Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa !!!!!!!!!! Great point! I would not be surprised if that was the real edge of most of jack schwager's market wizards (both books) There must be one or two episodes in there, where they made the real money, but no one will ever tell the public how. Edge is much more than the mathematical expecation of a system, or technology, milliseconds and all that. Information asymmtery is, like in war, when you know more about your enemy than your enemy knows about you. (in trading that would be the person on the other side of your trade). It's called real competitive advantage. I don't know that Cramer is necessarily a crook. He has an interesting business model, that works for him: shift all the market risks on the audience, and get stable, reliable cash flow in the form of salary from CNBC. Plus you have your own show, you're famous. He has his own show and he enjoys it. Now, what's wrong with that model is that his show can be misleading for the general public. People may have incorrect expecations about the recommendations, about the markets in general. Of course, making a bet now and then is fun. But I would prefer to play with Cramer's money instead of him playing with my money. I think a more fair business model for his show would be: allocate a certain percentage of his own funds for the audience to play with. That would be a fair distribution of market risk, in my opinion. I do like the Narjanian brothers, they seem open about what they do. It's just a human impression. Of course, they are business people and promote their business. So, like with Cramer, don't expect said brothers to give you a free lunch. I think all of them are ok people, by the way. The problem is how the business model plays into all this. I mean I really want to be profitable, consistently. Psychology is key. It's all about control and domination. You don't control Cramer, Cramer does not control you. You don't control Narajian brother, neither does Naranjian brother control you. Edge is the ability to focus. Read as much as you can. Tai-chi can help. Try to be in sync with the markets. Insider information can help, but it can kill too. Just remember what happened to the poor guy in the wall street movie (final scenes). Don't get me wrong, there are great traders out there: Brian Shannon, Joe 'Upside' Donohue, Tim Knight. We just need to have an open mind, that's all.
Agreed. If you can't take control of your 401K, with it's laissez faire investment strategy, you will NOT be able to take control of options.