Nobody in the financial services sector goes to jail for loosing money. You get prosecuted if you misrepresent facts like performance records, actual performance, or just outright defraud your clients.

And that MA did and got sent to jail for.  What he did proves he is a liar, thief, and he has a sick personality.By not taking resposability for losses he made for his clients,and even trying to hide them,  shows he has a terrible character.   Do not trust this guy. He is bad. You get ZERO VALUE from him for your money. Buyer stay away!!!

Crook  of the Month: Martin Armstrong
Martin Armstrong: Miserable Trader and Former Ponzi scheme Operator Lies about His Terrible Track Record.
He claims to have been “self-taught”. I suppose he taught himself how to cheat investors because he certainly never learned how to trade commodities, as evidenced by the massive trading losses he suffered.
The district court sentenced Armstrong to sixty months imprisonment and three years supervised release, and ordered him to pay $ 80 Mio in restitution to sixty defrauded customers.
As part of his guilty plea, Armstrong entered a sworn allocution admitting to and describing his crime. In his allocution, Armstrong admitted that between 1992 and 1999, he sold promissory notes issued by Princeton Economics subsidiaries (“Princeton Notes”) to investors, mostly Japanese corporations.
Armstrong through his agents, represented to the investors that the proceeds from the sale of the Princeton Notes would be held in accounts at Republic New York Securities and that those accounts “would be separated and segregated from Republic’s own accounts and would not be available to Republic for its own benefit.”
According to Armstrong’s allocution, after he suffered “some millions of dollars of trading losses”, he decided “not to disclose to investors that ….  Substantial losses had been experienced in this trading of futures. And we did not disclose it.” Armstrong also admitted that his concealment of his losses went beyond non-disclosure: “letters were sent by my company to investors concerning how much money was in fact in the accounts assigned to them. I … did send out those letters, even though  I knew the amounts in the accounts were less than the letter stated.”

And that are the facts.

But - But  -  But !!!   Wasn't Jan 2020 to be a LOW  ?  Since 2015:   Economies down. Governments down, stocks down, interest rates up, Real estate down  and again since last summer:  down into 01/2020.

Then change of script:  maybe top, maybe low.   Then the ultimate fail:  Last Friday literally within hours on the All Time Top in Nasdaq 100:  Video with next level in DJ 40'000  Whoahhhh  kind of funny - I mean really?

And I worked over 30 years with big financial institutions.   Nobody there would ever be interested in such analysis.

MA and Socrates is the biggest shitshow I ever have come across  in the advisory business.

Over the years I have saved a lot of his stuff  including tons of data from Market Watch on my computer.
Already the whole setup of Market Watch is made to deceive you. eg on every level the Trend can change until the timeframe is finished.
Example: It can show on the yearly level until Dec 30 of the year "Bear Market" and change after the last trading day of the year is finished to "Bull Market" or something else.
So for the actual timeframe there is NO predictive and useful value.   And then I wen't back to see  what the results were in the next timeframe. Absolutely random. Valueless.

But absolutely not acceptable was the following.  I detected, that several timeframes later the  made predictions for a certain timeframe were changed and altered on a future date.  And this is fraud.

MA should maybe on his next  ShitShow in Europe book some bodyguards instead of an Asian hooker.  Might be some of his groupies might not be that pleased anymore with him.

And if there is again some stupid idiot asking here if anybody knows what the other MA idiot is "predicting/spinning/telling fairy tales" then I can promiss them: MA and Socrates predicts always for any market in every timeframe 3 things: it can go up, it can down, it stays the same.  So he is always 100 % right. That is his game.

By the way:    T H E R E   is    N O     H O L Y      G R A I L - (period).

And some firms who developed  their  Bonanza Trading Apps (as mentioned here before) are not selling it to the public for 14.99 or 99.99.  They really do trade and make a killing. (MA pissed away and lost his investors funds and wen't to jail for that). 

I think MA has been doing more damage to Investors than any of the other bad Advisors
(I think even worse than Bob Prechter – and that is almost not possible to beat).
I was stumbling over his writings in the 90ties. And read some of his stuff over the years until the release of Socrates.
Thank god I did not listen. I use my own system. But always interested in new ideas and developments.
What I can say is, he was never right a market at the right time.
Examples:
Gold:  All the way from the bottom in 1999 to the top in 2011 his comments: No bull market, no breakout yet, not now – only when it goes above 2400 US/oz bullish.   It rose 700 %
US and other stock markets: did not recognize the bottom in 2009, then calling for lower 2011, 2013, then the end of the world in 2015 (always predicting a Slingshot move – first down – then up).
(That move had happened 2007 – 2009). 
Then the bullshit report End 2017: How to trade a vertical Market? DJ almost at 25000 (after almost 8 years of vertical market rise).  After his report almost 2 years of sideways high volatility gyration between 27’000 and 21’500.   And in every reaction, panicking and calling for  even lower lows.
Good luck with that.
Interest rates, housing markets :  100 % wrong
Bitcoin:  at around 2’500: Almost daily reports like: no bull market, Government won’t allow it, blablabla.  Next thing: parabolic rise to the 19’000 area.
And his Socrates is 100% crap. The software of the so called AI written reports is most probably written in Cobol and unbelievable stupid. In any timeframe you can always find on the report justification to buy, sell or be flat.
Always wrong any market.  And by law he is forbidden to give Financial Advice or manage other people’s  money.
And here his case:
Martin A. Armstrong, the founder, chairman, and owner of Princeton Economics International Ltd ("Princeton Economics"), an unregistered investment adviser, appeals from the decision of an administrative law judge. The law judge barred Armstrong from association with any investment adviser based on Armstrong's conviction on a single count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud, and commodities fraud and his injunction from violation of antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws. We base our findings on an independent review of the record, except with respect to those findings not challenged on appeal.
On August 17, 2006, Armstrong, then fifty-six years old, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud, and commodities fraud.1 The district court sentenced Armstrong to sixty months' imprisonment and three years supervised release, and ordered him to pay $80,000,001 in restitution to sixty defrauded customers.
As part of his guilty plea, Armstrong entered a sworn allocution admitting to and describing his crime. In his allocution, Armstrong admitted that between 1992 and 1999, he sold promissory notes issued by Princeton Economics subsidiaries ("Princeton Notes") to investors, mostly Japanese corporations. Armstrong, through his agents, represented to the investors that the proceeds from the sale of the Princeton Notes would be held in accounts at Republic New York Securities ("Republic") and that those accounts "would be separate and segregated from Republic's own accounts and would not be available to Republic for its own benefit."
According to Armstrong's allocution, after he suffered "some millions of dollars of trading losses," he decided "not to disclose to investors that . . . substantial losses had been experienced in this trading of futures. And we did not disclose it." Armstrong also admitted that his concealment of his losses went beyond non-disclosure: "letters were sent by my company to investors concerning how much money was in fact in the accounts assigned to them. I . . . did send out those letters, even though . . . I knew the amounts in the accounts were less than the letters stated."
So you want to send cash into the hands of this convicted felon, that looks like a slimy used car salesman who cannot write a sentence correct? Think twice.
Roger and Out.

absolutely agree on your comments on track-records. Anything that is not audited over a long time by a large Auditing firm is just a joke and not worth the paper it is writen on.

Would you mind sharing the name of the fund or money manager you mention here?  thanks

I do not see why there should be a crash in the near future??

Bonds are a suckers game, Interest rates mostly below inflation or even nominally negativ and   PM's and commodities have started a correction or even more ..

Do you wan't to stuff the cash under your mattress ??    

But you do NOT need  MA or Socrates to figur that out

I would like to dive into the historical testing of the DJ you  gave the Link.  I cope your article from the other forum:


Socrates Dow buy / sell signals - profit calculation
Armstrong has published the buy and sell signals for the Dow on the below long term chart. He has mentioned the "net profit/loss" number, but that in itself is not telling much about the real profit that could have been made. I've Iooked at every single position and calculated this chart with some real position and equity numbers. The following was the outcome.

Positions are additive and for simplicity I've taken the initial Dow at 7000 points = 7000$ for 1 position, but this can of course be scaled up or down. Depending on how much drawdown you are willing to accept (or capital / leverage is used), the below table shows the profit that could have been made.
Since the initial position size of 7000$ will change over time, the average position size during those 18 year was 10.500$ per position . The maximum number of open positions at one point was 9 positions which equals around 120.000$ in total. This was between 2004 and 2008 and all 9 open buy positions were closed in 2008 when the first sell signal came up. Then the first sell position was opened when the bear market ongoing. In 2002 the amount of sell positions was 9 positions (from 9 sell signals) which results to about 76.000$ in total, In Oct. 2002 all 9 sell positions were closed and a buy position was opened at the same time.
There was one period during 2008 and 2009 where 8 positions were accumulated (= 55.000$) and and in 2013 til 2015 it were 5 positions ( = 70.000$)
The average equity used over the 18 years was 35.000$ in this example.
The maximum drawdown happened during 1999 and 2011 were 3 consecutive open positions were closed with loses during a choppy period.
These numbers are calculated on the long term. There were 3 bull markets and 2 bear markets during that 18 year period. To take advantage of these numbers, one should to stick to those signals for at least 2 years (better 3 or ideally 18 years), I would say. As Armstrong also said, these signals work well during bull or bear markets. If the markets move sideways for a long time (several years), then signals don't work so well without timing.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The below values are related to the average equity invested over the whole time period of 18 years. In this case it is 35.000$
9 simultaneously open positions max. = 120.000$ max. investment at some point.
Max. drawdown is related to the average equity.

Max. drawdown 9% profit 160% (56.000$ without leverage)
Max. drawdown 18% profit 320%
Max. drawdown 27% profit 480%
Max. drawdown 36% profit 640% (224.000$ - with a leverage of 4x per position)
Max. drawdown 45% profit 800%
Max. drawdown 55% profit 960% (336.000$ - with a leverage of 6x per position)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since having 120.000$ invested at some point might not be an option for everyone, I've calculated this for fewer positions as well
and skipping everything above that position number. This is given that the initial positions size is 7000$ per position and position size is growing over time.

3 simultaneously open positions max = (40.000$ max.) - 10.500$ in average per position , average equity used during the 18 years = 23.000$
The 40.000 for 3 positions were only invested from 2012 to 2015. In 2001 there were 30k used for about 14 month, 31k in 2005 until 2008 and 34k for about 6 month in 2008. Rest of the time the equity was below 20 to 25k depending on the no. of positons (1 or 2).

Max. drawdown 15% profit 160% (37.000$ without leverage))
Max. drawdown 30% profit 320% (74.000$ - with a leverage of 2x per position)
Max. drawdown 45% profit 480% (111.000$ - with a leverage of 3x per position)
Max. drawdown 60% profit 640% (148.000$ - with a leverage of 4x per position)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

During 1997 til 2015 the Dow itself had a max. drawdown of 50% (in 2008) and a total profit of around 250%. However, who could have known that it really goes up to 17.000 - 18.000 in 2012 with all of the banking crisis and subprime crisis going on. Who would have bought and sold the Dow during the panic of 2001 or 2008 correctly?

So in my opinion those signals were very successful compared to the Dow itself and it is super-simple to follow. You just have to consider the buy and sell signals by looking once a month at Socrates.
What also needs to be considered is position size, leverage, duration of investment, trading tools (ETF's or alike), the max. number of positions and the max. drawdown that can be accepted. Profits could be re-invested and additional equity could be added over time so that one doesn't have to start with 120k or 35k equity from the beginning.
With only 3 open positions max. it may happen that one is not trading at all for 2 years because there were more than 3 positions open at the same time. Also a leverage of 2x - 3x would be good to compensate inflation.

This one took me several full days to collect the data and create the formulas. Quite some work...

[Image: does not copy]

*** Update 1 ***
some stats on 9 positions strategy : 49 trades in total - 36 win / 13 lost
some stats on 3 positions strategy : 49 trades in total - 30 traded (20 win / 10 lost) - 19 trades omited (more then 3 trade at the same time)

Ok here are my first questions:

- What are the signals exactly?   Are they  based on the reversals he publishes on Socrates now ? Since I remeber MA saying the signals are only available to corporate clients.

- Assuming the "system" is long:  When is the  long position closed and a short position entered?  At the first reversal, or second, or third or forth?

- At what price is the new position entered?  Since the  market must close the month  below the monthly reversal (in case of a potential new bear market) is the trade executed at the close of the month (in the last hour or so)   or on the opening prices of the new month.  Makes sometimes a big difference.

Also I would not call adding to a position (leveraging).  I would call it pyramiding.

Also why does the run end 2016 at Dow 17000.  It would be interesting to see the results of the move to 27'000 (easy) then down to 24'000 then up to 27'000 ten down to 22'000 then up again to 27'000 now    (all not so easy !).

thanks for your response.

First I do not think that MA will ever make public any meaningful backtesting results of SOCRATES. By meaningful I mean all timeframes of a diversified portfolio applied.
Not just a handpicked timeframe and market  - since I can find for any (even the worst) system  a timeframe and market where it has worked in the past.

After following the  "nice looking" system charts with the arrows  signals on them that he publishes from time to time I would assume that daily and weekly signals are outright loosers (buy the high - sell the low type signals). Monthly might by profitable but with huge drawdowns   and huge give back of open profit at market turns. Something that no trader can tolerate mentally.  Quaterly and yearly is complete garbage.

So I do not expect him to ever release any results. On your own you cannot do it since we have no data for the past.
I do not think there is a way to use Socrates sytematically to make a profit.

Just use regular charting software, look for  important support and resistance points from the past, watch if the market makes higher lows and higher highs then the trend is up, if it makes lower lows and lower highs, the trend is down and develop some rules how you wan't to enter in the direction  of the trend, decide where you are wrong and place the stop there and decide how you will exit the trade if profitable. And do not overtrade. Risk 0.5 to 1 % of equity per trade.
Nobody needs SOCRATES to do that.

Also please consider that Armstrong is approaching 70 years.  Nobody is mentally in his prime performance years  in his 70ties. We all deteriorate then.

I think that alredy shows lately in his blog posts - some of them come over as if a complete moron or crazy person wrote them.  I he was a proven loosing trader in his 40 and 50ties do you thing he is a great one now??!!!!  Don't think so.

"We are counting 12 signals in a single time frame. When we multiply this by 3 for daily, weekly and monthly time frames to be conservative, we get 36 signals, each of them may have different directions.

The Socrates "system" does not provide a computerized solution for consolidating these signals into a measurable response."


fully agree  - also with the rest of your post.

If Socrates as he claims were an Artificial Intelligence System it would consider and weight all this data and would spit out a conclusion like:

- as of the close today  the systems position is  Long / or Short / or Flat.

There are firms out there as in this forum mentioned  before,  that are sucessfully  using real AI and real math models
and not some shitty what - if Cobol 1980 computer code that cannot draw a correct trendline. All these successful firms use muti-market and correlations analysis etc.
and not some single price data analysis.

An example of such a firm is Renaissance Technologies.

Huge amounts of capital are directed into this type of research (hundreds of millions) - and with Moores law applied in this sector there will be next to zero room in the asset management  arena for freelancers and bullshitters in the medium to near future. This already manifests itself : Almost NO asset mager beats the performance of the Benchmarks. If  somebody is young they are much better of buying a few benchmark ETF's cross the major asset classes, save and add regularly to these products and let time and inflation  combined with very LOW FEES do their  magic.

And there is definitely NO need for a Charlatan Armstrong/Socrates ncluding 99.9 % of the rest of these "Asset Manager and Advisor and Newsletter writer" clowns.

I am challenging Martin Armstrong to publish historical results of his SOCRATES reversal system!

It would be very easy for him to shut up  all his critics by publishing historical results of the  Reversal "system", assuming the results were positiv .

What do I mean?  I show it as an example:

I am using Tradestation. I use as an example a simple breakout system (the so called Turtle System).

Initial capital:  USD 100'000   same rules and inputs applied to all symbols - so NO optimization

Symbols (futures contracts) traded:

Equity Indices:  YM, ES, NQ, FDAX, NK
Interest rates:   US, FGBL
Currencies:       EC, JY, SF,
Metals:             GC, SI, HG
Commodities:    CL, W, KC

based on Daily bars, over the last 10 years.

Results:
Total return:       $ 322'031
nbr of trades:      1997
winning trades       763
losing                  1230
% prof                 38,2 %       in range with most trend following systematic systems

avg trade:           + $ 135.33
Profit factor:         1.10
avg win/avg loss    1.77

compound Annual Return:  15.8 %
max consecutive wins:        9
max  consecutive losses:    24

max runups, max drawdowns   etc

Information like that helps you decide if you want to consider such a system.  In this exemple rather Not.

So I am challanging Martin Armstrong  to publish historical results of his reversal sytems  (Annually, quaterly, monthly, weekly, daily) in a similar manner to give clients or potential clients a chance beeing able to make an informed decision to use that approach.

He can add the usual dislaimer requested by CFTC  that it is   hypothetical etc etc blabla.



If he is not willing and able to provide that, would be the last major SIGN that  it is all a SCAM  or a loosing approach.

Until and unless HE PROVES the validity of his  "SYSTEM"   STAY AWAY.

Part 3
After MA having been barred from working as an investment advisor by the US securities industry, Armstrong has been on a crusade to rewrite his past as well as attempt to create a credible track record of economic forecasts. Armstrong has a good deal of experience in generating PR and fudging his track record. After all, this is how he was able to convince investors to hand over money to him which was then lost trading commodities.
Despite his claims to the contrary, Armstrong has no official written track record that can be relied upon. While he has written jumbled nonsense, he makes sure to keep things open-ended enough in order to flip-flop when things turn against him. In short, he offers virtually no transparency with regards to his so called track record. He mainly makes videos, gives fake interviews to shills and enters posts on his blog. This enables him to flip-flop and alter what he said in the past without much if any notice by the suckers who foolish enough to be foolish by his teenage antics.
Imagine if you had been convicted of running a Ponzi scheme and you were consequently barred from the securities industry. After you were released from prison, if you wanted to convince people you are credible, wouldn’t you make sure to publish all of your research in order for sophisticated investors to determine whether or not you had a clue and whether  or not you were publishing legitimate research?
On the contrary, if you were clueless, you would not want knowledgeable investors to see your “research” because they would realize you were nothing more than a fraud. Thus, you would be much better off by allowing only unsophisticated sheep who subscribed to your research to examine your “forecasts” because you could play word games with these naïve suckers and convince them that you made predictions when you really didn’t.
I do not know how MA can look in the mirror in the morning?
I feel sorry for the people who work for him.

Part 2.

Crook  of the Month: Martin Armstrong

Martin Armstrong: Miserable Trader and Former Ponzi scheme Operator Lies about His Terrible Track Record.
He claims to have been “self-taught”. I suppose he taught himself how to cheat investors because he certainly never learned how to trade commodities, as evidenced by the massive trading losses he suffered.

The district court sentenced Armstrong to sixty months imprisonment and three years supervised release, and ordered him to pay $ 80 Mio in restitution to sixty defrauded customers.

As part of his guilty plea, Armstrong entered a sworn allocution admitting to and describing his crime. In his allocution, Armstrong admitted that between 1992 and 1999, he sold promissory notes issued by Princeton Economics subsidiaries (“Princeton Notes”) to investors, mostly Japanese corporations.
Armstrong through his agents, represented to the investors that the proceeds from the sale of the Princeton Notes would be held in accounts at Republic New York Securities and that those accounts “would be separated and segregated from Republic’s own accounts and would not be available to Republic for its own benefit.”
According to Armstrong’s allocution, after he suffered “some millions of dollars of trading losses”, he decided “not to disclose to investors that ….  Substantial losses had been experienced in this trading of futures. And we did not disclose it.” Armstrong also admitted that his concealment of his losses went beyond non-disclosure: “letters were sent by my company to investors concerning how much money was in fact in the accounts assigned to them. I … did send out those letters, even though  I knew the amounts in the accounts were less than the letter stated.”

You wan't to send him money. Go ahead!

Part 1.
Moron of the Month: Martin Armstrong

Convicted Ponzi scheme crook, failed commodities trader and forecasting charlatan MA continues his desperate  campaign to rewrite has past while pulling all kinds of stunts aimed at fooling low IQ sheep into thinking he has a clue as to what is going on in the economy and capital markets.

Aside from larger scale, more obvious tactics utilized by Armstrong to mislead  his clueless sheep with regards to his track record, after a good deal of investigation I have very good reason to believe Armstrong employs individuals to make extremely favorable posts about him online. Perhaps Armstrong is even making these posts himself.
Whatever the case may be, I’m quite certain these posts are fake because they are always the same referring to him as “amazing” and “brilliant” or the “best economic mind in the world” when the videos and articles for which these posts have been made do not even remotely come close to providing any basis for these accolades. On the contrary, any intelligent person would most likely view MA as a complete moron posing as an investment authority.
As a matter of fact, let’s not forget that Armstrong is so clueless that he was responsible for having generated “spectacular losses” to such an extent that his complete absence of any degree of honesty and morality led him to create a Ponzi scheme as a remedy for his massive losses.
For those who might not be familiar with MA, he was convicted of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud, and commodities fraud, a felony arising out of Armstrong’s operation of Princeton Economics.
Prior to registering as an investment advisor, Armstrong had never worked for a Wall Street firm, nor did he graduate from college.
According to the government, MA sold interest-bearing notes to Japanese investors and, by mutual agreement, deposited the proceeds in managed accounts that his firm kept at Republic Bank in New York. He then used the incoming money to cover payments due to other, earlier investors, and also moved money out of their accounts and into accounts that he used to make speculative trades, which generated spectacular losses. To conceal this, he and Republic issued phony account statements to the Japanese investors.

Nice show of american culture

Video of brutal family beatdown at Disneyland

Almost not believable and sad   (copy and past in browser)

https://www.infowars.com/hold-my-daughter-vicious-disneyland-family-brawl-caught-on-video/

Avoid   Martin Armstrong / Socrates

as well as the other Jewish Pinheads, Broken Clocks and Con Men:

Kernen, Gartman, Prechter, Weiss, Roubini, Kudlow, Reich, Schiller, Altucher, Siegel, Quick, Burnett, Brown, Faber, Schiff, Shilling, Zandi, Stein, Ritholz, Kass, Celente, Link, Sorkin, Santelli, Stansberry, Schaeffer, Whitney, Cramer, Luskin, Nenner, Fisher, JC Parets, Greenberg, Rickards, Pento, Fleckenstein, DeAngelis, Norman, Shactman, Faber, Herera, Pisani

Would you mind sharing some of the sources that produce such returns  or claim to produce such returns?
Like give the website, the name of the service or describe the strategy. thank you.

I already expressed my thoughts about the MA and Socrates in post no 5709 on June 28

In several posts here other commentators were talking about Socrates being a system.

A trading system needs at least the following parts: 
-   1 A rule how to Enter into a position in a market
-   2 If a position is entered immediately set the level where you put your stop loss order
-   3 Rules how to manage the trade if the market goes in the desired direction until the trade is closed out
-   4 Money Management Rules: how much do I risk per trade (less is better!)
                                                  If I trade multiple markets at the same time how much is my total risk (again less is better – your survival rate in the market goes up!)

Now most Advisors/Gurus/Websites/”Systems” touted on the internet and on “Trading Shows” tell you about point no 1 (the Entry).
Now in my opinion points 2 to 4 together are more important than no 1.
But in MA and Socrates he doesn’t even give a clearly mathematically defined Entry.
And all the other points are not even mentioned.
Also to calculate point 4 you need to be able to do historical testing over long periods (the longer the better) with the exact rules. This will give you a lot of the data needed to decide if and how to trade the system and on what portfolio.
You might find out that the great System generated 15% pa return but had twice a drawdown in excess of 50 %.  So nobody would be able to trade that from a mental/and stomach perspective.
So,  Socrates does not even provide the Entries. Also it turned now out, that the nice looking Charts with the Arrows he sometimes uses on his blog, are not from the reversals of his site.
So MA and Socrates does not provide a System. Nowhere on his site (free to pro subscriber).
Also without going through some  extensing testing over long  historical data sets you cannot make a call on the points 2 to 4.
So in my opinion nobody can trade  with that information provided successfully and with confidence over a longer time.

So I have to give it a fat thumbs DOWN

Hi
First some background to myself.

I am 60 years old and have been a trader/investor almost all my adult life.

- Trading currencies at a major European bank
- Prop Trader at the biggest US Bank
- registered Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA)
- Trader/Investor

I have received 1990 the last paycheck form a company that was not owned by me.
Since then I paid my bills from trading profits (including bringing 2 kids up and through university).

Over the years I came accross and looked into most systems, approaches to trading,  Gurus etc. Mostly  out of curiosity and because it gets sometimes lonely infront of the computer (since I hold positions - mostly futures - for the medium term - e.g. weeks and months).

For several years I have employed a team of software programmers including mathematiciens and astrophysicists etc.
 
We have looked at most of the possible approaches to trading in the markets even "playing" with real AI.

After having followed the writings of MA  and then having subscribed to SOCRATES including several markets in the PRO Version I have to conclude the following:

It has some entertaining value in regard of showing what has happened in the past (History in Economics and Markets).

In everything else in regard to trading it will not help you  - I would even say it will confuse you.   Stay away - run away - save your time and money.

MA and SOCRATES is praying on the so called" HOLY GRAIL"  seekers - people who think somewhere there is a that MAGIC Indicator, System, Approach or Guru - and if they only knew that secret - they would be successful in trading and strike it rich.

Sorry to disapoint tem:  that magic bullet is not out there for sale.

But a lot of  snake oil salesman are out there who claim they have this "secret" for you to buy.

At least some of them have a good understanding of markets and trading gut feel - so they do not too much damage to clients .

But MA and SOCRATES:  one of the worst sites I came accross.  He is a fearmonger. There is always some major crazy thing supposed  to happen in politics or the markets and you need to buy his services to be able to survive that.

And do not forget. MA lost a huge fortune for clients and went to jail for that. He is prohibited  to manage money, give advise ore wor  in managing money - or he goes straight back to jail. I would even call him the Bernie Madoff of bullshitting investors.

He now  predicts a bottom of the ECM  in January 2020.  And we had a high in  September 2015.  The forecast was for slowing economy and deflation etc etc. And  we should be in a depression in Europe.

I can tell you, here in Europe  in general buiness is booming, prices in everything (services, real-estate etc) are going up and we have almost full employment.  Yes there are in certain industries some problems (Cars re. Dieselgate/switch to electro cars) and not  every student who studies "greek art"  finds a job in his field - but he finds a job in some field.

And now in regard to the coming turn next January:

- today his approach gives no clue what will happen.   Will there be a high, low, or in what what market to expect it.  So nothing for you to prepare.

But MA will come out next march and claim that this and/or that happened in January and how wunderful his model is.    WTF

If you did not make  a lot of money in the markets over the last 5 years then let go.

Take your funds and place them with some Robot advisor in your area that diversifies the funds in the different asset classes and does some rebalancing from time to time - will cost you  around o.5 % pa.  And enjoy live.