Ken Roberts...
The World's Most Powerful
Money Manual
Ken
Roberts is the king of the commodities trading hype .
Roberts
sends out ' millions ' of direct mail pieces form his base in
Grants Pass, Oregon for his course "The World's Most Powerful
Money Manual" TWMPMM for short.
He
moved to Grants Pass when his religious mentor came in one day
and said "I gotta get out of L.A"... so Ken followed
him to Oregon...
Ken
Roberts is a master marketer who sells The Worlds Most Powerful
Money Market ... TWMPMM... program for about $169.00 with tapes,
a book, charts, etc. I purchased the TWMPMM material and have
visited the office in Grants Pass and met Ken Roberts personally
. There were about a half dozen other people visiting
the
office that day... some from as far as Texas and Oklahoma. We
seemed to be singled out as to our previous purchases and those
who had purchased other books as well as TWMPMM were given the
'Red Carpet' treatment.
The
Worlds Most Powerful Money Manual material is "very,very,
very basic", and can be obtained from your local library
much cheaper... but Ken Roberts devotes a lot of time and space
to convince the 'beginner' the he can make just as informed decisions
as a professional... the support, the hype and the 'alert line'
... a phone line which you call to receive the latest info on
what is happening in the commodities trading market... is a stroke
of marketing genius by our TWMPMM hero Ken Roberts.
The
Ken Roberts commodities trading "alert line" with all
sorts of the latest insider scoop on commodity trading is a great
marketing technique and I am sure it makes Roberts a lot of money...
but somehow there is something lacking in the 'after the fact'
analysis... Both the stock market and the commodities market
lend themselves to this type of analysis rationale simply because
it's easy to see why a move came about.. after the fact... But
it is extremely difficult to predict a future move. If it was
easy everyone would be doing it and we would all be retired commodities
trading millionaires. After all, Hillary made her $100,000 in
the so called "trading commodities" market ... have
you seen Mrs. Clinton trading any more? ... Taller tales have
been told, but I don't recall where...
Ken
Roberts proposes that you begin commodities trading by 'paper
trading' which means that you make the trades daily and keep
track of the market... but you do not trade with real money until
you think you know what you are doing. This is a safe way to
begin... Everyone recommends this approach. It is the only way
to learn the game...
Ken
Roberts tells us that the vast majority of traders lose 95% of
the time. But... that with his materials, you will know the inside
story that the other guys don't... I'm not so sure about that...
if you read more about commodities at the library, you will begin
to understand that the commodities game is one of taking a lot
of little losses and yet staying ahead so that when there is
a major commodities trading move you are able to take advantage
of it.
There
are so many commodities trading systems that it is difficult
to follow them all. But they are all much more advanced than
the Ken Roberts TWMPMM... Ken Roberts material
is based primarily on predicting a major top or bottom. With
this type of approach, you are going to be wrong a great deal
of the time. There are always fake tops and bottoms.
A
better solution is to trade commodities with the trend... "The
Turtles" for instance is a commodities trading group that
believes that if the market is moving a certain direction...
it will continue to move in that direction. Of course, there
are the tops and bottoms which are short lived. After each top
or bottom, there is a longer period of upward or downward movement.
That is the long term trend and that is where you will make your
most money.
In
trading commodities, Ken Roberts does not follow the trend.
As the trend moves it takes a lot of little bumps and you can
buy at the low of a bump and pick up a few dollars selling at
the top of a bump... it's much easier than trying to predict
the Number One top or bottom... which is the traders jargon for
a major change in direction.
In
his TWMPMM material, Ken Roberts has you thinking by inference
that only he uses the descriptive market language when in fact
it's everyday conversation among commodity traders.
A
friend of mine uses a much simpler approach successfully... he
uses the 18 day weighted average. When the market price crosses
the line he 'gets out'... or 'gets in' as the case may be. If
you begin commodity trading you may find this tip helpful.
Ken
Roberts reviewed by Forbes Magazine
Commodity shark
Copyright © Forbes Magazine
By
William Green
Another
prominent purveyor of hype is Ken Roberts, a college dropout
and former life insurance salesman. Roberts convinces neophytes
that they can become successful traders with a grubstake of only
$1,000.
In
1983 he self-published The World's Most Powerful Money Manual
& Course, a mail-order book that intersperses tips on futures
with platitudes about getting "everything you want (mentally,
physically, and spiritually)." He claims to have sold more
than 300,000 copies. At $195 each, that adds up to nearly $60
million.
Roberts,
who touts futures trading as "the world's one perfect business,"
charges $2,695 for his advanced trading seminar. He hawks trading
charts, a course on options, a newsletter and his novel, The
Rich Man's Secret.
He
also owns a piece of a California brokerage firm, Main Street
Trading. It charges commissions so high ($95 a trade) they virtually
assure that most small active traders will lose money.
The
hype has paid off for Roberts. It has brought him tens of millions
of dollars and an Oregon mansion with a cigar room. But where
are the customers' mansions? W.G.
There's
one born every minute
Copyright © Forbes Magazine
.............
Thanks
to Forbes Magazine