week in review

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The story of Richard D. and Wyckoff Stock Market Institute began in the 1880’s.  Back then, the stock market was a very small affair that was pretty much controlled by few professional traders.  The stock market’s small size made their trading manipulations more visible than today.  While much has changed over the years and the manipulation by professional traders and large interests are more difficult to uncover, they are still there and provide excellent opportunities for those who know where to look.

The late 19th and early 20th century featured well-known professional investors like William Rockefeller and his allies, J.P. Morgan and other banking interests.  Bucket shops were in operation for those with relatively small amounts of money.  Those dealing with the bucket shops were not actually trading shares of stock.  They simply made side bets on the direction in which they expected a stock to move.

Richard D Wyckoff went to work in the stock market as a very young man and, through hard work, achieved great success and eventually owned his own brokerage firm. He established his own market letter and published the prestigious Magazine of Wall Street which was the first financial magazine in the country.

He also ran a very excellent financial advisory service and in the 1920s set up the finest stock market analytical staff in New York City

In the late 20s, the pressures of the job and some unfortunate personal issues led to some significant health problems.  Mr. Wyckoff stepped away from Wall Street and took up residence on the French Riviera. He did continue to pay attention to the stock market and in 1929, realized that the market was about to crash.

He came back to the United States and tried to encourage some friends and former clients to get out of the market. Influenced by the market euphoria, they didn’t believe him.  After liquidating his assets, Wyckoff returned to France.

Needless to say, what Richard D Wyckoff foresaw was the crash of 1929. I believe he actually forecast the bottom of that crash within 50 points on the New York Times stock average, which was the prevailing index of the day.

By 1931 his health had recovered to the point where he could work a few hours each day.  Wyckoff decided to start a company dedicated to teaching stock market investors and traders the techniques that had made him so successful.

He opened his investment teaching business in 1931.  The firm’s initial name was Richard D Wyckoff, Inc.  It then became Wyckoff Associates, Inc.  Later on the name was changed to Wyckoff Stock Market Institute.  In the 1950’s the name was shortened to Stock Market Institute. Fifty five years later, in 2009, the business was brought online as WyckoffStockMarketInstitute.com and now is known as Wyckoff SMI and can be found on WyckoffSMI.com

The teaching enterprise was an instant success.  Wyckoff sold an extremely large number of courses during its first year in existence.  In fact, that annual course sale record was not eclipsed until the 1960’s.

The fascinating point is that today, WyckoffSMI.com is still teaching,  the same strategies and techniques that were developed by Mr. Wyckoff some 100 years ago.

During his time on Wall Street, Richard D. Wyckoff was considered an investing giant.  He not only developed the strategies and techniques, but with great success, tested them with his own capital.  This was unlike other important Wall Street figures, like Charles Dow, who never owned a share of stock in his life.

Dow and Wyckoff had lunch together every Wednesday.  Wyckoff was very interested in the Dow Theory and applied his volume studies to many of Dow’s concepts.

Wyckoff wrote the original one volume text on Stock Market Science and Technique in 1931.  The original Tape Reading course was written in 1932.

Mr. Wyckoff died in 1934. Ownership of the firm was transferred to Robert Stanlaws. Stanlaws was an engineer by training, but his first love was the stock market.  He had worked with Wyckoff for many years and was an outstanding stock market analyst.

He was president of the company from 1934 to 1951.  This was a particularly difficult time as, during the 1930’s and 1940’s, the stock exchange almost went out of business.  During the depression and World War II, very few shares were traded and the New Your Stock exchange became a very quiet place.  There were even antidotes about passing a football around the floor of the exchange, as there was nothing else to do.

Stanlaws held the organization together and made several extremely important contributions.  In 1937 he expanded Wyckoff’s single one volume course and it became a two-volume course.  He was also responsible for vertical line chart studies and its coordination with the point and figure chart.  It was also during his time that the Trend Barometer came into being.  The Trend Barometer, now known as the Wyckoff Tools, was invented by Toby Weary in 1938

Initially there were two indexes. The speculative index, which was later renamed the Momentum index and Investment index which was later renamed the Force Index. The Technometer was added in 1941.

In 1951 Stanlaws died of a heart attack.  Mrs. Stanlaws sold the company to Robert Evans, who at the time was the Midwest representative of Wyckoff Associates, Inc.

Mr. Evans led the firm from 1951 to 1967.  Evans had purchased his initial course from Mr. Wyckoff in 1933.  He had enjoyed an excellent relationship with both Wyckoff and Stanlaws.

In 1951, Mr. Evans moved the company from New York City to the LaSalle financial district in Chicago.  Seven years later, Stock Market Institute moved again to Park Ridge, Illinois.

Bob Evans created the Evans Echoes lecture program.  He also developed the Optimism – Pessimism Index and several teaching analogies including the Spring, the Jump across the Creek, the Fall Through the Ice and several other delightful analogies that have been extremely helpful to Wyckoff students over the years. He also developed the count guide which became an integral part of the investment decision-making process, as it forecast the distance a stock would rally or react after the move began.

When Evans purchased the firm it was almost ready to go out of existence.  When he moved to Chicago there were only three people on the staff.  When he sold the business to Bud Andrews, in 1967, it was profitable and employed 10 people.

Andrews purchased the company in 1967.  He sold it to Elba Systems in 1972. He reacquired the business in 1973.  Elba Systems reacquired the organization in 1974.

Several very important improvements were made under Mr. Andrew’s tenure.  During the mid 1960’s the operational climate was changing.  Government regulations became more stringent, especially in the educational field.

One of the first things Andrews did was to revamp the Wyckoff course and improve the teaching. He expanded it into a three volume text with exams. SMI became accredited with the Home Study Council. He also registered the company with SEC and became approved by the Veterans Administration. This allowed Stock Market Institute to sell courses to veterans under the G.I. Bill.

Bud Andrews’ leadership helped Stock Market Institute rapidly expand, but by 1972 it was a bit overextended and retrenching.  This led to the 1972 sale to Elba systems.

Two years later, A. Ray Freeman purchased Stock Market Institute and moved it to Phoenix Arizona.  Mr. Freeman handled sales and advertising and was involved in computer development.  Long time associate David Mathys continue to operate the Park Ridge Illinois office.

Stock Market Institute was eventually purchased by Craig Schroeder and Gary Schuber.  Both had worked under Robert Evans at the Illinois office, but joined Mr. Freeman in Phoenix.

Schroeder and Schuber continued the teaching services and published a weekly set of charts.  They continued the Stock Market Institute tradition by continuing to market the courses and provide teaching assistance to those students who needed help.

They also published and mailed charts to students through their weekly Pulse of the Market Charting Service.

During the 1990’s the traditional hand posted charts and ticker tape market information was being replaced by computers and online services.  The Stock Market Institute had to make some major changes to adjust to the new technology.

Around the turn of the century, Jim O’Brien, who owned a marketing and communications company, called the Jamison Group, Inc., began to work with Craig Schroeder. Together they began developing a new website with an online charting service.

O’Brien, who successfully completed the basic Wyckoff course in 1972, under the G.I. Bill, had enjoyed trading success using the Wyckoff strategies and techniques.  He wanted to make sure Wyckoff would live on and continue to help traders and investors worldwide.

In 2008, as they were working together to develop the online charting service, Craig Schroeder succumbed to cancer.  Jim O’Brien completed the project and launched WyckoffStockMarketInstitute.com

In addition to offering the basic Wyckoff courses and the timeless Evans Echoes lectures, O’Brien offered daily commentary on the stock market and a weekly review of market action.

In late 2014 Jim O’Brien met with another Wyckoff graduate Todd Butterfield.  Todd Butterfield graduated from Wyckoff Stock Market Institute in 1982 and has traded in the markets, and owned and operated a successful registered investment company since completing the Wyckoff Stock Market Course.  During this meeting Jim O’Brien and Todd Butterfield discussed thoughts regarding the transfer of leadership of Wyckoff Stock Market Institute due to Mr. O’Briens need “to slow down and reflect on the wonderful life God has given me” as he entered his mid 70’s.  While these initial conversations didn’t lead to an immediate change of control, it did lay the foundation for what would come in the next year and a half.

In 2015 while Jim O’Brien continued to operate WyckoffStockMarketInstitute.com Todd Butterfield began building a new and improved Wyckoff Charting software that would improve on many aspects of the existing software that Wyckoff Stock Market Institute had been offering up until this point.  Mr. Butterfield’s new software was not initially built to be a public offer but to be a personal trading tool for himself.  Some of the amazing features he introduced specific to the Wyckoff Charting service are

  1. Wyckoff Sector Charts
  2. Compare Holding Charts
  3. Wyckoff Tools Spreadsheets
  4. The 5 Minute Intra-Day Line Chart with the corresponding Wyckoff OP Index for all symbols
  5. Rolling Technometer (Which allows the Technometer to update every 5 minutes during the trading session)
  6. 100% Browser Support Including Mobile Devices
  7. Twitter Snapshot allowing users to post their charts to Twitter Instantly
  8. Various New Wyckoff Sectors including the Wyckoff Gaming, Tape Reading, New & Unweighted

In late 2015 after more conversations with Jim O’Brien, Todd Butterfield relaunched a new website that would eventually become the future home of Wyckoff Stock Market Institute.  Over the next year Todd and his team worked long hours on refining and testing the new platform. During this time in 2016 Jim O’Brien published his first book entitled Wyckoff Strategies & Techniques.  It was a condensed version of the entire Classic Wyckoff course, but with up-to-date charts and graphics.  The book, was the first new Wyckoff publication in many years.

In June 2016, Jim O’Brien officially closed WyckoffStockMarketInstitute.com and redirected all web traffic over to the new platform and website WyckoffSMI.com.  All students, users and subscribers were transferred over to control of Todd Butterfield and the WyckoffSMI.com staff.  It was at this time that Mr.Butterfield made the decision to make his charting software available for public use to Wyckoff students and members.  During the months that follow Jim O’Brien would continue to publish his nightly “Pulse of the Market” and weekly “Week In Review” newsletter to subscribers from the new website and platform.  Initially it was planned for Jim O’Brien to be head of ongoing educational studies however due to health reasons he wasn’t able to fulfill these duties.  It was at this time that Todd Butterfield decided that it was in the best interest of Wyckoff Stock Market Institute to update the Wyckoff Stock Market Institute Course and offer it online.  In early November 2016, Wyckoff SMI launched the Wyckoff Unleashed Course.  The Wyckoff Unleashed Course includes over 40 lessons, over 100 updated charts, 8 hours of lectures and many videos.

On November 27th, 2016 Jim O’Brien announced during his final “Week In Review” newsletter, “As I approach my mid-70s, it is time to slow down and reflect on the wonderful life God has given me.  I sincerely appreciate all the wonderful friends I have made over the past several years.  Thank you so very much for all your support.  Writing these blog posts have been a wonderful experience and genuine pleasure.”

Todd Butterfield has since taken over the role of author of both the “Week In Review” and “Pulse of the Market” newsletters.

In early 2017, Mr. Butterfield started LearnCrypto.io to teach the Wyckoff Method to those people interested in trading Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies.  This website offered a condensed version of the original course by Mr. Wyckoff and has been purchased by hundreds of traders.  Mr. Butterfield then began building trading software for Crypto’s that he had previously had built for the traditional stock market.

In May of 2022, Mr. Butterfield launched WyckoffSMIChina.com to better serve our China family.

WyckoffSMI.com, LearnCrypto.io, and WyckoffSMIChina.com look forward to continuing the legacy that our founder Mr. Richard D. Wyckoff would be proud of  !!

There are those who think they are studying the market- what all they are doing is studying what someone has said about the market…. not what the market has said about itself

…Richard D. Wyckoff

Who was Richard D. Wyckoff and why is he important to all of us.

Richard Demille Wyckoff (November 2, 1873 – March 19, 1934) was a stock market authority, founder and onetime editor of the Magazine of Wall Street (founding it in 1907), and editor of Stock Market Technique.

Wyckoff implemented his methods in the financial markets, and grew his account such that he eventually owned nine and a half acres and a mansion next door to the General Motors’ Industrialist, Alfred Sloan Estate, in Great Neck, New York (Hamptons).

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As Wyckoff became wealthier, he also became altruistic about the public’s Wall Street experience.  He turned his attention and passion to education, teaching, and in publishing exposés such as “Bucket shops and How to Avoid Them”, which were run in New York’s The Saturday Evening Post starting in 1922.

Continuing as a trader and educator in the stock, commodity and bond markets throughout the early 1900s, Wyckoff was curious about the logic behind market action. Through conversations, interviews and research of the successful traders of his time, Wyckoff augmented and documented the methodology he traded and taught.  Wyckoff worked with and studied them all, himself, Jesse Livermore, E. H. Harriman, James R. Keene, Otto Kahn, J.P. Morgan, and many other large operators of the day.

Wyckoff’s research claimed many common characteristics among the greatest winning stocks and market campaigners of the time.  He analyzed these market operators and their operations, and determined where risk and reward were optimal for trading.  He emphasized the placement of stop-losses at all times, the importance of controlling the risk of any particular trade, and he demonstrated techniques used to campaign within the large trend (bullish and bearish).  The Wyckoff technique may provide some insight as to how and why professional interests buy and sell securities, while evolving and scaling their market campaigns with concepts such as the “Composite Operator”.

Wyckoff married three times: first in 1892 to Elsie Suydam; second to Cecelia G. Shear, and third to Alma Weiss.  Wyckoff charged in 1928 that his second wife, Cecelia G. Wyckoff, whom the media dubbed a Prima Donna of Wall Street, had wrested control of the Magazine of Wall Street from Mr. Wyckoff by “cajolery.”  The media celebrated separation ended in an agreement where he received half a million dollars of the magazine company’s bonds.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/richard_wyckoff

As one who is actively interested in the stock, options, or commodity markets, you are likely to find the life and teachings of Richard D. Wyckoff to be of great interest and value.  In 1931, after a long and distinguished career, Mr. Wyckoff wrote a unique course on how to invest and trade in securities and concurrently he founded a teaching organization to help people to learn to use his successful methods.  That course is the Richard D. Wyckoff Course in Stock Market Science and Technique.

Financial Editors of Leading Newspapers and Magazines Have Answered This Question:  How was Richard D. Wyckoff qualified to establish a Course of Instruction in Stock Market Science and Technique?

Mr. Wyckoff was in turn – runner, clerk, customer’s man, head of his own brokerage house, market expert, founder and long time editor of The Magazine of Wall Street.  At one time, as market advisor, he commanded one of the largest individual followings in the history of Wall Street.  Mr. Wyckoff was known as one of the most accomplished tape readers of his day. –Journal Of Commerce, Chicago

Mr. Wyckoff carved out for himself a career and a fortune.  His book “Wall Street Ventures and Adventures” gives lifelike portraits of many of Wall Street’s legendary figures and an expose of the inner workings of the stock market; also it contains much practical information on judging the trend of the stock market. –Barron’s Weekly, New York.

Richard D. Wyckoff was a pioneer in the study of the tape, and of the technicalities of the market itself.  At one time his “buy” and “sell” following was so numerous that it became unwieldy.  His own clients and the horde of parasites who had access to his tips, “made” and “unmade” the market for the Wyckoff favorites.  Not the least interesting of these personalities is that of Wyckoff himself. –Nation’s Business, Washington.

Mr. Wyckoff, as nearly everybody must know, is found of the Magazine of Wall Street and edited it until 1926.  As a broker, speculator, editor and financial advisor, he has been intimately acquainted with famous players in that greatest of games. –Post Dispatch, St. Louis.

Mr. Wyckoff was always a serious student of the market.  But he was essentially a speculator rather than a buyer for the long pull.  Unlike most speculators, however, he made a fortune and a success. –Chronical, San Francisco.

No one can describe that spectacle with more authority than Mr. Wyckoff who went through every stage of the Street from a boy employed in a brokerage house, to a successful speculator, a giant in the battle, and as editor of The Magazine of Wall Street. –World Herald, Omaha.

Richard D. Wyckoff is best known in Washington as editor of The Magazine of Wall Street.  In his younger days he made a close study of the methods used by the leaders in the market. –Star, Washington.

Richard D. Wyckoff is a name familiar in itself.  His span of experience in things financial has been important and varied. Mr. Wyckoff’s contribution to the dignity, advancement and science of stock transactions has been a valuable service to his country. –Daily Journal, Flint, Michigan.

He started away back in 1988 as a cog in the big stock market machine and had an ambition to learn and to tell others what made it go around.  This was the life objective of Richard D. Wyckoff. –American Banker, New York.

Throughout Mr. Wyckoff’s business career, his increasing absorption with the problem of how to bring accurate and first-hand information to the buy of stocks bore fruit in the various methods of financial service which he developed. –News, Portland, ME.

It is a long road which stretches between that first Wall Street job and his later successes, culminating in the founding and ownership of The Magazine of Wall Street.  Such a career could not fail to bring him into contact with some of the outstanding figures of the times. –Daily Investment News, New York.

He has known intimately for two score years the greatest of our national games, high finance.  Mr. Wyckoff has been less perhaps an operator in a sensational way than a student of finance.  Financial men will remember him as editor of The Magazine of Wall Street, a periodical for which he had been chiefly responsible for from its beginning, more than twenty years ago, to the time of his retirement in 1926. –Commercial Tribune, Cincinnati.

Mr. Wyckoff does not want the hard bought experience of forty years to lie idle.  Therefore, he is endeavoring to pass on some of his accumulated wisdom to others. –Spokesman-Review, Spokane.

This Overview Of The Life Of Richard Wyckoff Is Maintained and Authored By Wyckoff SMI President Todd Butterfield

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Craig’s Corner is dedicated to the writings of the late Craig Schroeder, who passed away in 2009. Craig, a previous owner of the Stock Market Institute of Phoenix, AZ was an outstanding Wyckoff educator. Many of the articles listed here explain important Wyckoff principles and are invaluable to any serious Wyckoff student.

Craig Schroeder’s articles focus on the theoretical side of the Wyckoff approach to stock market trading. If you are new to the Wyckoff method, these articles form a basic Wyckoff primer to help you understand the enormous trading potential found by Wyckoff method students.

Perhaps you are a trader, unfamiliar with the Wyckoff method. You may have read articles or books about Wyckoff or interacted with others who profess to be knowledgeable about the Wyckoff strategies and techniques. However, you have never embarked upon a step by step course of study intended to result in a working knowledge of the Wyckoff approach to technical trading in the stock market.

Others that can benefit from these articles are more experienced Wyckoff students. You are traders and investors who have made a comprehensive study of the Wyckoff approach and who are using Wyckoff in your market operations.

Those of us in this group unfortunately have lapses in memory during which we forget to employ a tool that Wyckoff has taught us and frequently pay a price for not remembering.

Continuing re-enforcement of lessons previously learned is the best way to keep our memories sharp and to reduce those potentially costly lapses to a minimum.

I hope you stop by Craig’s Corner on a regular basis, and that these articles will provide some helpful ideas and concepts that will help increase your trading profits.

 INTRODUCTION TO
WYCKOFF ARTICLES

Analyzing Trends
Using the Wyckoff Method

Price & Volume Relationships

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Part One New Positions

Part Two Existing Positions

OTHER MARKETS

Trading the Bond Index

BUYING STOCKS: OPPORTUNITIES AND TESTS

Primary Buying Opportunities
Springs

Primary Buying Opportunities
Tests of Springs

Primary Buying Opportunities
Back Ups

Primary Buying Opportunities
Normal Corrections

Buying Tests Part 1

Buying Tests Part 2

Buying Tests Part 3