.

Mind you, I'm writing this about a guy who wasn't exactly a sweetheart to me, but what's fair is fair.

 

db, well put. I do see why you write what you've written, except for that part of me that I may want to be mr. market's standard bearer. I personally came to the conclusion that he didn't have anything much to offer.