I'm not normally one to spread around other peoples problems,but as a fellow trader on this site I felt I should share this recent knowledge I've aquired. Seems, R.S. of Houston hasn't been so honest in their claims. Here's a link to the full CFTC decision. www.cftc.gov/enf/00orders/enfrsofhouston.htm
"RS of Houston" was heavily advertised in Futures mag among others. The hook was always that he "really' traded his own account this way and was highly profitable. All lies apparently. Wonder how many people took the workshop, at $2500+ or bought the materials? Well, not to worry, the CFTC caught these guys red-handed, had an open and shut case against them according to the order referenced above, and imposed whopping fines of...$10,000 each. What a joke.
I first heard of RS in the early 90's. He sent in several missives to a newsletter called Commodity Trader Club News which was published by a guy named Dave Green. It was sort of a knockoff of Club 3000 news. THis guy sent in these mysterious letters about what a great trader he was and illustrated them with charts showing his buys and sells in the S&P's. Pretty simple stuff, using Keltner channel on intraday charts. trading pullbacks in the larger trend. Overall concept probably works, but I guess the guy was not able to execute it. He was known only as RS of Houston because he didn't want his name out in public. Very mysterious. Subscribers were completely fooled by this guy. RS and Green actually put together a video package then on S&P daytrading and marketed it for about $800. To Green's credit, that arrangement did not last too long. He probably found out the guy couldn't really trade.
That is 2 years old, but they are still active. Check their website: www.rsofhouston.com/new_index.html They have a workshop for only $4850 or a home study course for $3500. They also just did an hour and a half presentation on zap furtures interviews. Check Zaps archieves. They use chart patterns on a 5 min chart for S&P with a couple moving averages and presto...magic. Their philosophy is keep it simple.
I just received an invitation to a seminar being offered by Zap futures. It will feature the "highly acclaimed" system used by R.S. of Houston. When I did a search on the company, I came across the court case, in which the two owners of the company settled with the CFTC. Nice of Zap to offer such quality to the trading community.
I bet if you ask Zap about RS of H records, their answer will be some where along the line of S&C magazine 'because people demand it'
Hey Guys: I made mention of this situation recently. It is obvious that the penalty for screwing people out of their money is minimal, and there is no jail time, so these people (RS of Houston, et al) figure why not put the pedal to the metal and make as much money as we can for as long as we can before the government puts a stop to it. Although not at all related to the financial markets, everyone will remember "Ms. Cleo" right? States attorneys general of California estimated that she made close to a million dollars a month before they stopped her "operation". In fact, her scam was so profitable that she had her lawyers get a judicial stay allowing her to continue to do business on TV (remember the ads?) while she went through the trial process. I don't remember the fine, but I am sure it was a slap on the wrist. No jail time. Until things change a little bit, there will always be scam artists who figure why the hell not, if they stop me, I can just pull up stakes and try it again somewhere else. One place where we all ought to get up on our hind feet and complain however is with publications like Stocks & Commodities, and Brokerage houses like Zap. I think if they principals received letters, and accounts were closed, that they might see things in a different light. One voice, one opinion. Steve46
steve46, Good points. I am still outraged the CFTC did nothing but give these crooks a wristslap. They could have demanded restitution for everyone who took their course based on the lies that RS and his partner were highly profitable. The CFTC has a long record of trying to make cases to expand its jurisdiction, for example, by going after software vendors to make them register as CTA's, but they let the legions of out and out crooks who defraud people get by with a small fine. Makes you wonder. I cancelled TASC long ago when it became difficult to tell the ads from the articles.
Triple AAA.... I couldn't agree with you more on TASC, I still get it for free.....but I rarely read it anymore, it is so hyped to the major advertisers "sponsored" articles it really lacks credibility any longer.. rttrader1 -
Lobby CFTC. What needs to happen is a few good penalties (such as HEAVY fines, banishment from the industry FOREVER, and hey throw in a year or two of jail time!) a year. The rest of the cases can be settlement slap-on-the-wrists and that's OK because CFTC truly does not have the resources to take every vendor thru a full-fledged trial. But a few (maybe 2-3) out and out convictions with harsh penalties per year would improve the situation substantially. And CFTC *does* have the resources for 2-3 vendor court cases per year. On another note, try sending "Letters to the Editor" about RS Houston to S&C. See, if they print it Can call 'em too, just for fun (to get thru faster say you're an advertiser