This is a bit of ramble about Jack (currently grob109). Before I continue I need to say that I think what Jack does is great and I have made great strides in trading thanks to his posts. I have nothing but good will towards Jack. I'm a student. Student is just a euphemism for being net negative or break even. I am looking to change that and we all know what's available to do so -- and much of it is snake oil and BS. When I came across Jack's posts I found a guy who seemed to be shooting straight and making sense and claiming to be a successful trader. Well I started really digging into his stuff and it made sense and I was quite thrilled by it all. Assumption: Jack is constantly saying that 4/5 people disagree with him. My assumption was that he is searching for the 1/5 who 'gets' him and tries to learn his philosophies... my assumption was that he wants a stable of (successful) traders molded in his image to prove a point to himself and his lifelong detractors. He is an older gentleman (I'm 31) and as you get older your motivations and priorities change. After a couple months I've reached these conclusions: 1) Jacks posts are informative, consistent and helpful. I'm talking about his signature long rambling posts. There are literally hundreds of these on ET and each one has at least one thing that can help you become a better trader. If you go back and reread some of them later you'll find something new. It does require work (thinking) and an open mind to get there. 2) Jack is not biased towards those who try to learn from him. It seems that Jack doesn't care how long or hard you've tried to understand his philosophies on markets and trading. If your post interests him - he'll post at what he perceives is the level of the post (or just a little higher)... but in general the only ongoing relationships he seems to acknowledge are with his *detractors*. 3) Jack does not express interest in seeing progress in those who try to learn from him. At first blush - Jack appears to be this experienced trader who wishes to pass on his wisdom to willing students. This may be true - but I don't see him openly expressing any desire to monitor the progess of his students. This is not a complaint - just an observation. He does what he does for free and this is already beyond what a person should reasonably expect. 4) It seems to be quite difficult to get Jacks attention on anything other than his terms. This makes sense... he's doing this for free which mean he is doing it for fun. He has a life. Time is a valuable and limited resourse. If being obliged to someone is not fun (which generally it is not) then why do it? So... I'm not a dope and generally I wouldn't assume that a person would give away a lot of valuable time and information for free AND be of service to those trying use the information in a constructive way. There was something about the way Jack portrayed himself that led me to this and I feel a bit foolish for even going there. I'm writing this because I don't think I'm alone on this. Conclusion: Jack reminds me of Gene Wilder in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (which is ironic by itself) -- a succesful intelligent eccentric who appears to always be a step ahead of you -- always thinking and playing by his own rules. Learning to trade from reading the history of Jack's posts is a bit like learning to dance from a series of still pictures. There is a key element that just is not there and you can only hope that you will "get it" on your own... of the 1/5 who actually try... some will - some won't. I'm glad that Jack posts here. I think he typically has something to say that is useful and enlightening. My advice to would-be students of his writings is that you are (basically) on a one way street. To everyone - Jack is a source of insight and information (take it or leave it). To *most* people - Jack is not a coach or mentor or confidant. The boundary on how far you can go with it is yourself. Perhaps I'm overstating the obvious - perhaps I'm judging hastily but I felt this needed to be said. JT
Have you ever printed out one of Jack's posts... highlighted it with a marker and then filed it into a 3 ring binder? If you have then whats the confusion? If you have not then I'm not surprised you are confused by my post. Others won't be. JT
Actually, I have never made it through one of Jack's posts.....id fall asleep way before the end.....he is a very intelligent man..no doubt...but his posts tend to ramble and bounce from place to place.
Hi BA_Trader, I trust you are not again one more of Jack's many identities. You probably honestly believe every word you printed here. This is not the question though. It's a simple question of sanity, given the enormous load of stuff published under one of the Jack names and the many people who questioned it. Taking you up on your own words that you are note a dope, please take a look at the following excerpt of Jack's prose: " The fractal change is based upon statistics that predicate that any loop filibration on one fractal can be terminated on the next faster fractal using the same rules. This is an abstract statistical method based on Alexanderâs Method for least connecting systems for optimum system operation. A concurrent theorem on the migration of the market operating point and what the controlling facet is, is what establishes the market as a system of interrelated cells and how that connectedness may be optimized. One of the dimensions of the operating point matrix is the set of fractals." Kindly explain what is meant by "an abstract statistical method", "Alexanderâs Method for least connecting systems for optimum system operation", "concurrent theorem on the migration of the market operating point", "dimensions of the operating point matrix". Thx. for helping out, nononsense
Hi nononsense... I recognize your handle from Jack's posts. You are absolutely correct... the example you give is a great example of what I'm referring to when I say that Jack is a "one way street" ... he is not interested in clarifying any statement on anyone's terms but his own. Your assumption is that the statement is just intellectualized mumbo jumbo -- used to coerce people in to believing he is the smartest guy on ET (not sure why anyone would desire this title actually ) I could make a wild guess at what that statement means (with the aid of google and a dictionary) but -- I think you are questioning his motivations rather than the statement itself... and really you're questioning Jack's credibility. Hey - as far as his innermost motivations go -- I don't know - you don't know. I think Jack is credible... I think many of his posts are useful... but as you observe I believe that you have to simply take him at face value... which I did not at first and that's what motivated me to write that post. JT
Hi BA_Trader, Thank you for your thoughtful post. Indeed, I question Jack's credibility. I left no doubt about this, I hope, in my previous post. Of course, many posts at ET are questionable. We are mainly interested in profitable trading. Verification of most claims is impractical and thus impossible. Most of us recognize this. Whenever a participant builds up a pile of posts like Jack's, with its history of controversy, its legions of followers and its hordes of detractors, common sense seems to make it desirable to examine his writings a somewhat closer. This is why I used the term "sanity". If something doesn't make sense, it simply doesn't make sense and conclusions should be drawn from it. Don't think that I am nitpicking here on Jack's "oeuvre". I carefully selected something out of his own SCT publication cited by him as an underlying reference. Unbelievably pretentious vaporous terminology that can be rigorously questioned. I did this several times in the past and NEVER got any response. I refrain from speculating about the underlying causes or motivations. I simply cannot bring myself to take anything as serious coming from the same pen. If Jack helped many in learning "how to make money", lucky them. He only confirmed to me that a lot of stuff is not worth bothering with. Be good, nononsense
I haven't seen the the chocolate factory movie but I have been to chocolate factories so I know how the management works there. I appreciate the effort it took to present the notes on my ops here and my personal characteristics. This thread will unfold in the normal ET progression as we all see. I was thrown out of here on the usual basis of how ET operates. At that time I was using my name and the name of my partner's oldest cat (jack hershey and bubba7). I had two names which I stated from the get go. This was because I used two computers, each with it's email address and I just reasoned that that was the way to do it. Now I use the name Grob109 a name I chose because of the kind of glider I fly; I use my partner's business email address for that. Last week I changed that email address to a new one I have here at our residential offices. People respond to me or they are drawn to what I post because of something. I guess it is the picture they have of me or my posts based upon how they view things or people or situations. I Progoff journal, so my perspective of me is mostly what I am and what I have chosen not to be. The substantive content of what I post is the result of comprehensive SA. My writing style comes from just doing run on copy to get stuff on paper. I write for publication as well, always by invitation. When I resume regular activities, I will complete a set of books on investing from the SA viewpoint. I have costed out the manner in which they will be done and given to others. I am glad that someone has done this clarification here, by posting this thread in chit chat. Those who have contributed so far further define personal limitations that are common for people in ET. There are more extreme views, of course. Nitro is a good example. So is trend fader and the pair steve46 and dbphoenix. The Nitro view: 200 aliases, all crap from Jack and that I am a snake, is a fairly irrational viewpoint. Trend fader represents the view of a person who has acheived repeated failure; there are two consequences which will come up later if ET gets to that level of discourse. The failure of "knowing how to know", is represented by steve and phoenix. Besides that there is the pussy crowd. ET is a place for almost everyone. I will probably not survive this segment of time if another bunch of whiners goes to work again. I do not like being attacked and assassinated at regular intervals by people who are unable to put me on ignore because of their personal limitations. There are people here who "need" to be guardians of those they feel are not capable of taking care of themselves. Nitro is a person of this ilk. I am a person he needs to "handle" to make it clear what I am to the people he feels are incapable of taking care of themselves. I do care that people learn to make money and I feel that they can add whatever of what I post to what they do to improve their existing approach. There are considerations for doing this. I believe that people make decisions based upon their beliefs. Using a particular trading device properly works best if the belief system a person has supports that trading devise. I do not think that people can consistantly use any approach if they fail to repeat, always, a sequence composed of at least four steps: 1. gather data, 2. analysis, 3. make decisions based upon comprehensive beliefs and 4. take action. There are many many approaches that work for making money. Doing the four steps is the best insurance that I know of.
The context of the paragraph is SCT trading. S means "seamless". C means continuous. The underlying principal is that you need to be in the market to make money. This extrapoloates to being in the makret all the time. If a person is in the market all the time, then, to make money you have to be on the side of the market that is making money and not on the side that is not making money. This presents two major analytical opportunities: look at the pro or the con side of the market. Since I do SA, I looked at both. The paragraph that is not understandable to nononsense is not understandable to him because of the reasons he states. I have to eliminate his difficulties because he did not do that by examining the subject of the paragraph and coming up with his alternative solution to the porblem. It my be even more difficult for him because he actually uses an alternative to SCT and may, in fact, not even agree that there is a possibility to be in the market at all or even most of the time. On ET the word "chop" is used often. It is a characterization people make that is in a context of "behavior" that is difficult to trade profitably. This is an expression that allows as how the "right side" of the market changes and changes in a complex manner. "chop" is a problem and there is a solution. There are many solutions, of course. The paragraph state my solution and the basis of my solution. Obviously the paragraph is too concise. But it does allow people to cease further consideration of my views. Any brief scoping and bounding of a problem solution allows a person to leave the scene of the accident. The four phrases were meant to convey the following. Alexander's Method is used to solve a problem. By organizing in a heirarchy a system that minimizes problems. This is a SA enterprise. Organizing a community government heirarchy by grouping under a health director the following groups, sewage, refuse collection, hospitals, and buildings and business inspection forms a cluster that is self policing and it minumizes involving higher management to a great extent. The method involves laying out a set of nodes and links and iteratively refining it by making cuts (slices) through it by severing as few links as possible. After that, seeing what is possible and reorganizing the network to make the slicing cut fewer and fewer links. This is a cost cutting and "time to resolution" minimizing technique. Communication loops are minimized saving time and money. I work with sequences in trading as the primary ramification of being in the market continually. Sequences are chains composed of nodes and links. I use coarse medium and fine chains of sequences. The major differentiation of coarse, medium and fine falls to looking "into" what is going on. For each of these differentiations I go two levels deeper. Nine levels all together of chains of nodes and links. The above paragraph composed of 6 sentences shows how a time based process creates chains. It also shows that to look "into" things, time is the basis. You spread out time to look at details as time passes.
I "see" the chains as rows and I stack them up. Or you could say I put coarse on top and go down to the details in 8 more layers. I also see that the chains on one level are connected to the chains on another level. I draw the connection as a "link". To further complete the picture, a SA concept of "feedback" is used. Also I determined that in trading things repeat themselves. Often this is referred to as periodicity. Man of the approaches used in the making of money involve a few or many of the above aspects of the market. Chains give rows. They are "stackable" because of their relationships shown by vertical links. This is a matrix of nodes and links. I make it into a vertical cylinder by bending it back to the beginning on two basis: "feedBACK" and "PERIODicity". "Areas" of this construct turn out to be it's most important blatant strong characteristic. ESPECIALLY AFTER I HAVE SPEND ENDLESS HOURS AND MONTHS AND YEARS EXAMINING THIS. I have arranged things to better and better define areas. I go from the simplest least risk areas to other areas to save time and money for people learning. Isolating market peformance areas is something that the macro people have not gotten to yet. The fact that the market moves about is not clear to anyone to speak of. I use migration to describe it. I couples as a pair, 1. determining that the movement is continuing along paths that provide continuous appreciation of capital and 2. determining, at the same time, that a disruption is not in the offing. 1. is trends and 2. is flaws. During all of this stuff, there is a condition that leads to repeated corrective action at frequent intervals where the cost of acting approaches the appreciation of capital. Most action most of the time is in response to 1. continuation. However, there are times when flaws appear and a defensive posture is used to stay on the right side of the market. At this time, it is better to examine the situation by going "into" the situation and use the same identical strategic ploys. Getting deep enough puts you "inside" the feedback loop and de facto takes it off the table at precisely the time when you are on the "right side" of the market condition in which the rapid filibration is occurring. This is a problem solution that assigns a proper value the importance of events in a strategic way by cutting costs and also preseving opportunity when market translation begins/returns in support of the market migration. In some way or several ways I have dealt with three of the four quoted phrases. The third one is so poorly understood that nononsence fails to basically understand that "concurrent" is something that involves two things. He can't process the phrase because he left out the second item. If he can get " concurrently A and B, then he can consider the relationship of A to B. One of nononsense's first attacks on me revealed that he did not know the "costs" of doing market trades in any or especially linked ways. He had to be told that the "spread" is "bought" on market trades. He now knows that. Most of the people at ET are in nononsense, nitro, trend fader steve46 and dbphoenix' s boat. Because of where they are, they will continually express themselves in the manner that they do. The AIDS of trading is a difficult thing to recover from. I do not do diagnosis of any one muchless prescribe. I can say however, that it is not a good idea for any person to assign to me topical thoughts of any sort that come up unexpectedly while reading my stuff. I specifically got thrown out of here by responding in kind to people that were laying numbers on me. These pussies then whined to the management. It just happens concurrently (two things at once) that people who have PNI problems are not able to self select to participate creatively and proactively in what I do. In ET it is not the custom to just lurk or better still to put me on ignore. In ET we get the nononsense treatment type thing. And the trend fader comment that I am "ridiculous" for posting what I do at the level of captial appreciation. Nitro suggests that I fake my prints using easy to use software that he names. When people did "backtesting" on my first posts, I was told that what I do does not work. As I continued to synthesize by going from plateau to plateau (larger areas) the presentation of the SA based approach I have used for 47 plus years, the backtesting stopped being posted. My take is that people are not too competent at back testing. The results they attained collectively varied by an order of magnitude. I deeply compliment inandlong for giving the equities trading stuff a fair shake. I beleive he worked his *ss off to get the job done and he succeeded personally because he accepted, provisionally, a set of pictures that werecongruent with the market. it is very very unfortunatel for the many many people here who will not give them a change to understand the market. The market is always correct. No one, but no one (Babcock included) can run the show. You will find out that 47 years of examining the market gets you to a place where understanding the division of responsibilty is very clearly defined and not negotiable now matter how adept you thing you are. I am very tired of the crap I get here. And sceondly you can count on what I say to be a very strong effort at getting it to a high quality place. If you thingwhat i write is babble, reconsider. I am taking the time to paint very difficult pictures by adding alot of differnt comments. I do type run on copy and I am not good at seeing if my computer is messy; I look at the keys as I type all the while. I do not have the use of most of my fingers.