Paul-TC

Where the line is drawn in determining what constitutes an unreasonable personal attack is down to the moderators - even if we disagree. However, if the following is true........ ... then that's disturbing, suggesting that something else may be in play here. As a result, your denial (below) to MightyMouse's assessment that you're protecting someone who is clearly on here 'selling' - will start to ring very hollow for some people. And let's make absolutely no bones about it. He is on here selling, albeit in a very sly and surreptitious manner. If you can't see that, then you're as guilty of being blind to some red flags as he is. I am not protecting him - if you recall my previous post this subject came up because of an entirely different thread - the TA Debunked one. Roger has been dealt with - he will moderated more closely. All his advertisements have been removed. MMS

I've seen comments highlighting the fact that Roger's refusal to provide statements is without legitimate reason and therefore a red flag - just has you have now also done. I don't think anyone was asking for him to post them on here either. Making them available to prospective students when asked was the issue and I don't think anyone cares how he chooses to do that e.g. in private emails, snail mail, via public forums or on his website. However, I don't think it necessarily follows that those posts/posters were seeking to be guardians of anyone. Their comments were directed at the only person who doesn't see it as a red flag - and that's Roger. His stubborness on the subject (and I think everyone knows why) is akin to the grandmother who demands to know why everyone else in the marching band is out of step with her little Johnny! As for negativity, I really can't think of anything more negative for traders, trading and discussions in general than refusing to accept when you're clearly wrong!

How that system is performing now is unimportant. Dennis never made any claims about how long his system would work. The bet was addressing a completely different question. You wouldn't claim (much less guarantee) that your method will work for the next 30-40 years - would you? For the prurposes of this discussion, the important aspect of the experiment is that Dennis had enough integrity to put his own skin in the game to 'prove' that, not only would his method work but that he was capable of making any student profitable trading it. No one asked him to provide audited records of his past performance because no one needed to. Only he could lose financially from the trades if either he proved to be a fraud or if his method subsequently sucked. See any comparison to your operation? No - neither do I. It's more than a bit of stretch to equate anything you do to what Dennis did - isn't it? To begin with, he never suggested that he was doing this experiment to 'help' others. It was made clear from the outset that it was to prove a point/win a bet. Suggesting that it was anything more is just a distortion employed by you to try and drag him into your own self-delusion of being the victimized altruist. Would anyone really have blindsided him as you claim (or is it 'hope'?). I'm pretty certain that no one would have. Even after all these years, has anyone ever accused him of making false claims about his Turtle offer or that his experiment/bet was a scam? To the best of my knowledge, it has never happened. So, the differences between the two of you seem to far outweigh any small, insignificant similarities. Here's the original ad that Dennis placed in the New York Times. Richard Dennis Turtle Want Ad Have you ever placed a similar ad, anywhere, offering to entirely fund novice traders as they learn your method and pay them "a percentage of trading profits" allowing "a small draw" periodically? I thought not - and we both know you never will. So, apart from your wishful thinking that Dennis would have received as much bad press as you do, I fail to see any comparison.

Yes - I think that what Mit was implying is open to interpretation. Some educators do choose the route you describe of backing their traders with their own money - but then they're called prop shops. There are even a few hedge funds that operate that way. I don't know if the way Dennis constructed his 'bet' should be the benchmark for the way 'educators' should operate - but it is food for thought. One glaring difference is that Dennis was totally confident in his method and of his ability to transfer the necessary skills to others. Compare that with the current plethora of so-called 'educators': Deep-down, they don't have the same level of confidence in either their method and/or their ability to empower others to use it profitably any more than they have been able to. For them, the game/goal changes from sincerely monitoring how successful their students become as a result of the training (as Dennis did) - to developing as much 'Shopping Channel schtick' to convince as many, naive newbies as possible, of their methods (and their own, alleged) success trading it. Of course, if there hasn't been any such success (as is always the case in my experience), their game/goal must also include developing a myriad of excuses and plausible deniability for not providing evidence when asked - and of course, the obligatory altruistic, good ol' boy persona. The main difference is that Dennis was genuinely interested in whether his Turtles succeeded whereas the trading 'course' hucksters must, by definition, feign such genuine interest. How well this act of 'caring' is performed directly determines how much of the snake-oil they will be able to sell. If one could benchmark sincerity, then I agree: the Turtle experiment should be the gold standard. However, like the old adage about Hollywood, the world of the Trading course snake oil salesman also has 'sincerity' as the key. If you can fake that, you've got it made. From a purely academic standpoint, Mighty Mouse is correct. There is more to the Turtle story than meets the eye or what was posted about it above. First, there were more than 14. I believe that there were 23. More importantly, not all of them were successful - which raises the question: Did Dennis win or lose the bet? After all, his claim was that 'anyone' could be taught how to trade. Some failed. So, does that mean that not everyone can be taught - or that some peole might need more/different attention? I guess we'll never know if the failures could have been 'turned around' 'eventually'. It is also worth pointing out that the method itself (which is/was very mechanical) failed spectacularly soon after 1986. Richard Dennis has also blown at least two accounts - most notably in 1987 and more recently in 2000 after which he had to close his fund. A lesson to us all - even the Legends don't always follow their own rules :helloooo:

From: Traders International = SCAM ARTISTS "I had initial success mostly cause i didnt trade every day and wanted to focus on my reaL busness. Id still keep logs when i could and compare with the recaps and note the numerous mistakes which i sent to Roger.. Subsequently Roger contacted me and asked if he could use my statements as a reference . I was confused and asked him why he couldnt use his own and he later admitted that he didnt trade in real time but had to focus on the classes and responding to all the students". So, presumably this was after Roger decided against showing his own "notarized brokerage statements for everyone to see" - because, supposedly "it did cause many traders to expect to achieve the same results as [his] immediately". But curiously, he must have believed that showing the (profitable) statements of another student would NOT have caused these very same traders to have the same, harmful expectancy !! Hard to know whether he does really trade a live account as his comments on the subject conflict when it suits. However, it's somewhat irrelevant. If someone is truly concerned about not wanting to generate unrealistic expectancy in others (as Roger claims), then there is absolutely no difference between showing a notarized statement showing consistent and frequent profits of $1,000+ a day - trading just a couple of contracts - and just banging on about the same, but unproven and unsubstantiated claim, ad nauseum, in webinars and his trade room. If anything, the notarized statement would do less harm. It would be irrefutable proof that it IS being achieved, whereas the repeated, but undocumented claim allows immense room for distrust. Obviously, if it isn't being achieved in a real account, then claims that it is, will create far more unrealistic expectations than showing notarized proof of its attainment. At the very least, the latter will show a prospective trader who is consistently losing using this same, supposedly successful, method that he/she needs to either: 1) Work harder to delevop the necessary skillset to trade the method taught (in which case, the documented proof strongly aids the 'belief system' to generate valuable motivation) or 2) Accept the fact that trading might not be 'right' for them and to move on to something else. That acceptance will be easier and quicker if documented evidence of success clearly displays the chasm between what is possible and their own performance. In short, there is absolutely no legitimate excuse, EVER, to NOT provide documented proof of the claimed profitability of a method that is being SOLD to you. Investment funds show you their audited, historical performance reports. While they make it clear that past performance does not guarantee future results, they don't use the laughably transparent lie that they're worried about your unrealistic expectations as an excuse to keep details of their past performance from you. No one would invest in a fund that did, so why on earth would anyone approach it differently when buying a trading method? BTW, That's a rhetorical question. I know exactly why and so do the scammers but the desperation of others in no way exonerates the bad behavior of those who take advantage of them via smoke and mirrors. Never has, never will. Any attempts to make such excuses to provide proof should override any and all the marketing schtick that is emabarrassingly obvious to all but the desperate - and the delusional hucksters who are amazed, and often even offended :haha:, by the fact that they can't fool all the people all of the time. I feel like I need a shower after reading this thread - Yuck!