Martin Armstrong cherry-picks Bad Forecast Array

As I have shown in Socrates Forecast Array Nonsense, the turning points in the Forecast Arrays of Martin Armstrong's Socrates have only a success rate of between 20% and 25%.

However, he frequently posts cherry-picked success stories on his blog site that suggest otherwise, often saying that Socrates has never been wrong. Here I expose his fraudulent technique of achieving his objective in detail while at the same time exposing a flaw in the system that turned out to be a trap for his helper in the scheme.

The Bad Forecast Array

On Mar 9 2023, Martin Armstrong publishes a Forecast Array in The Dow Bounce & Socrates as follows:

Note: I occasionally use Armstrong's computer-generated numbers as published on his blog site without his permission which is covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.

The relevant turning point is on 06 Mar. This is a hindsight scenario, cherry-picked three days AFTER the event, again cherry-picked out of ten possible arrays that would have either failed or succeeded in predicting it.

The Forecast Array has to be seen in the context of the price chart it belongs to. Here I provide that context again as follows:

As you can see, the Forecast Array MISSED the first important turning point of 01-Mar after the prolonged decline. With this real life context, in the eyes of a trader, it becomes glaringly obvious that the 06-Mar turning point in the Forecast Array clearly incorrectly indicated that 06-Mar would be the low of that decline and not the high of the following bounce as Martin Armstrong's sock puppet suggests (see The Fan Email Confidence Trick).

An attempt to trade this forecast would have inevitably resulted in a trading loss. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that a Socrates subscriber would have come back to Martin Armstrong, reporting a trading failure as Socrates success. As usual, Armstrong is confident that he deserves the Nobel Prize for this glitch (quote):

Marty; I just wanted to thank you so much for Socrates. Where everyone seemed to be calling the market emotionally, Socrates’ forecast for this week was a target months ago and was very impressive. But the Daily Array picked the very day as Monday with a directional change and turning point. It is so refreshing to have a truly independent source. I know you laugh at the Nobel Prize and they gave the peace prize to Obama for trying to invade Syria. If there were a real prize in economics, you should be at the top of the list for your grasp of the world economy and creating Socrates.

Thank you so much

KF

The catastrophic Implications and the fundamental Reasons behind them

The above is not an isolated case. It reflects a common misinterpretation or a failure in the evaluation, in hindsight, of the Forecast Arrays in general. A projected "Turning Point" or a high in the top Aggregate array, by the definition of it, targets either a low or a high on the price chart. This makes sense. Therefore, a projected Turning Point does not say whether it refers to a price high or a price low.

Therefore, in a statistical (hindsight) evaluation, one is tempted to register the match of a high or a low as a success. This leads to an evaluation mistake in case where the previous important turning point was missed.

This mistake is perhaps the simple most important one where the creators of the Forecast Arrays system did not know what they were doing, and it is perhaps the main factor why Martin Armstrong shot himself in the foot with it (he lost $700 million trading with it). If I didn't know what a devious person he is, I might even believe that he is so dumb that he still hasn't discovered it.

The Cherry-picker Scheme

As we know, Socrates does not provide historical data and statistics. So how then does Martin Armstrong find cases that fit his agenda such as this one without such technical tools?

The complicated answer is that he has his helper who does the job for him manually as advised, most likely for a fee because it is a lot of work. The name of his current helper is David Isham. He has a Facebook profile David Isham on Facebook and he is active on Twitter as David on Twitter.

He is also the most active hired contributor in The Facebook Martin Armstrong and Socrates Traders Group.

So how does David Isham find these rare cases as he is facing the same problem as Martin Armstrong?

He has multiple of his own helpers. They are hapless Socrates subscribers who send him Forecast Arrays for their respective subscribed symbols. The trick is that these subscribers even organize these arrays neatly into separate folders (channels) for him so that David gets a timeline for each symbol to pick from.

So where does all this happen?

It happens in a slack.com private group "Socrates Study Group" that David Isham invites Socrates subscribers into. I was a member of it and I definitely know how it works. Here is a screen shot of that private group:

David invites the subscribers by contacting them in that private Facebook group. So Socrates subscribers have a lot of work to do, including the misrepresentation of the Socrates service that they have so much trouble with. So collectively, they are effectively digging their own graves.

Update: Armstrong pulls the same Stunt again

Four days later, Armstrong reacts to my blog post and tries to be right after all but he fails again:

On Mar 15 in There no such thing as Random Walks in Markets or Economics he publishes the same old Forecast Array and pats himself on the back using The Fake Fan Email Confidence Trick as follows (quote, emphasis added):

COMMENT:
Marty, I really cannot thank you enough. Socrates called yesterday as the turning point and it was the strongest one of the week. We got the bounce when everyone was in a panic state claiming that the Fed would not have to lower rates...

... I am not sure just how much Socrates helps traders and society.

Paul

REPLY:
I do realize that Socrates could run the economy far better than any human. It is my hope that it proves itself over the course of now and 2032 and that people will look back upon these forecasts and at last comprehend that there is truly a hidden order in what people think are just random walks.
Here is the Array published on March 1st. It forecast the high for the 6th with a turning point, a Panic Cycle for the 9th, and then the turning point on the 13th for a low. This was clearly published in advance of the SVB failure. This raises the question, how can a computer possibly predict such a Panic would take place on the 9th long before anyone heard about SVB? This is NOT my personal opinion. You do not see me running ads saying this is the guy who had forecast whatever. Socrates has taught me a lot about market behavior.

Armstrong sells that 3/13 is the the strongest turning point and marks the low. BUT 3/15 IS LOWER! 

The 15-Mar bar that belongs to the new low is not the highest and therefore fails to mark the low.

And he cherry-picks this array out of  9 newer relevant arrays. Does he even have them?
 

Update: Armstrong Sucker explores Forecast Arrays with his own Twitter Service

While I was searching Twitter for my campaign targets, I found Armstrong Socrates Repo which seeks to find the holy grail, the hidden order, in the Forecast Arrays. At the same time, it appears to be promoting Armstrong's Socrates innocuously without any reference to or visible affiliation with Martin Armstrong.

It reminds me of an old Armstrong blog page. Read:

Does the Model Change Its Mind?
 

Here he wrote years ago about a pet project that he had in his mind. This project would apply pattern recognition (his GMW Global Market Watch) to the Forecast Arrays charts with the aim to make the perfect forecasts based on them. Quote:

There is a third approach, which is PATTERN RECOGNITION. My personal goal is to write the code to merge all three and then see what happens. Perhaps then it will be able to definitively forecast everything precisely in a unified manner – my version of a Grand Unified Theory. That would be really awesome. I am not yet sure that can be accomplished. Nevertheless, it is my project in the spare time when I can find some.

You might want to visit that service and donate your Socrates Pro snapshots if you are still subscribed.

See also:

Martin Armstrong The Hyper Shill 

Socrates Subscriber Testimonials 

 

Martin Armstrong and the Russians

Martin Armstrong has a connection with Russia.

Not so much as that he would have inside knowledge about Russia. Far from it. But he peddles Russian Propaganda. and he does that as desperately as he needs money fast.

As I have exposed on this site numerous times, he has nothing to sell except material gleaned during his internet trolling, most of it useless gossip and a large part of it disinformation and conspiracy theories.

So where is the Russia connection? We don't need to look further than RT.com 

Within a short time span of a week, RT.com interviewed Martin Armstrong twice. Here are the interviews where he peddles Russia's perspective. He promotes the interviews ON HIS OWN BLOG SITE (which is apparently part of the deal):

 

RT Interview on Russia-Ukraine War 

Posted Sep 17, 2022 by Martin Armstrong
RT reached out to Martin Armstrong for an economist’s view on the Ukrainian conflict. Click here for a quick interview that explains why Zelensky has no incentive to seek peace.

The video file can be found here:

Martin A Armstrong on RT.mp4

 

Another interview: 

Martin Armstrong: Green Agenda Caused The Energy Wars & Dividing The World Economy

The video file can be found here:

Martin_A_Armstrong_on_RT_(1).mp4

 

But as usual, this is not enough. I doubt that these activities generate enough cash for him. Here, his pool of current and potential scam victims comes to the rescue. He exploits them, with the aim to sow discord which is in line with his money-generating hate campaigns AND in line with Russian interests to destabilize western societies. In this case, his central theme is manifested in his upcoming book 

Martin Armstrong Book: The Plot to Seize Russia

 

This book is tightly integrated in his campaigns promoting his conferences, campaigns that include numerous other interviews where he discussed the upcoming book.

An unhealthy Cocktail

The above is not a conspiracy theory. We have to see this from Martin Armstrong's perspective. It is a cocktail made from his limited but manifold options as a scam business operator, and above you can see the composition of this rather unhealthy mix.

And I want to make it clear to the Russians that Martin Armstrong is a dead duck because everybody knows everything about him as a criminal, crook and scammer.

 

See also:

Martin Armstrong: Putin takes Ukraine in Three Days

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Martin Armstrong: Putin takes Ukraine in Three Days

Martin Armstrong - always the smartest guy after the fact - reverses his forecast positions after his Ukraine war predictions flop

In World War III Beginning Stages Now Martin Armstrong writes (quote, emphasis added):

Feb 2, 2022
Putin has wiped out the air force and owns the skies over Ukraine. He could annihilate the country in less than 3 days, but he is not doing that to the West’s befuddlement. 

Martin Armstrong is clearly whipping up fear in preparation of the sale of his snake oil with the promise to profit from the unfolding events: At the bottom of his page, he advertises his new War Computer Report that he has not even written yet.

 

A few months later in WWIII is not Worth Supporting Ukraine in a Land Grab he reverses his position as follows (quote, emphasis added):

Jul 16, 2022
Russia has been unable to use its air power because NATO is providing Ukraine with all the tactical information needed so they only need to turn on their radar minutes before launching and as such Russia cannot destroy those systems which have been supplanted by NATO.

Computer never wrong?

I can't report on one of his forecast failures without tripping over bigger ones in the process. Here they are (all Ukraine related):

Re-defines the objective of a failed forecast to match the new reality: War cycle high reserved for Middle East war (which did not happen) is re-defined and re-used for the Ukraine War

On Jun 12, 2014, Martin Armstrong gave us a lecture about conflicts in the Middle East driving his war cycle. In Brain-Dead Foreign Policy – Destabilizing the Middle East – Feeding the War Cycle he writes (quote)

The War Cycle is doing what it was intended to do. I have warned that this is going to be much worse that the previous cycles building in intensity and broadening to a global perspective.

On Jul 9, 2014, Martin Armstrong continues in  Crude Oil & The Future (quote)

It is poised to rally into 2017 and it appears this is lining up with our war models..

On Aug 2, 2022, in It’s a Matter of Confidence he uses The Fan Email Confidence Trick to give himself credit for forecasting that some kind of war would happen between 2011 and 2022 (emphasis added):

COMMENT: Marty; I really do not think people give you enough credit whilst they all pretend to claim they called it correctly just a couple of months ago. I was at your 2011 WEC in Philadelphia. A friend bought the ticket and dragged me there. I have to say, aside from your prediction that war would turn up in 2014 which coincided with Ukraine, ...

Predicts a Coup that never happened and pats himself on the Back for it

On Jun 24 2023, Martin Armstrong Russian Coup & Civil War again uses The Fan Email Confidence Trick to pat himself on the back for predicting a coup and subsequent civil war (which he didn't) and which never happened (quote):

COMMENT: Marty, Socrates has simply outdone itself. You warned that Putin could face a coup by May/June 2023. That was a year ago. Nobody can beat Socrates, as you said at the WEC, not even you. Your gift to humanity is why they hate you so much.

After the event of course. But there was no coup! Nothing to see! He didn't get it. It was not a Russian coup and it was over on that day. The fact that he did not see this from his vantage point clearly indicates that he is clueless about Russia, Putin and military matters in general.

On the same day, he advertises three private blog posts on the subject behind his news letter paywall "Private Blog".

Computer never wrong?

I think I have made the point once again that his forecasts are complete bullshit. And he knows it.

If you really need further explanation of how these forecasting tricks work, please read:

Martin Armstrong's Economic Confidence Model (ECM)

Economic Confidence Model, just a play on numbers of 8.6 

and Socrates Forecast Array Nonsense.

 

Please see also:

Major failed Predictions

Martin Armstrong's Informant Behind the Curtain

Martin Armstrong The Hyper Fool

Martin Armstrong Cult Member quits Socrates after 15 Years

Sufficiently dismayed

Below is the YouTube testimonial of a Martin Armstrong cult member quoted in full. It took him over 15 years to finally discover that he has been scammed. Not without the help of this site.

Please note that "Canadian Day trader" who practiced the well-established shill routine. Most likely, that shill is LateralusYellow, that figure that runs the Reddit Armstrong Economics Fan Forum and had a brief stint in The Facebook Martin Armstrong and Socrates Traders Group.

 

In a YouTube post Bill W comments on the YouTube video  (his channel has been deleted after this was posted):

Martin Armstrong: The Collapse of the Republic  on June 26 2022:

@Lui Bunting  Ok!  I just spent 2.5 hours reading through your site.  It has raised sufficient questions for me to think carefully about my experiences.   Keeping it very brief, I have always enjoyed Martin Armstrongs historical take on economics.  I attending his Orlando conferences in 2016 and 2017 and then once more in 2019.   I met a Canadian Day trader at the 2016 event who seemed intelligent and unpretentious. He said that he now foley used Socrates for his trading and it earned him a very good living.   I finally joined the Pro Socrates for about 3 months in 2018.  I was still working and a member of many other sites and advisors at the time but decided I would see what it had to offer.  I was a bit disappointed and downgraded a level shortly after.   I have received about 4 or Martins reports including the Trade of The Century.  History lesson was great BUT I noticed there seemed to be a fair a mount of repetition in the material and there was really NO "how to do it" at the end of the book.  I also purchased the Manipulation of the World Economy book and once again found it interesting but somewhat repetitive.   Your site reinforced some concerns I have had about Martin's blog for a couple of years now.  I agree with a lot (not all) of what Martin says about what is happening in todays world.  However, I had already begun to get frustrated about the way he would answer questions on his blog.   The questions always seem to be, well from perhaps less intelligent folks and rarely did they address any detailed deep issues but rather broad and often self congratulatory  towards MA.   I also noticed the typos and wondered why these were not addressed.   As regards Socrates, I often purchased the market reports, not expensive, but noticed occasional errors in the reports that got the price for say gold or oil completely wrong in the report.  I could not understand why that would happen.   Finally, much is made of the Socrates tool being right at certain turning points e.g 1987.  The Sovereign Bond Crisis for me started around 2012 as the ECB and the EU embarked on a course which will bankrupt that EU market BUT that 2015 date didn't not seem to produce a big event.  I would argue the big event is happen now!  Additionally the much flaunted March turning point for this year seemed like a fizzle as well.    I think his predictions about the dollar and the US market soaring have some credibility since I agree with the thesis that money will likely flood into the uS when the financial crisis in Europe and probably the far East get going.   
HOWEVER, what your site has done is raised these nagging concerns I have been having about Armstrong, his writings and his model over the past 2 - 3 years.  I am blessed with funds and have never committed any to Martins forecasts (so no losses).  But I am now sufficiently dismayed so as to pull my $50 monthly subscription (not that big compared to a couple of others I subscribe to but certainly 2-3 times that for some other advisor sites that actually make specific recommendations.  Consequently you site has had an immediate effect.  Not sure why you dont post a link to your site for all of MA's videos.    Took a while to trawl through your material but thanks.

It looks like nobody is immune against being a fool.exploited by Martin Armstrong.

Even Prof Dave Collum of  the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at New York Cornell University quotes Martin Armstrong's gossip on his Twitter account:

More dangerous than covid... on July 30 2022:

Judge Seals Middleton Case

Thereby promoting that criminal and supporting his noble cause. I guess that is where the New York tax dollars go. What an irony! Remember: Don't shoot the messenger, because that's MY job!

See also:

Martin Armstrong and his Socrates: The Conspiracy of the Cartel 

About Martin Armstrong’s Books 

Martin Armstrong's Socrates 

The World Economic Conference WEC

Martin Armstrong's Death Threat

This is an event like many others described on this site, and it is consistent with the many other events. As such, I will describe it as usual, exclusively based on facts and external references. I will describe how Martin Armstrong, whose public details are on my Martin Armstrong Inner Circle Details page, issues his death threat against me, and the events that lead to the death threat and the events that followed it.

Socrates Subscriber Volume Meltdown

During my YouTube social media awareness campaign, a  large number of my messages actually went into his sock puppet accounts. So he was inundated with them and panicked. The number of subscribers of his paid subscription service Socrates declined dramatically. Martin Armstrong recognized the connection and reacted as follows:

Self-incrimination

Martin Armstrong fully exposed the criminal nature of his business. The communication is documented in a public forum here. I am quoting him as he responds to me directly via private message:

I have hundreds of people working for me creating YouTube accounts and other social media accounts posting positive reviews and feedback. I STILL GET fresh victims daily

...

Maybe you should come work for me? We could really use you around here. We have many aspects to our Ponzi scheme and you will be first in line and be a part of our inner circle purely based on the influence you have online and the threat you present against my business. We always pay our people the best and keep paying them for life just so they don't talk too much and God forbid tell the authorities...

MA

The above was his last-ditch attempt to lure me into a partnership in his business, to recruit me, and to motivate me for deleting thousands of comment messages from hundreds of his YouTube videos. After I declined, he finally issued his death threat against me as follows:

I want you DEAD! I will find out where you live trust me. I will put a contract out on your life, you don't know who you fucking with.

The digital signature "MA" stands for Martin Armstrong. I proved previously that he uses fake identities to publish his own messages as sock puppets, posing as his clients on internet forums and in YouTubue video discussions. See Martin Armstrong The Hyper Shill. In this case, he used the previously exposed identity Gumbi to send the above messages to me.

After these events, he continued business as usual. He instructed his inner circle shill LateralusYellow to write a new post in his own propaganda echo chamber about his flagship Socrates service, with the aim to revive the service, to get fresh victims. See: Nasdaq (composite) forecast, explanation in comments 

I recognize with satisfaction that I can now use his own terms such as "victims", "paid shill" and "inner circle" and stated facts without having to use speculative language. I just quote him.

You don't believe this? Then check out my Legal Disclaimer. and The Defeat of Martin Armstrong where I show you how he fails do defend himself against the exposure of the truth.

I do not need to ask you to believe anything because you can verify all facts yourself using the many 3rd party reference links on the 100 pages of this site.

Martin Armstrong guilty as charged for Contempt of Court because of his hiding coins based on the latest news

When Martin Armstrong got out of jail, the very first thing that he did was to try to "clear" his name. He even got (or probably paid) some movie makers to make a movie to clear his name. As good as he was in making up all the documented failed predictions, he is very good in this endeavor too.

But the truth eventually always comes out. He may be able to cheat most people most of the time, but you cannot cheat all the people all the time.

The funny thing is that Martin Armstrong essentially admitted that he hid precious coins worth $8 million away from court asset seizure meant to repay the investors who lost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Read this for yourself: "Cult Economist Jailed for Hiding Rare Coins Says They’re His Now"

Let's establish some facts based on the above article:

1. Armstrong was jailed for contempt in the court because he refused to turn over the assets.
2. Based on what the day laborer said, he found them while clearing out a house, apparently hidden away from court after seizure of assets.
3. Armstrong is claiming ownership of these rare coins.

Okay, Armstrong obviously was in possession of the rare coins at one point in time BEFORE he was jailed. The coins would be part of the assets that should have gone back to the investors who lost money by investing with Armstrong.

Well, I must say that after years of doubting the fairness of United States court, and naively believing the one-sided story from Armstrong, and thinking that just maybe Armstrong may be innocent at some 20% chance, now I can conclusively say that for myself:

Martin Armstrong was GUILTY as charged by US courts!

Readers, you should THINK for yourself, and don't take my opinions as yours. ALWAYS independently THINK for yourself.

P.S. As for the conclusion of this story: The money eventually went to the receivership for the investors defrauded by Armstrong, and Armstrong had to pay Heritage $291,439.30 compensation:

https://goldsteinlp.com/a-goldstein-law-partners-win-judge-dismisses-lawsuit-against-heritage-auction/

and

https://casetext.com/case/antoniak-v-armstrong-1  

and

https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/pennsylvania/paedce/2:2018cv01263/540970/53/0.pdf 

Martin Armstrong's Informant Behind the Curtain

Martin Armstrong frequently quotes his "Sources behind the Curtain" to create the illusion of exclusiveness and quality of his blog posts which he presents to his audience as analysis.

Example: Sweden & Finland Joining NATO

As most people know, my sources are dammed good. When the Russians were building a secret unground facility, even Margaret Thatcher asked me if I had any information since their intelligence was coming up short.

The reality is that he does not have such sources. And he does not do any analysis, either. He has opinions,  biases and conspiracy theories gleaned from others. He is sitting at his home computer surfing the Internet, looking for sensational stories that confirm his opinions and biases. Stories that he can re-publish on his blog site while claiming ownership of them in his trademark self-aggrandizing pomp style. With the aim to lure fresh victims of his predatory business into his online store where he sells useless products and services (snake oil) costing hundreds.

It is obvious that his repetitive gossip on his blog site is of the lowest possible quality, re-published from dubious sources and / or plagiarized. Again, I do not make such a statement without providing the hard proof.

So far on this site I have avoided reflecting on the biased opinion pieces on Martin Armstrong's blog site because 1) there are too many of them and 2) I think that it is more constructive to concentrate on the big blatant lies, confidence tricks and manipulations which are indisputable and easy to debunk.

However in the following case, Martin Armstrong has crossed this boundary and is now himself providing unique insight into his working style - a piece of self-incriminating information which I think is on par with or even eclipses everything else written on this site so far:

On June 22 2020, the satire magazine, "America's Finest News Source", The ONION published the article Facebook Announces Plan To Break Up U.S. Government Before It Becomes Too Powerful.

On July 29 2020, more than a month later, Martin Armstrong writes on his blog essentially that same story, copied in large part from The ONION source:

Facebook Calls for the Break-Up of US Government

It has since been edited (after our exposé at Facebook Calls for the Break-Up of US Government).

His original version can be found at:

The Web Archive

I quote Martin Armstrong from his original (emphasis added):

Posted Jul 29, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

The high Tech leaders are to testify before Congressional House antitrust investigation into the market power of major tech companies. This will in Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, Apple, Google, and Facebook. The House Judiciary Committee has been pushing for them to return to testify in front of its investigation into antitrust. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken a very confrontational view toward the government. Where there remains a focus on the excessive influence that Facebook has in the political landscape, d influence, Zuckerberg just announced ahead of his testimony that his firm will be taking steps to ensure the breakup of the U.S. government because he believes it has become too powerful. He has stated:

“It’s long past time for us to take concrete actions against this behemoth of governance that has gone essentially unchecked since its inception.”

He insists that while the government may have begun with good intentions, its history showed a culture of recklessness and a dangerous disregard for the consequences of its decisions. In this respect, he is absolutely correct for there are far too many instances where the economic declines have unfolded BECAUSE of government intervention. Zuckerberg continued:

“Unfortunately, those at the top have been repeatedly contemptuous of the very idea of accountability or reform, and our only remaining course is to separate the government into smaller chunks to prevent it from forming an even stronger monopoly over the public.”

Zuckerberg concluded his comment with repeated assurances that despite a likely legal battle ahead, no one government could stand up to the fortitude of Facebook. That is a very interesting position. This public statement is what I have been looking at behind the curtain which definitively points to an organized coup. My warning to Zuckerberg is he better count his fingers after shaking hands with the Democrats when they promise not to break up Facebook in return for his support to seize the White House in November.

---

BUSTED!

This piece proves that he searches content matching his biased ideas and selectively publishes it. He plagiarizes content without quoting his source. And it proves that he does not care about the analytical value of the content - whether it is a lie or not - as long as he is convinced that the story will generate the clicks that he needs to capture fresh victims of his scams - every day. Some people call him "career shit-weasel" and they are right.

See also:

Disinformation