I am still in the testing and analyzing phase of Socrates Pro. I do have money to work in the markets, but not related to any calls by Armstrong. I admit I lost money on a gold trade when he stated gold would go under $1000 at the end of 2016. I was shorting gold only to have it reverse on me very quickly. Weeks later, MA stated, see our levels held! And, I was like...wait a minute...this was a 180 degree turn from what was being stated on his blog. I did however make money on another gold short when the 1365 level held last year, but a simple resistance line was the "call to short" for me. His number acted as confirmation when we didn't cross it to the upside.
As, I previously mentioned this is not a system that clearly indicates buy or sell. I find the arrays extremely confusing evening after reading his guide. Sometimes the arrays work and sometimes they don't. When they work to the day it has me being a believer and that there is promise, but other times they fail and a "cycle inversion" or nothing happens in either direction...and this is frustrating as the "system can never be wrong."
The arrays did not pick up on any large movement from the Dec 2018 low to present in the DOW. That was a huge move. I have spent a long time in cash as we are to test the December lows. So, I am waiting for a substantial pullback.
There is talk of version 2.0 of Socrates- what that looks like is a guess to me. I always felt that MA has access to so much more than what has been released for $150 a month to the public. As I mentioned earlier, other cyclical analysts either have cycle brackets showing movement in a predictive fashion or an actual line showing predictive movement with accuracy and backtesting is visual as it is on a chart. There is some talk about cycle inversions...or delays in cycles with others as well however.
So, a bit frustrated as I thought Socrates would be "more", but I am not giving up on it yet.
In my experience, the cycle thing is not good. Sometimes he actually does manage to call major highs and lows. The problem is the false positives when he calls for a move the other way but it does not happen.
The only possible thing that may have merit is the Reversal system. This means trading in the direction of the elected reversal (a misnomer! beware) and not a true high or low catching strategy. In volatile moves, it can be difficult to discern trend and direction, as well as how far a move can go. But if the Reversal is elected and a large space between, and if the system works, then it knows that there is still a lot of move left. It does leave a lot of move on the table, but it should also catch large moves. The problem is a large drawdown depending on how stops are used- I've heard conflicting accounts on how they are meant to be. And other problems associated.
Who knows. There is one user who does trading based on Directional Change and open prices, something like that. Last I heard, he claimed to be doing well with all the trades working out, there were less than ten though and I don't know what happened thus far.