From: onder@ISI.EDU (Bruce Onder)
Newsgroups: misc.invest
Subject: Re: IISTGTBTIPI
Date: 16 Apr 92 22:23:46 GMT
Distribution: misc
Organization: USC-ISI
In-reply-to: rjohnson@shell.com's message of 16 Apr 92 17:41:22 GMT

In article <RJOHNSON.92Apr16104122@chiton.shell.com> rjohnson@shell.com (Roy Johnson) writes:

>First, I must say:
>If It Sounds Too Good To Be True, It Probably Is.

True enough.

>Now, I would like information (please, not speculation; I can
>speculate) about The Ken Roberts Company.  I just got my "well,
>I said I wasn't going to send you any more, but I got these
>letters of testimony and you just had to see them but this is
>really your last chance" mailing from him the other day.

I'm just completing the course, so I'll comment...

>For those who don't know, but are curious, he's got a "system"
>for reading newspapers 10-15 minutes a day, and applying the news
>to investing in futures options.

Basically:  Watch for futures making 52-week lows or highs to form a
"1-2-3" formation.  Go long or short as apppropriate.  Pillar or
pyramid as profits accrue.

Or:  Watch for sideways channels.  When they finally make their break,
they tend to break up or down as long as they channeled sideways (ie,
if gold channels for 3 weeks between $400 and $420, when it breaks
out of this range, it will tend to rise of fall for 3 weeks.

Really, it doesn't take much time to do this.  I get IBD, turn to the
charts, and look for candidates (futures that make seasonal highs or
lows).  If I find any, I'll add them to my charts.

>Of course, the mailing has numerous letters from people who are
>raking in money using his methods, and "I knew absolute ZERO about
>the futures markets."  I wonder how many people simply lost their
>money and collected the refund?

I will be collecting my refund.  Here's my record:


April Platinum		-   $50
May Lumber		-$1,840
May Bean Oil		+  $624
June T-Bills		+  $150
June Gold		-  $640
Coffee			-$2,812
-------------------------------
Total			-$4,568

In other words, I shot my $5,000 wad in about 4 months!  :)

Currently, I am only in the "paper" market for one contract:  I'm
short one May Copper, which is currently showing around $200 profit.

Now, I have some ideas about why performance wasn't better.  I'm not
defending him, just theorizing.  See below.

>Details:
>- Cost of enrollment is $195

Hmm.  I paid $180.

>- You will learn a profit formula that works in any economic climate:
>inflation, deflation, recession, depression (how about stagnation?);

I wouldn't know.  :)

>- You will receive my monthly bulletin for three full months giving
>advance [?] notice of the special situations we use to profit;

In other words, he tells you which contracts he's watching, and
whether he would enter the market with futures right away, or buy
options (another course).

>- You'll receive an access code to the private 24-hour Alert-Line
>telephone number.  I update this extra service twice weekly, and
>you'll need a touch-tone phone to access these mesasges;

The updates are not as consistent as I'd like.  For instance, he
mentions his $925 silver profit for three months after he'd been
stopped out, but after letting a $1,200 profit in platinum wind down
to a dismal $50 loss, he merely mentioned that he'd gotten stopped out
once and then dropped the whole episode.  :)

Sometimes he'll add special announcements after he's listed all the
commodities he's watching.

>- Before you commit $1000 to $5000 to your own business, you will first
>prove to yourself that this is, indeed, an ideal business;

Well, it is ideal in the sense that you don't need that many resources
other than a paper, a phone, and money.  Other than that, I don't
really see that you can make a living doing this his way.

>- You may contact my office and staff as often as you feel necessary
>at no additional cost;

I wanted to know why Ken didn't use a trailing stop loss to capture at
least some of the platinum profits.  The guy I talked to didn't know.

>- You may also utilize the services of my full-time, fully-staffed
>associate firm in person, by mail, or by using their toll-free 800
>phone numbers;

I don't know what this is.  Must be new.  :)

>- Money-back guarantee if after completing the three-month course you
>haven't multiplied your imaginary investment into net profits (INCLUDING
>your tuition [oh, wow, guarantee $195 profits])

Yeah, well right now I'd be thrilled to have a net profit of $195.  :)

>It Sounds Too Good To Be True.
>It Probably Is.

Yes.  Ken's system is not the cure for all your ills.  Especially if
you sit up late at night worrying about futures prices.

Now, in retrospect, if Ken had me *not* paper trade the
commonly-accepted "volatile" lumber and coffee markets, I'd be looking
like this:

April Platinum		-   $50
May Bean Oil		+  $624
June T-Bills		+  $150
June Gold		-  $640
-------------------------------
Total			-   $84

And that's still not counting commissions.  Even if I chose a
$15/round discount broker, I'd still be losing!

Bruce


--
		Bruce W. Onder		onder@isi.edu

	But still I'd rather be famous than righteous or holy
		      Any day, any day, any day

Newsgroups: misc.invest