The Internet, eBay, even Twitter cum “X” are full of advertisements for trading systems that can make you rich. Ninety percent a month! Twenty-six trades without a loss! Five years in development, you can have a copy for $99! There is a fellow making big money with a new magic indicator about once a month. Who knew it was so easy to beat the market?
Essentially these are claims of having a trading Holy Grail: a program that wins consistently and does so for evermore. For some of my thoughts on such things, see my earlier post Why Systems Fail.
But the temptation of finding such a system is very strong. To me it indicates a fear of risk. In my humble opinion you must embrace the risk to be successful in the markets. Charlie said, “No risk, no reward!”
Collecting Technical Analysis Books
Around 20 years ago, in the early days of eBay, I still collected market and technical analysis books as a hobby. Many were short printings, hard to find and pricey when you did find them.
Sidebar: There was a hardback book published around 2000 on using opening prices. The cheapest copy I could find was $2,000. I passed on it. Then I found a spiral-bound copy for $150 from a fellow in Indonesia. I purchased it. Soon I got a nasty letter from the author telling me to turn in the book to him immediately or face the consequences. I wrote back that he could have it for $150, but suggested the fellow in Indonesia was who he wanted to contact!
A Box from Missouri
Checking eBay with various keywords, I noticed someone selling quite a few technical analysis books I did not have. I bought six or seven of them and spent probably $400. A couple of weeks later the books arrived in a rather heavy box, with a handwritten letter from a woman in Missouri informing me they had belonged to her late husband.
Apparently, just before he died, he discovered the Key to the Markets, a.k.a. the Holy Grail, and made “a lot of money very quickly” in commodities, but soon after was transferred to that big trading pit in the sky. She sent me an email address and we went back and forth for a couple of weeks. I wound up buying the rest of his books at a good price. She told me she was sending her husband’s work gratis and perhaps I could figure out what he was doing.
I told her I would be happy to look but with no guarantees. She did not seem interested in the potential profits. She just wanted someone who understood the markets to have his work. I was humbled she chose me; she seemed like a really sweet gal.
Soon the other books arrived, along with a very large box of her husband’s work: several hundred pages of charts, notes and what seemed to be modified Gann charts. I could not help but think of the Goodmanism, “If you put enough lines on a chart one of them is bound to be right!”
But clearly the large handwritten charts and tables showed strong dedication and many, many hours of work. There was also a sheaf of brokerage statements showing very consistent profits in Corn and Sugar. By the time I got to examining the material, the woman had gone off the radar. For a few years I would pull out the box occasionally and try to determine what the fellow had done. But Gann and Fibonacci are not my thing.
I gave up after a few tries; it was beyond me. In retrospect, the best shot would have been to bathtub-analyze the brokerage statements and reverse-engineer his system.
At some point (we moved several times between 2010 and 2020) I decided the box had to go. I kept a couple of items as a remembrance and discarded the rest. Perhaps I threw out millions of dollars of profits in Corn and Sugar?
Two Items I Kept
Here are two of the half-dozen items I retained. I have blotted out the gentleman’s name and contact information.
And a corner of an oversized analysis of World Sugar. Imagine the time involved in compiling this sheet. It is full size, 18 by 14 inches.
If any reader has insights into this work, I would love to hear from you.
This post is educational commentary. It is not investment advice. Trading futures and FX involves substantial risk of loss.
Good Trading!
Michael Duane Archer
Related Reading
- Goodmanisms: Charlie Goodman’s Sayings on Trading, Explained
- Indicator Battery: Combining Moving Averages and Momentum
- The Mama-San Opens an Account: Why Some Clients Can’t Trade
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.