Rick Redmont Bases Trading on Wyckoff Theories

Off-floor trader Rick Redmont gained his first experience trading stocks as a college student during the bull market of 1961. "I had $10,000, which turned into $20,000. I followed the Chartcraft (Inc.) point and figure book-but it didn't really matter what you bought. The only thing that made you mad was if your friend's stock went up more than yours did."

"Then in 1962, I started losing. The reason I was losing was because the stock market wasn't going straight up anymore," Redmont explained. "I turned $10,000 into $20,000 and $20,000 into $2,000." Redmont jokes that his family members gave him books for Christmas that year with title like I was a teenage bankrupt. However, Redmont was spurred on by his financial setback. "I decided anything that had the potential to double my money and lose it all was worth learning about," he said.

He launched into a study of "almost everything that has been written from 1900 to date" on trading and technical analysis. After graduate school, Redmont joined the brokerage business and remained a broker until several years ago, when he broke away to trade for his own account. One of the books Redmont read early on was the classic Technical Analysis of Stock Trends, by Edwards and Magee.

However, Redmont thought "intellectually, if it's this easy-if all you have to do is look at head and shoulders, triangles and rectangleseverybody would be rich!"

Through his exhaustive reading of the materials available on financial markets and trading, Redmont happened upon a course offered by the Stock Market Institute that really hit home for him. "It is all based on the work of Richard D. Wyckoff. It teaches you how to use real point and figure charts and the origin was from floor traders back in the 1800s."

"It teaches you the relationship of volume and price and point and figures. From there, I really learned how to understand how the market operates," Redmont continued. Tbough he added, "I spent three years on this." Additionally, Redmont notes that he enrolled in an Elliott wave course offered by C. Ralph Dystant and learned about an indicator called %D. Now, Redmont calls himself strictly a technical trader. "I use Wyckoff, I use Elliott, and the indicator I use is fast %D."

Currently, Redmont trades "about 98% OEX options." Redmont trades on an intraday basis, though he does hold positions overnight but overall, he tends to be a short-term trader. Throughout the day Redmont monitors five minute charts, 30-minute charts and 60-minute charts. "I look for divergences between the Dow, the OEX and the S&P (500)."

"I look at different time periods. I look at the premium. I look at the advance/decline line on a five minute basis and tick volume," Redmont added. While Redmont bases his trading primarly on Wyckoff's volume theories, he admits "there is no system. It's total discretion-it's as good as I am. I keep it simple. I buy calls and I buy puts. I don't spread them. I just want to know what direction it is going." Redmont champions Wyckoff's volume theories saying "it works because it is the market. You are analyzing the law of supply and demand," he explained.

To further explain a basic premise of Wyckoff's volume theory, Redmont gives a simple example. "You are looking at a stock. It trades 10,000 shares and goes up one point on the first day. The same thing happens on the second day. On the third day, it trades 20,000 shares and goes up 1 point. On the fourth day, it trades 40,000 shares and goes up half a point. On the fifth day, it trades 80,000 shares and is unchanged."

"On the third day, you had to exert twice as much effort to get the same result (as the first day)," Redmont noted. "The key to analyzing supply and demand is that the demand side burns itself out. There is no pressing reason, except being caught short, why someone should buy something. But, there are a million reasons to sell something."

"When the buying is through and satisfied-there is always supply there. That's why prices go down faster-because supply is always there and demand is not. All you have to do is withdraw people who want to buy and prices fall."

While Redmont primarily trades OEX options, he believes that Wyckoff's volume theories are just as applicable to the futures markets. "What difference does it make if you are analyzing the S&P or sugar or cotton or the Japanese yen-the analysis is the same," he said. In his trading, Redmont notes he does monitor the size of market's corrective retreats and rallies. "As (Fibonnaci numbers) became more popular, the markets started connecting 61.8% and 38.2%. Today, very rarely do they correct 50%."

Based on work by Fibonnaci, many technical analysts have speculated that financial markets tend to move in sequences that can be measured by these numbers-including 61.8% and 38.2%. However, Redmont said, "these things work in the markets because people use them-it's not because it's mystic, or in plant life, or in the pyramids." For example, in watching the markets, Redmont said, "if you have a move up and you have a correction, you want volume to drop off and you want that to fall into a 61.8%."

While Redmont notes that Wyckoff theory works for him, he suggests potential traders read two books-Market Wizards and The New Market Wizards, by Jack Schwager. "Read them with one purpose in mind-to understand that there are 40 people who were successful doing different things." When asked what some of the characteristics he believes are necessary to successful futures trading, Redmont answered, "dramatic concentration powers to understand the markets and to spend the time learning the niche of whatever it is they do."