Founder’s Note: One of the most important lessons I learned from one of my earliest mentors is to always be teaching.
If you’ve been reading Everybody’s Wrong for a while, you’re familiar with Sam Gatlin. And you probably know he recently met Ralph Acampora, who taught me so much about markets and life.
I’m grateful to know Ralph, and I’m grateful to know Sam. – JC
By Sam Gatlin
When I was in high school, I took an accounting class that included a stock market challenge.
We were given paper trading accounts and told to compete throughout the semester to see who could perform best.
The rules were simple: use what we were learning in class; study financial statements; and buy cheap stocks.
My teacher was peddling classic fundamental analysis.
And, almost immediately, it didn’t sit right with me.
The stocks everyone else was buying were cheap for a reason.
They stayed cheap, and some got cheaper.
Meanwhile, the market kept moving, trends kept developing, and price kept telling a story that none of our spreadsheets seemed to care about.
It felt flawed in many ways.
So I did what any confused high school kid with an older brother does. I asked him.
At the time, my brother was studying economics at university, and he had developed a deep understanding of supply and demand.
When I explained what we were being taught, he laughed and said something I’ll never forget:
“If you want to understand markets, look at price.”
That’s when he showed me the work of JC Parets. He pulled up JC’s Twitter feed, his All Star Charts blog, and his Investopedia work.
He started explaining why technical analysis wasn’t about lines on charts.
It was about studying the behavior of market participants. Supply and demand, sentiment, primary trends, and momentum.
Technical analysis allowed me to identify where money was actually flowing. I went down the rabbit hole hard.
While everyone else in my class was buying “cheap” stocks that went nowhere, I started buying what was going up.
I followed trends. I paid attention to relative strength. I respected momentum.
And I won the challenge.
Not because I was smarter, but because I wasn’t fighting the tape.
That was my gateway drug.
I started reading everything JC recommended. “Technical Analysis of Stock Trends” by Edwards and Magee (aka “the Bible of technical analysis”).
All of the “Market Wizards” books.
I devoured everything I could get my hands on.
I even enrolled in the Chartered Market Technician program and passed all three levels before I graduated from college.
I spent countless hours posting charts on Twitter to almost no engagement, just sharing things I found interesting because I loved it.
Eventually, JC noticed…
He reached out and offered me an internship at All Star Charts while I was still in college.
At the same time, I was taking a commodities trading class at Wichita State, taught by traders from Koch Industries.
We traded energy futures, which have a reputation for being some of the wildest financial products in the world.
I won that challenge too, thanks to a big natural gas trade.
Later, I entered another stock market competition when speculative tech was in favor. I loaded up on the leaders and won again.
Every trading challenge I’ve ever entered, I’ve won.
Not because I’m special, but because I stopped listening to bad advice early.
Here’s the part where people usually get uncomfortable.
Most of what you hear about investing is not designed to help you make money today. It’s intended to sound responsible.
People love to talk about Warren Buffett’s investing philosophy.
And rightly so, he’s one of the greatest ever.
But Buffett isn’t trading stocks… He’s buying entire companies.
That’s an entirely different game.
For traders, fundamental analysis isn’t enough.
You need to learn how to listen to the world’s best fundamental analyst: Mr. Market.
You need to understand trends, momentum, relative strength, sentiment, and supply and demand.
You need to understand how market participants actually act, not how textbooks say they should.
Technical analysis doesn’t give you all the answers.
But it gives you something far more valuable.
It helps you ask the right questions.
That lesson changed my life.
Today, I’m one of the youngest Chartered Market Technicians in the world, working alongside one of the best technical analysts alive.
I don’t take that lightly for a second.
I grew up in Kansas, where most kids don’t aspire to be much. They just want 40 acres and a mule.
That easily could’ve been me…
Instead, I stumbled across JC’s work at precisely the right moment.
And he took a chance on a kid who just loved charts.
I’m endlessly grateful for that.
This business is selfish, whether people like to admit it or not.
We’re here to make money. Not to be right, or sound smart.
We’re here to improve our lives and the lives of the people we care about.
Everything I’ve learned, everything I share here, comes from that place.
If you’ve ever felt like the traditional advice doesn’t quite work…
If you’ve ever wondered why the stocks everyone tells you are “cheap” never seem to go anywhere…
If you’ve ever felt like price was trying to tell you something that no one else was listening to…
You’re not crazy.
Everybody’s wrong.
And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Stay sharp,
Sam Gatlin
Analyst, TrendLabs