Originally posted by toby400
Fools and Snakeoil Vendors
It's not that fools and their money are soon parted; but simply amazing that they ever got together in the first place.
We call it chasing rainbows over here in the UK. Most of us on both sides of the pond recognise the term "holy grail."
Maybe greed is the motivating factor, and a certain degree of sloth, an inability or unwillingness to put in the effort to achieve any reward in life.
Then along comes the snakeoil man in his rambling cart stuffed full of magic potions and various secrets of the universe, including how to get rich with little effort."Follow my system," he cries.
"Did you get rich following this system?" said a voice in the crowd.
"I get rich selling this system - software." whispered the snakeoil man in a moment of inexplicable honesty.
He need not have worried. No one heard him because of the clatter of chairs as the Fools rushed in to buy their bottle of snakeoil/system.
It was such a good day that the little old man who always popped up at meetings to exclaim how the snakeoil changed his life, was not called upon to perform. Perhaps the decendants of this little old man now pop up on threads to extoll the virtues of modern day snake oil.
Modern times are a little tougher for our snake oil man. He has to employ more than one stooge to appear among the crowd/thread to praise the potion, and a way controlling the media constantly occupies his slippery mind. If he can ban people from voicing a dissenting opinion, he will do so.
Damn those wise and experienced people who poke their noses in to warn people of the impotence of his magic potion/system. How dare they ask for proof. How dare the snake oil mans' past victims appear and criticise him.
Life is tougher for the snakeoil man, but he knows that if he shouts " become rich - no effort" often enough, then no amount of warnings from the wise and experienced, indeed warnings from past victims, will prevent the Fool with selective vision/hearing from biting the hook of the snakeoil man.
Toby
__________________
[/QUOTE
I quoted this post again so that it would be on here 3 times...the number of times that everyone should read it.
Sue, don't be so quick to criticize Toby. Every trader (not vendor) at some point in their career...usually long before they are consistently profitable, comes to the same realization as he. Many here have said it over and over...there are NO shortcuts. If you want to use the software to give you a bias like with any technical indicator, then more power to you. Its your money. But for anyone to advertise a product as "buy green, sell red, make money" is at best unethical, and at worst, criminal. And to fault someone for warning beginners (who are hungry for anything to help their trading) is not right. I hope it works out for you.
I don't think its necessary to use a product before warning people of the dangers of being led astray. Do you have to try every weightloss pill before you realize that they don't work? I would recant my statement if I had seen even one...just one, piece of software that by itself, made money. After searching for the last 10 years, I can say, that it doesn't exist. Why do people find it so hard to understand that if someone has a trading system that consistently wins they are STUPID to sell it to the public? The money to be made trading it would far surpass the money made from retail sales.
The comment about the data feed made no sense. Data is a tool, and no data vendor claims to make you money. I'm not aginast tools...I'm against claiming that "if you buy my product you'll make money"
But Toby is right. The vendors far outnumber (or out-yell, as the case may be) the experienced traders who try to warn the newbies. The ones who know better get fed up at being criticized for trying to help people and they go away...just what the vendor wanted. Its happened over and over on these forums. Its always been that way and it always will be that way.
Best of luck in your search. I hope it comes quicker and cheaper than mine did.
