Richard D. Wyckoff

Who was Richard D. Wyckoff and why is he important to all of us.

Richard Demille Wyckoff (November 2, 1873 – March 19, 1934) was a stock market authority, founder and onetime editor of the Magazine of Wall Street (founding it in 1907), and editor of Stock Market Technique.

Wyckoff implemented his methods in the financial markets, and grew his account such that he eventually owned nine and a half acres and a mansion next door to the General Motors’ Industrialist, Alfred Sloan Estate, in Great Neck, New York (Hamptons).

As Wyckoff became wealthier, he also became altruistic about the public’s Wall Street experience. He turned his attention and passion to education, teaching, and in publishing exposés such as “Bucket shops and How to Avoid Them”, which were run in New York’s The Saturday Evening Post starting in 1922.

Continuing as a trader and educator in the stock, commodity and bond markets throughout the early 1900s, Wyckoff was curious about the logic behind market action. Through conversations, interviews and research of the successful traders of his time, Wyckoff augmented and documented the methodology he traded and taught. Wyckoff worked with and studied them all, himself, Jesse Livermore, E. H. Harriman, James R. Keene, Otto Kahn, J.P. Morgan, and many other large operators of the day.

Wyckoff’s research claimed many common characteristics among the greatest winning stocks and market campaigners of the time. He analyzed these market operators and their operations, and determined where risk and reward were optimal for trading. He emphasized the placement of stop-losses at all times, the importance of controlling the risk of any particular trade, and he demonstrated techniques used to campaign within the large trend (bullish and bearish). The Wyckoff technique may provide some insight as to how and why professional interests buy and sell securities, while evolving and scaling their market campaigns with concepts such as the “Composite Operator”.

Wyckoff married three times: first in 1892 to Elsie Suydam; second to Cecelia G. Shear, and third to Alma Weiss. Wyckoff charged in 1928 that his second wife, Cecelia G. Wyckoff, whom the media dubbed a Prima Donna of Wall Street, had wrested control of the Magazine of Wall Street from Mr. Wyckoff by “cajolery.” The media celebrated separation ended in an agreement where he received half a million dollars of the magazine company’s bonds.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/richard_wyckoff

As one who is actively interested in the stock, options, or commodity markets, you are likely to find the life and teachings of Richard D. Wyckoff to be of great interest and value. In 1931, after a long and distinguished career, Mr. Wyckoff wrote a unique course on how to invest and trade in securities and concurrently he founded a teaching organization to help people to learn to use his successful methods. That course is the Richard D. Wyckoff Course in Stock Market Science and Technique.

Financial Editors of Leading Newspapers and Magazines Have Answered This Question: How was Richard D. Wyckoff qualified to establish a Course of Instruction in Stock Market Science and Technique?

Mr. Wyckoff was in turn – runner, clerk, customer’s man, head of his own brokerage house, market expert, founder and long time editor of The Magazine of Wall Street. At one time, as market advisor, he commanded one of the largest individual followings in the history of Wall Street. Mr. Wyckoff was known as one of the most accomplished tape readers of his day. –Journal Of Commerce, Chicago

Mr. Wyckoff carved out for himself a career and a fortune. His book “Wall Street Ventures and Adventures” gives lifelike portraits of many of Wall Street’s legendary figures and an expose of the inner workings of the stock market; also it contains much practical information on judging the trend of the stock market. –Barron’s Weekly, New York.

Richard D. Wyckoff was a pioneer in the study of the tape, and of the technicalities of the market itself. At one time his “buy” and “sell” following was so numerous that it became unwieldy. His own clients and the horde of parasites who had access to his tips, “made” and “unmade” the market for the Wyckoff favorites. Not the least interesting of these personalities is that of Wyckoff himself. –Nation’s Business, Washington.

Mr. Wyckoff, as nearly everybody must know, is found of the Magazine of Wall Street and edited it until 1926. As a broker, speculator, editor and financial advisor, he has been intimately acquainted with famous players in that greatest of games. –Post Dispatch, St. Louis.

Mr. Wyckoff was always a serious student of the market. But he was essentially a speculator rather than a buyer for the long pull. Unlike most speculators, however, he made a fortune and a success. –Chronical, San Francisco.

No one can describe that spectacle with more authority than Mr. Wyckoff who went through every stage of the Street from a boy employed in a brokerage house, to a successful speculator, a giant in the battle, and as editor of The Magazine of Wall Street. –World Herald, Omaha.

Richard D. Wyckoff is best known in Washington as editor of The Magazine of Wall Street. In his younger days he made a close study of the methods used by the leaders in the market. –Star, Washington.

Richard D. Wyckoff is a name familiar in itself. His span of experience in things financial has been important and varied. Mr. Wyckoff’s contribution to the dignity, advancement and science of stock transactions has been a valuable service to his country. –Daily Journal, Flint, Michigan.

He started away back in 1988 as a cog in the big stock market machine and had an ambition to learn and to tell others what made it go around. This was the life objective of Richard D. Wyckoff. –American Banker, New York.

Throughout Mr. Wyckoff’s business career, his increasing absorption with the problem of how to bring accurate and first-hand information to the buy of stocks bore fruit in the various methods of financial service which he developed. –News, Portland, ME.

It is a long road which stretches between that first Wall Street job and his later successes, culminating in the founding and ownership of The Magazine of Wall Street. Such a career could not fail to bring him into contact with some of the outstanding figures of the times. –Daily Investment News, New York.

He has known intimately for two score years the greatest of our national games, high finance. Mr. Wyckoff has been less perhaps an operator in a sensational way than a student of finance. Financial men will remember him as editor of The Magazine of Wall Street, a periodical for which he had been chiefly responsible for from its beginning, more than twenty years ago, to the time of his retirement in 1926. –Commercial Tribune, Cincinnati.

Mr. Wyckoff does not want the hard bought experience of forty years to lie idle. Therefore, he is endeavoring to pass on some of his accumulated wisdom to others. –Spokesman Review, Spokane.

This Overview Of The Life Of Richard Wyckoff Is Maintained and Authored By Wyckoff SMI President Todd Butterfield