Quote from crgarcia:
University professors are sometimes asked by their students, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?"
The question usually rankles professors, who think of themselves as passing up worldly riches to engage in such an obviously socially useful occupation as teaching. The same question might more appropriately be addressed to technicians.
For, after all, the whole point of technical analysis is to make money, and one would reasonably expect that those who preach it should practice it successfully in their own investments.
On close examination, technicians are often seen with holes in their shoes and frayed shirt collars. I, personally, have never known a successful technician, but I have seen the wrecks of several unsuccessful ones. (This is, of course, in terms of following their own technical advice. Commissions from urging customers to act on their recommendations are very lucrative.)
Curiously, however, the broke technician is never apologetic. If you commit the social error of asking him why he is broke, he will tell you quite ingenuously that he made the all-too-human error of not believing his own charts.
To my great embarrassment, I once choked conspicuously at the dinner table of a chartist friend of mine when he made such a comment. I have since made it a rule never to eat with a chartist. It's bad for digestion.
Burton G. Malkiel
A random walk down Wall Street
