Easy money eh Manni. Spend a few $ on a course, be disciplined and then sit back and enjoy the good life.
Another one of the 'I was a loser until I read your book/took your course' crowd.
Anyway, you ever heard of Gary Smith because he's very well respected. This is what he's got to say about your buddy.
Also do a search on the Elitetrader board and you'll see the amazing coicidence that as soon as a thread comes along on Ross, 3-4 new posters all start singing from the same hymm sheet telling everyone how great he is.
2 boards, same style of gushing praise. Coincidence? Highly unlikely.
From GS.
I first became aware of Joe Ross in the early 1990s as a result of some contributions he made to the Club 3000 newsletter. I had a lot of respect for the guy. And why not? He believed in buying strength and selling weakness. He thought the vendors who purported to pick tops and bottoms were nothing but rip-off artists. He denigrated Gann, Elliot Wave, seasonals, and cycles. This was my kind of trader.
But as the years went by, a lot of negative stuff began surfacing about Joe Ross. His fax service was a disaster, his managed accounts suffered horrible losses, and much of what he said in some of his books didn't jive with the realities of trading real money.
No one was more disappointed (and disbelieving) than me when Bruce Babcock uncovered that Joe had fabricated his trading experiences in order to sell his products. But it wasn't until I read Joe's feature interview in the December 1995 issue of Stocks&Commodities magazine that I really began to have major questions about the guy's credibility.
It was in that interview where he mentioned how much money a trader would have made had they simply gone long a one lot S&P contract from the beginning of January or had they spread a one lot S&P against a one lot NYFE. The figures Joe quoted were way, way off and indicative of someone who didn't even know how much a point move in the S&P and NYFE equated to.
I was blown away. Thinking this must have been a misprint, I spoke with Thom Hartle, the editor of Stocks& Commodities and who was also the interviewer. In reviewing his tape, Thom said Joe was not misquoted.
I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that Bruce was correct in his assessment of Joe Ross. And what a shame. Joe Ross has written some good trading books. Maybe we should just leave it at that. But as Babcock stated in his investigation of Ross, "If Ross is making up his experience, he could do real damage to a careless, trusting student."
Duane Howe is anxious to get this matter of his problems with Joe Ross into the courts. But Joe Ross would never in a million years want his controversy with Babcock and Duane Howe to get that involved. There are other Duane Howes around. Other traders who entrusted their money with Joe Ross because they believed Joe when he said he never had a losing year as a
trader. There's also a former Joe Ross student, a well respected futures broker with a national trading firm. This person would testify that Joe admitted to her that he was indeed the infamous testimonial used by Ken Roberts.
And what about Joe Dinapoli? DiNapoli taught Ross his displaced moving average which Ross then went on to claim as his own. Joe studied under DiNapoli in the mid 80s. Joe Ross would not want to see DiNapoli testifying against him in a court case regarding Ross's trading background.
It's really too bad vendors have to resort to gimmicks to give them name recognition. Ross wrote some good books, he didn't need to fabricate his trading experiences to enhance his name.
As for Duane Howe, yes, he probably should drop his vendetta against Ross. Joe Ross is hardly the only vendor out there who has exaggerated or fabricated his trading experiences. You give your money to someone else to trade futures, even the so-called Market Wizards profiled by Jack Schwager, and you better expect to lose.
Gary Smith
