http://www.webtrading.com/issue28.htm
excerpt;
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George Bashar wants to know if someone has a good system, why would they share it with someone else? Here's my take on this. The first reason is obvious. In fact, George answered it himself in the last paragraph when he said that Joe Krutsinger, whose main forte is developing and testing systems, does not put out a system until he develops a better system to replace it.
There you have it. The system vendor may now have a better trading system which he/she is using in his/her own personal trading while selling the older (but still profitable) system to the public.
The second reason can also be deduced from George's description of Mr. Krutsinger -- "his main forte is developing and testing systems." While a system vendor may like developing systems, he/she may not necessarily like trading them. Everyone does not possess the discipline or the psychological makeup for trading. The logical solution is then to sell them. Even Jack Schwager of Market Wizards fame, says in his book that he likes doing research and creating new trading systems, but does like the actual process of trading.
The third, and perhaps the most important reason is leverage and transference of market risk. Let's say you have $10,000 of trading capital and a great system that makes 60% per year. Starting with $10,000 you can make $6,000 profits in one year, if everything goes according to plan. Not bad, but don't forget the amount of work it'll take, with all the ups and downs and trading for a full 365 days.
Now lets say you use the same $10,000 as marketing capital to sell your system. You send out 1200 direct mail letters to a targeted mailing list of people who have bought trading systems in the past. Even with 1/2% response, you get 60 order. Now if you charge $500 for your system, you generated $30,000 revenue or $20,000 profit, not in one year, but in a couple of months. Plus all the market risk has been transferred to the buyer. ..
