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:
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| 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 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
