{"id":255,"date":"2024-11-06T14:06:01","date_gmt":"2024-11-06T14:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/50yeartrader.com\/blog\/berts-line-hold-trade-parley-silver\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T21:26:32","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T21:26:32","slug":"berts-line-hold-trade-parley-silver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/50yeartrader.com\/blog\/berts-line-hold-trade-parley-silver\/","title":{"rendered":"Bert’s Line: Trading Both a Trending and a Trading Market"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I met Bert Levy in the late 1980s, when his company did the underwriting for one of my commodity funds. We lost track of each other until one day around 2005 when I received a “Remember Me?” email. He had seen an article on Goodman Wave Theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We spoke and had a nice chat. He was comfortably retired and living in Evergreen, Colorado, with his wife. He wanted to get into trading a little and decided to take the Goodman course. We also connected over chess and even tried to start a chess club, but that did not get off the ground. Even after the course we stayed in touch and spoke fairly often about the markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Silver Conundrum<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Around 2010 we both felt Silver might be ready to move again. “How do we follow it?” was the question. We both remembered the 1970s, when the market took forever to move and just killed position traders by going back and forth between $6.00 and $9.00 an ounce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you want to be ready to go if the market takes off, but still do OK while it is wallowing. Quite a conundrum. Basically, how do you trade both a trending and a trading market at the same time? It seemed a complete impossibility, as the old Herman’s Hermits song might say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you follow the Goodman Line idea, you will do OK if the market soars, but you will never build a big position early and make a huge profit. We expected Silver to go back at least to the old highs of $50.00 an ounce. (Spoiler alert: it did!) If you follow the Gould Line idea, you will simply get killed in a sideways, trading market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What to do? We spent many conversations and a lot of time discussing possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bert’s Line<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Finally, Bert came up with an idea: essentially, do both! Naturally, we christened it Bert’s Line. Here is the scheme. Divide your trading stake into three units:<\/p>\n\n\n\n