https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1971/06/confess...

Evander, the Chartist, in a Downside Market

One of my men talks to nobody else in the office except me—and to me only reluctantly. He believes that everyone is out to steal his ideas. He’s Evander Wood, our institutional man, and he locks his desk every night, his key connected to a long chain attached to his vest. Evander is a chartist—or technician, a term he prefers because it sounds more professional. In 1968 he grossed $160,000 in commissions; in 1969, a respectable $90,000. He deals strictly with institutions—mutual funds, insurance companies, trust departments of banks—giving them statistical proof of stock groups that are strong and individual companies in these groups which should be purchased. He has a gimmick, as all successful institutional men must have if their contacts are not purely social. (That is, contacts like your roommate from St. Mark’s who does the buying for Mass. Investors Growth Fund or your fraternity brother from Deke at UCLA who directs Lockheed’s Pension Fund.) People have to be so intimidated by Evander’s charts (he makes a poor personal impression), or so confused by his system, that they buy in self-defense. He has a magic divisor that changes in relation to the volume of the market going up (upside volume) and going down (downside volume), placed in juxtaposition to his own index of glamour stocks plus what the small buyer (odd lotter) is selling short on a given day. Could you follow that? I never could, but he has had fifteen mutual funds who have given him business on the basis of his information—which proves that you can indeed fool most of the people most of the time when it comes to their fascination for money. I’ve always thought Evander would be an ideal star as the tailor who wove beautiful threads out of nothing in “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” When he speaks, he speaks only in charting language, referring to people in the street as having “sloping head and shoulders,” to bald men as having “topped out,” to broad-beamed women as possessing “descending channels” or “falling wedges.” He used to laugh and laugh at his jokes and take orders for 5000, 10,000, 15,000 shares at a clip. Everyone in the office hated him, especially after he took an order. He was a familiar figure in the financial districts, plodding along with his pipe, his professorial air, and his large briefcase filled with charts and magic potions. He’d pick the soft-drink industry for action and Coca-Cola in particular “for a breakout.” Then he’d sell it to the funds on the basis of his number studies. At lunch he’d have a corned beef on rye and a Tab. “What is this junk?” he’d say suddenly.

“That’s Tab,” I’d tell him. “Made by Coca-Cola. You recommended it.”

Evander hasn’t written an order in two months, and we’ve taken him off his $1000 a month draw. He has the desperate look in his eyes of the man who is interviewing with other firms and can’t get a job. Portfolio managers who gave him business are now explaining why their net asset values are down as much as 40 percent this year, and Evander has added more charts to his briefcase and more keys to his ring. I caught a fleeting glimpse of Samuelson’s Economics in his drawer before he slammed it shut.

I see combat fatigue in the lines of his face, and I think he needs Pat O’Brien, not me, for help. Don’t give your money to a chartist, the dying mother said. How To Lie With Statistics was the first book I read in college.

"Brutus" was a pseudonym of John D. Spooner