Charlie loved to go to the dog races (greyhounds). In the 1970s Colorado had four tracks, each open for three months, one for each season. I have an image of Charlie at the track, having won a race for twenty or thirty dollars. He was walking quickly with long steps to the cashier window to get the money, perhaps having just made $5,000 on Beans. Yet that small win was a big deal for him.
As he walked past me, big smile on his face, he said, “Dad, you can figure the dogs but you can’t figure the human race!”
A Midnight Drive Over Monument Pass
One time we were driving back from the track in Colorado Springs, about 50 miles south of Denver. The Rocky Mountain Kennel Club hosted the winter months. “Heerreee comes RUSTY!” It was about midnight and we were driving over a thankfully clear Monument Pass back to Denver. I recall this clearly because I had a new Datsun 280ZX Turbo, and it had the unfortunate habit of stalling suddenly and unexpectedly. I was just hoping it would not stall when Charlie began to speak.
The Young Trader Who Found It Himself
“In the late 1950s I met a young fellow who was learning to trade. He looked like he had some promise. I approached him and over several short meetings I explained things to him.
“The basic 1-2-3, propagation, intersection, etc. He seemed vaguely interested but not particularly connected to it. I soon lost track of him.
“Several years later I saw him at a brokerage house and asked him how his trading was going. He was quite animated, excited.
“‘I’ve tried everything under the sun! But just recently I finally found something that works! The markets are all 1-2-3 waves and they are interconnected, Charlie! I wait for one to repeat, then hop aboard! It is working very well for me!'”
Charlie told me he was initially stunned, as it was the same thing he had told the fellow years before. It set him to thinking.
“Dad, I realized he had to find it on his own. You couldn’t tell it to him, it was a waste of time! I now understand that is human nature. Finding something on your own means so much more than having someone give it to you or explain it to you!
“This is also why each generation must learn life anew. Parents tell their kids things and get ignored, but when the kids find it later on their own, it is knowledge!
“That’s why I teach you by example rather than long explanations. You need to figure it out on your own!”
Good Trading!
Michael Duane Archer
Related Reading
- Commodity Futures Shoot-Out: Why Reward Without Risk Fails
- D’s Harmony in the 6th Race: Goodman on Position Sizing
- Goodmanisms: Charlie Goodman’s Sayings on Trading, Explained
Keep Learning the Goodman Way
If this article was useful, these are the next steps:
- The Method: propagation, intersection and the 3-C Principle, drawn plate by plate.
- The Goodman Library: the books, from Goodman for Grasshoppers to The Goodman 6 & 6.
- The Trader’s Playbook: the Molokai setup in one printed, numbered volume.
- Mentoring: work one-on-one with the authors.