Have you used dbphoenix's teachings to become a successful trader?

As to the question of "stupid or lazy" raised by Ditch, this was written quite some time ago, but it seems pertinent. Perhaps it will help him:

...99% of newbies are deaf when they are told by genuine traders the real hard facts that they need to know about trading. First of all they put their hands up in horror, then they give a mouthful to the person who has told them, and then they firmly slap their hands over their ears so that they can't hear any more.

And then someone comes along who tells them all the sorts of things they want to hear. Wonderful cosy things such as how easy it all is, how it only takes a few hours to master the markets, how money just falls over itself to jump into their accounts, how special software will only select winning stocks, how a newsletter will reveal all the secrets, how there are secret formulae and secret pivot levels which are guaranteed to work, there's a guaranteed money-back offer, etc, etc. They are wooed by these softly spoken people and happily hand over thousands of pounds and wait eagerly with their wheelbarrows to cart off all the promised riches from the market. And they end up having to sell the wheelbarrow to get the bus fare for the trip home.

There are things newbies NEED to know, but these are never the things they WANT to know.

Skimbleshanks

Wyckoff is about understanding how the Law of Supply and Demand governs auction markets and how to "judge the market by its own action".

The rest is just detail.
 
VPhantom said:
Who the hell cares, if he's doing it for free? What's your angle? Ever heard of "giving back"? Why the sarcasm? I for one think that if he positively impacts just one person per year, then the effort of answering everyone's questions in forums is worthwhile. I'm not sure I would though, given the kind of backlash it's causing around here.
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There's very few people in the world that do this for free on the internet, 2 of them are on ET, DB and ND. Don't you think they deserve a medal?
 
Ditch said:
There's very few people in the world that do this for free on the internet, 2 of them are on ET, DB and ND. Don't you think they deserve a medal?
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Not when it's sarcastic. You clearly don't mean, just stirring the pot. Plus, would they care? They already make their money elsewhere.

I do think that some form of recognition would be in order, to help newcomers find them amidst this huge haystack of information, but then that'd inflate egos and probably ruin what's currently a good thing: successful traders who are secure, humble and interested enough to offer uninhibited free advice to the next generation. We need those people. They're hard enough to find. Especially when non-trading "vendors", as they're called here, pollute the industry with gimmicks and lead new traders astray. Even those whose teachings may not ultimately become part of our trading plan for whatever reason, still help us get there, if nothing else, at least by reinforcing the notion that there is no holy grail nor substitutes for putting in one's time and effort. I love learning by example, and I'm certainly not the only one. Let's not insult those rare few away from the public.

Some big names with publicly proven track records going back decades are giving back as well, which shouldn't be discounted. For example I've seen very useful free webinars and articles complete in themselves, with no information withheld for an ulterior sales motive (even though they do sell some services elsewhere, alas). Linda Bradford Raschke, Timothy Morge, Adam Grimes, David Weiss and maybe Gary Dayton come to mind from my recent experience, in no particular order. Tim Morge also used to donate his time to teaching 5th graders a basic form of long-only price analysis he called "crayon drawing" (the kids outperformed the S&P, too, just "filling mountains" which is another way of saying "buy at support").

On the fundamental side of things, I don't think that for example George Soros took the time to write his thoughts in hopes of supplementing his income with book sales. :p (On a personal note: "reflexivity"? I'm happy settling for the shorter-term simplicity of technical price action!) Heck, Warren Buffett doesn't need to write 10+ page shareholder letters every year when a simple "yup, we had another good one" would almost suffice. (Calm down, I said almost!)

No free teacher claims to "know the one truth"; that's something vendors do. In fact, all those I mentioned above go out of their way to motivate rookies to do their own research and develop their own personal trading plan.

So I'll say again: sarcasm towards the few who dispense free advice with no strings attached or ulterior motives, is not only in poor taste, but is actually a disservice to newcomers by contributing to the confusion they face when searching for good sources of information. The "vendor alert" posts are very useful (wish I had seen the ones re: Shogun-Trader way back in 2003!), but this trolling of generous non-vendors is way out of hand and contributes to the problem, not the solution.

Now if you had studied through Wyckoff's original 500-page material, in addition to @dbphoenix 's modern take on it, and raised specific issues, maybe we could make some progress together and attempt to resolve them, to the community's benefit. Otherwise, you aren't a credible detractor, and I don't even want to know why you'd waste your time trolling in the first place.

(I'm not done with the material nor the homework, so I don't have an authoritative opinion yet. I'm not defending @dbphoenix in any way here, which he's perfectly capable of doing himself anyway. I am, however, losing patience with the unsubstantiated trolling. For example, I asked for important clarifications twice to @marketsurfer and he never backed up his claims with usable facts. It's very frustrating.)
 
@VPhantom

A couple of remarks:
First of all, where are those proven track records of DB and ND? Why don't they disclose their performance, Soros et al have no problem with that. Secondly, trading is a dog-eat-dog world, your profit is someone else's loss, so what motivates these two wizards on ET? You just can't get it into your skull that no sane person is going to offer an education on a complex subject to total strangers, of which the majority consists of dumb and lazy people, for free. When was the last time an university offered to educate you for free? As for the trolling remark, that gets handed to anyone, who criticizes your guru, and shuts the door for sharing anything for the benefit of the community. Can't you understand, that that gets you nowhere? And if anything is shared it's by PM and not on the forums. That fact alone should raise a red flag.
 
Ditch said:
@VPhantom

A couple of remarks:
First of all, where are those proven track records of DB and ND? Why don't they disclose their performance,
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My point is that nobody interested in the material gives a sh*t about their performance. :) It's up to the student to fool around with the technique to see if there's anything useful to them in there. If it's a pile of crap (at least to them), it's pretty easy to recognize and move on elsewhere. And clearly, there are people like @fortydraws who benefit. That's why some great teachers could also be bad or failed practitioners. Heck, I have perfect pitch, but I can't sing. ;) Sure the voyeur in me would be curious to see them go at it for a week, but I don't need it to give the free material basic consideration and judge its usefulness for myself.

Ditch said:
Soros et al have no problem with that.
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They have to disclose their results, managing other people's money. You're completely besides the point.

Ditch said:
Secondly, trading is a dog-eat-dog world, your profit is someone else's loss, so what motivates these two wizards on ET? You just can't get it into your skull that no sane person is going to offer an education on a complex subject to total strangers, of which the majority consists of dumb and lazy people, for free. When was the last time an university offered to educate you for free? As for the trolling remark, that gets handed to anyone, who criticizes your guru, and shuts the door for sharing anything for the benefit of the community. Can't you understand, that that gets you nowhere? And if anything is shared it's by PM and not on the forums. That fact alone should raise a red flag.
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Alright, let's do this point by point, because you're verging on incoherence:
  1. If one develops a limited technical edge, like ECN discrepencies or something exotic like that, of course it'll stay secret, because publication would dilute its performance. Reading price action in an index future at retail sizes hardly qualifies as such a low-volume niche. And there are plenty of clueless traders out there to supply liquidity at opportune times.
  2. My skull is fine, thank you. :cool: I don't appreciate the ad hominem attack, nor is it necessary in a civilized argument. The "majority of dumb and lazy people" will not benefit from education material, be it high-priced or given away. They couldn't get a diploma in engineering, either, even on a scholarship ride, because it requires too much work. Again, you're arguing besides the point. I have tutored people on software engineering, for free. By your definition, I would be an insane person. As would be other volunteer workers. Even if you yourself are selfish, can you really not at least imagine other people being capable of generosity?
  3. See MIT OpenCourseWare, Open.Michigan, and other OpenCourseWare initiatives at Carnegie Mellon University, University of California (Berkeley), Stanford, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Yale and Caltech, just to name actual sanctioned brick-and-mortar universities in the USA offering free education since 2002.
  4. I don't have a guru and said as much, so again your ad hominem attack should have been worded generally. As to benefiting the community, please see the very post you were responding to: by trolling without contributing any useful information, trolls just dilute the threads they post in. Heck you seem to have ignored that part, let me help you remember:
VPhantom said:
Now if you had studied through Wyckoff's original 500-page material, in addition to @dbphoenix 's modern take on it, and raised specific issues, maybe we could make some progress together and attempt to resolve them, to the community's benefit. Otherwise, you aren't a credible detractor, and I don't even want to know why you'd waste your time trolling in the first place.
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That material you and I are referring to in this thread, Wyckoff's course from the 1930's and @dbphoenix 's introduction, isn't hidden away in secret private messages as you claim, but openly available, and damned easy to find too. In case you fall under the "lazy" category, here is the bulk of it, all neatly organized:
Read that, then come argue its validity with credibility. You're supplying unfounded trolling until then.
 
@VP

Dude, it comes down to this: you're a noob, who has nothing of value to offer with regard to trading. You are in no position to tell others what they need to contribute on this forum. Got it?
 
Ditch said:
@VP

Dude, it comes down to this: you're a noob, who has nothing of value to offer with regard to trading. You are in no position to tell others what they need to contribute on this forum. Got it?
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Even worse, in such a manner telling others what to do and what not to do!!!

dbphoenix said:
Yes. Thank you, OT. We got it. But you're not required to read this thread. If you're upset about having missed most or all of the upmove over the past few weeks, that's something you should work on.
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http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index.php?threads/is-jack-hershey-a-liar.245125/
 
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