Analysing an Analyst - How to know if the "market guru" tells the truth

There is only one way that someone can prove that he is a good analyst, be it technical or fundamentalist:

Equity Increase

Most of the times, when the "Market gurus" try to sell his magic to those greed People that i mentioned on my first articles, they show some amazing profit that he made on the Market. But is it real?

You may never know, specially with all the amazing and difficult words they throw in their announcements.

Look, there is nothing wrong in trying to make money teaching. And there is indeed good People around the world teaching People how to trade and writing books. There is indeed good quality regarding the topic.

But how to make sure then if the magic trick to win the markets that "analyst" is selling is Worth the money they are asking?

You probably Will never be 100% sure (just like the markets), but there is a few steps you can take to at least increasing the odds of making a good choice:

1 - Does the person have an history?

Who is the analyst? Does people that are already established as a good trader, or as a good investor have a good opinion about him? Does they have an opinion at all?

Opinions might suffer from personal bias or interest, but with time, you start to find well known and respected People that you can put some trust on their words.

For example, if Warren Buffet, or George Soros say good things about someone involved on the Market, their opinions must have some weight right? After all, they are in this game for a very long time, and no one can say they don't understand it.

But remember, there is Always the possibility that there is personal interest on the recomendation. Don't believe in it blindly.

2 - Is the person Crystal clear with their results?

If someone tell me that he never lose a trade operation, i know that person is a liar.

Unless that person come from the future, or have an amazing scrying power, he Will never be able to predict every single Market movements.

Technical analysis is an amazing tool, but it doesn't predict the future. It only increase (or decrease, if it is a bad technique) the probability of undestanding of the Market movements.

But, an analyst might be more Worth of trust if he come clear with his trading results. You may Always have a public portifolio, showing everyone what are ttthe results of your predictions.

3 - You can Always backtrack the predictions.

There is a tool, that a lot of traders use when they start to learn (actually learn, not only follow). It's called paper trading.

It's just like normal trading, but you don't put any money on the game.

You take a specific strategy, and you write the data of the trade (paper or an excel spreadsheet0, like, what price you entered te operation, what is the stop loss and take profit, at what price you closed the operation, and anything relevant to the trading.

It's like a training. But you can use it to see if that guy providing those amazing "trading signals" is actually making profit.

Is there a record of the signals/advices? Well, why not backtrack with some paper trading?

There is nothing better to actually see if someone advice is good or not than checking if the "facts" match the reality.

See you around.