ForexSpirit

Over the holidays I found out that Richard McCall had been charged and convicted of fraud by the CFTC back in 2006/7.

I had always thought highly of Richard McCall after reading his Way of the Warrior-Trader book and watching his educational videos. He always struck me as more of a teacher or coach than a straight up trader and that is the vein in which I took his work.

The full complaint, preliminary injunction order and final injuction order can be found on the CFTC website.

Seems like he overstepped his comfort zone and ended up straying form those universal laws he holds in such high regard, as detailed in the March 2006 CFTC press release:

Specifically, between March and June 2004, as alleged in the complaint, McCall made the following claims on his web site: 1) he was an experienced futures trader; with his trading results consistently ranked among “the top 5% of traders worldwide”; and 2) students following his Sabaki-Micro Trading for Futures would have “a better than 90% chance of being profitable.”

The complaint also alleges that, although McCall touted the profit potential that could be achieved by following his trading advice, he failed to disclose that he actually had traded commodity futures for only one year beginning in 2003, and that the account in which he traded experienced consistent trading losses, rather than profits.

The complaint also details that no proof could be found for any degrees held by Dr. Richard McCall. The mythical nature of his doctorate only had me chuckling as I couldn’t help think of Derek Smart (where a similar sort of doctorate debate raged for months in the gaming sphere way back in the 90s).

I still think his book contains a lot of great insight and useful information, especially on the mindset needed for trading, but it is sort of tainted now by knowing he’s been busted by the CFTC.