Comment by gcanyon

Ugh. I vividly remember when my stepfather tried to get me involved. He was retired, and had a nice nest egg built up from a small business. He was a smart man.

But he was paying thousands of dollars per year for a monthly newsletter that contained <some brand of analysis>. And he patiently showed me how he started with a row in the table that met <his criteria> then followed to the column that met <other criteria> and that was the choice he made in the market.

And I'm thinking, whatever information he's getting in that newsletter is at least a month old by the time he gets it. And he's not doing anything a program couldn't do, with the information in digital form. And he should know that -- he was a computer programmer earlier in life. As far as I could see, there was zero chance he was beating anyone or anything with that technique, and starting in a several thousand dollar hole.

Maybe I was wrong, but I don't think so.