Making JH' SCT and all his material alive

[baro-san]

This is the original chart, posted at the end of 2007 (if I remember correctly, it was a posted under a different name, because Jack was temporarily suspended). The link I have is in the old format, before the site upgrade:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=1881551

 

[RedDuke]

I followed Spyder, 1 year teaching thread, about the method through out 2007 in real time. Each month was on outline with a different part of strategy. Last month was supposed to be real live trading, putting it all together so to speak. Which obviously did not happen.

I met Spyder and a group in person few times. Once again all talk and no demonstration that it actually works.

Obviously nither Jack nor Spyder owed anything to anyone. But they spent countless hours that were like months of real time posting and answering. Why not spent one week, just one week, to demo that it actually works. This would have been humangous to their legacy. And no video of live trading ever existed, it was just mentioned over the years that it is out there somewhere. 1 guy that I knew went to the event where Jack was live in front of PC, but once again no live trading commenced, just talk about the strategy.

I offered many times to Jack to do a virtual room set up for him, but he always had some excuse about his PC not being able to handle it.

With all of the above. Method has some really interesting parts that might be usefull to some people. I personally used DOM wall concept in my trading many years ago.

 

[Sprout]

I followed Spyder, 1 year teaching thread, about the method through out 2007 in real time. Each month was on outline with a different part of strategy. Last month was supposed to be real live trading, putting it all together so to speak. Which obviously did not happen.

I met Spyder and a group in person few times. Once again all talk and no demonstration that it actually works.

Obviously nither Jack nor Spyder owed anything to anyone. But they spent countless hours that were like months of real time posting and answering. Why not spent one week, just one week, to demo that it actually works. This would have been humangous to their legacy. And no video of live trading ever existed, it was just mentioned over the years that it is out there somewhere. 1 guy that I knew went to the event where Jack was live in front of PC, but once again no live trading commenced, just talk about the strategy.

I offered many times to Jack to do a virtual room set up for him, but he always had some excuse about his PC not being able to handle it.

With all of the above. Method has some really interesting parts that might be usefull to some people. I personally used DOM wall concept in my trading many years ago.

I don't really know much of the history between you and those you mention, nor the promises made, kept and those broken. My opinion doesn't matter anyway.

However, consider for a moment the possibility that both of what Jack and Spydertrader espoused are true - that the principals outlined are as true today as back when Jack first started trading in the late fifties.


The following were questions I asked myself before engaging in the process of what Jack described as purposeful learning.

What would that live demo have proved?
What type of person would it attract that would require that proof?
What un-intended consequence would that have created?

The fact that one cannot find that live demo, what does that prove?
What type of person would it attract that would do the work necessary to take the material and prove it to themselves?

What intended consequence did not having a live demo create?


If one cannot recognize a greater understanding and skill that Jack and Spyder demonstrated in the veracity of their posts over the years, then seeing it demo'd live would not change that. It would cause even greater cognitive dissonance.

The trader who focuses on 'show me the money' loses to the trader who focuses on improving their understanding and skill and wastes no time getting to work to make that happen.

ymmv

and it most certainly did.

 

[Simples]

JHM core is really just pure trading during the times of most activity, using wash trades to minimize loss and risk. Having read many of the thousands of posts makes that clear to me, though working and no time and focus for such during office hours to pursuit it practically. Reading single posts and not doing any drills, the material is inaccessible, and by design.

The material is vast, and consists of pieces of big puzzles scattered over time. There are several methods or approaches discussed. The reader discouraged to collect, structure and actively work through the material.

Having coded most aggregate formulas, tried and backtested, nothing of such works consistently over time. It's surprising how much luck/timing can have a say, and how most complex formulas may break at any time, but that is how it is. Though, as with JHM it won't make much sense until one sincerely has tried oneself.

Learning parallellograms, 3 levels of channeling, the volume pattern and the more advanced topics is therefore refreshing, though also challenging. Ie. why use 21 ema strictly when half of the time price may be out of sync? Or what to do when sliding FFT of volume correllated with price, or the reverse, doesn't provide clear signals at any phase shift? At some point one need to follow just volume and price. After 20 years one might reinvent JHM's, or take benefit of posted material, drills and pass it forward in some manner.

 

[Howard]

What would that live demo have proved?

That the methodology actually works. Annotating charts and trading them in real time are not the same.

The fact that one cannot find that live demo, what does that prove?

That no live demo has been done.

If one cannot recognize a greater understanding and skill that Jack and Spyder demonstrated in the veracity of their posts over the years, then seeing it demo'd live would not change that. It would cause even greater cognitive dissonance.

Personally, I think it's borderline cruel if someone takes on the role of mentoring people and makes promises of enormous success, yet aren't successful themselves. It's dishonest and deceiving. And certainly true for many people in this business. The result is that people may be led on and lose years of their life and money.

Now, I'm not saying this is the case with Jack. But, there's no doubt he's made some very outrageous claims and was very dismissive of anyone disagreeing with him or questioning what he wrote.

 

[fordewind]

Borderline cruelty?No,it`s sexual harassment.

 

[Simples]

That the methodology actually works. Annotating charts and trading them in real time are not the same.

That no live demo has been done.

Personally, I think it's borderline cruel if someone takes on the role of mentoring people and makes promises of enormous success, yet aren't successful themselves. It's dishonest and deceiving. And certainly true for many people in this business. The result is that people may be led on and lose years of their life and money.

Now, I'm not saying this is the case with Jack. But, there's no doubt he's made some very outrageous claims and was very dismissive of anyone disagreeing with him or questioning what he wrote.

As Jack stated some times: "I may not be a very good communicator". I believe he enjoyed trolling ET, but also couldn't help some of his ways of expression. Ie. dividing people between A and B people, those are not values I share at all! From experience, "experts" and "special people" often have other undesirable traits, offputting to other people. The constructive approach is accepting people as they are and try to understand them, especially people who just cannot change!

The logic behind his systems make sense when you pull it all together, though no guarantees for consistent profits. In the end, doing the work from ground up, staying on the right side of the market no matter what, should be just as possible as someone who make that resolve from the get-go to find rules and beliefs to reinvent their wheels by. It's still up to the individual trader to make it on their own, or not, anyhow. Execution almost not touched by Jack either, so much to practice in order to get anywhere (eg. the "wash trades").

I don't believe you can make it just following someone else's system. One need to do it on their own, but guidance and tips from someone who've gone through alot of the work already should certainly help. Discerning what advice to take and how, still up to the individual to handle responsibly.

Learning to understand Jack takes tackling some major hurdles, though by work, one may reconstruct and refine the deeper logic. Not sure how to avoid inventing though, and if it works, why not? If parts of it works, other parts non-intelligible, no probs.

 

[Sprout]

Personally, I think it's borderline cruel if someone takes on the role of mentoring people and makes promises of enormous success, yet aren't successful themselves. It's dishonest and deceiving. And certainly true for many people in this business. The result is that people may be led on and lose years of their life and money.

Now, I'm not saying this is the case with Jack. But, there's no doubt he's made some very outrageous claims and was very dismissive of anyone disagreeing with him or questioning what he wrote.

What you’ve done with selectively answering a subset of the questions will provide an incomplete dataset. This will influence the quality of the conclusion.

Regardless of his communication style, there are some things he often repeated, some inferred;

1) YOU are in partnership with the market. The market ALWAYS has the answers you seek. If this is not true yet, perhaps it has more to do with the type of questions being asked than anything else.

2) The market can be approached and understood with the scientific method of inquiry. Deduction outperforms induction.

3) The method he developed was based on a different paradigm using the math of the market applied to the basic granularity of market data - ohlcv.

4) By methodically developing one’s discernment, one can begin to ‘see’ the market. The market continues to offer ‘tells’ of what it intends to do.

5) The biggest hurdle to overcome is TRUST in accepting the market ‘tells’ and acting appropriately.

6) What he was able to discern, another could as well and provide their own proof.

7) Any true proof is only the one that one works out for themselves.

8) One can achieve a state in partnership with the market where ‘knowing that I know’ is the default state of being in the market and on the right side of the market.

9) After building a spectrum of differentiation within one’s mind of market operation, if one is experiencing the CW states of fear, anxiety, greed, doubt, etc., that is informative of ‘not knowing’ - best to sideline.

10) ‘Building a spectrum of differentiation’ requires work. If one does the work to increase understanding and gain skill - they are positioned to extract more of the market’s full offer.

11) ‘Seeing’ what the full offer of the market is in any given moment is a function of this process of differentiation.


I agree with your description but not with the conclusion that it applies to Jack. From my experience, it’s so far from the truth, it’s comical. (That’s speaking to the premise in the line of reasoning and not directly at you personally.)


The truth about Jack is that many detractors collapse the messenger into the message.

 

[baro-san]

This back and forth, almost deaf, argumentation isn't new, and never led to a conclusion, and never will.

1. If one discloses a method that works, enough people will jump on it, professionals the fastest, the market behavior will change, and the method won't work anymore.

2. Jack Hershey described how the market works. It's up to each student to sift through the verbiage to understand it and decide how to use it for profit. It's like learning a foreign language: you can't be successful in China just by learning Chinese, but you can be successful if you understand the Chinese culture, society, people, even if you don't speak Chinese (but that might help).

People look for a shortcut to success (not only in trading). There isn't one that works for everybody.

 

[tiddlywinks]

2. Jack Hershey described how the market works. It's up to each student to sift through the verbiage to understand it and decide how to use it for profit. It's like learning a foreign language: you can't be successful in China just by learning Chinese, but you can be successful if you understand the Chinese culture, society, people, even if you don't speak Chinese (but that might help).

THIS is an excellent analogy of what JH and other practitioners offer(ed).

Thanks.