A short
autobiography...
Sometimes I think
that my life has been like a Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn novel
(and it’s not over yet)!
I was born in El
Centro, California, about 100 miles east of San Diego, where my
family moved when I was about seven years old. My dad had bought
Acme Printing Co., one of the oldest printing firms here in San
Diego, dating back to around 1905 or earlier. After graduating from
high school and volunteering for the draft, I was offered a chance
to take my choice of any school the Army had to offer, so looking
for the big bucks ($55.00 extra per month) I chose the Army
Airborne. I don't recommend jumping out of a perfectly good
airplane.
With my Honorable
discharge from the Army in 1956, and the offer to pay me to go back
to school, I was able to get my commercial pilot's license, and
look for a job with the airlines here in San Diego. But no luck
here, all of the pilots coming home from Korea got the jobs.
Joining my Farther, I managed the family printing business. I met
my lovely wife, got married and had five children. I attended San
Diego Junior College, and San Diego State College (it was not even
a University in those days), taking classes in business and
marketing. After my father's death I owned Acme Printing Co. and
other various business enterprises for over twenty years.
I was very active
in San Diego, joining various Civic organizations; San Diego Junior
Chamber of Commerce, past chairman of the Aviation Committee, I
formed the San Diego Jaycee Flying Club, Past President of Harbor
Lions, Flotilla 11, U.S. Coast Guard Power Squadron Air Search and
Rescue, Antique Air Craft Association, San Diego Aerospace Museum,
and was a member of the San Diego Elks Lodge. Busy, busy, busy!
I started various
companies in the twenty years I was active in the printing
business. American Traders Manufactures and Buyers (ATMAB -
Anything To Make A Buck), Presto Prints of California, The Sand
Box, Tattoos by Joyce, Joyce Enterprises Inc., M&J Marketing,
Marshall Air, San Diego Sky Hawks Inc. and Typro Graphics. I
retired from the printing business in 1976, and formed Joyce
Enterprises Inc., a corporation involved in marketing and business
consulting; I was a major shareholder and served on the Board of
Directors as Vice President in charge of marketing, and product
development. After a while I decreased my workweek, and basically
retired. I became a business consultant, specializing in product
development for start up companies.
I came out of
retirement in 1986 after some bad investment decisions, and went to
work as a manager of Paper Plus, a division of Unisource World
Wide. I retired again after fourteen years in September 2000.
My many hobbies
over the years include backpacking, rebuilding antique aircraft,
flying, boating, fishing, writing poetry, reading and watching
Biography and the History channel. And last but not least, teaching
day-trading.
Looking for
additional income, I received a familiar mail order pamphlet in
1994...you know the one [Ken Roberts TWMPMM manual], how to get
rich quick in the commodities and futures business. I jumped right
on in. Needless to say, I didn't get it. Kept looking for the Holy
Grail! I read everything I could get my hands on, attending
seminars, and lectures on how to get rich. I spent a small fortune
on books, systems, and methods by the likes of Ken Roberts, Jake
Bernstein, Nick Van Nice, and our old favorite Larry Williams.
Nothing worked for
me, except an education in the commodities and futures business.
Still thinking that this is a possible way to make money at home, I
read an article on day-trading in “Futures” magazine. I tried paper
trading some of the ideas presented in the article on the S&P; it
just gave me brain cloud, way too much stuff to think about. In
another article in “Futures”, Larry Williams and Miles Dunbar wrote
about trading the Nasdaq 100 and looking at a divergence in the
Dow.
Another article in
the same magazine written by Michael A. Mermer talked about using
the Nasdaq 100 as a leading indicator for the S&P 500 futures and
said it was a great day-trading vehicle. At first it did not really
sink in, until I started watching CNBC on television. They have
those little arrows in a box showing the change in the Dow, Nasdaq,
and S&P 500. A light went on for some reason, and I started
watching every morning, keeping my eye on the Dow and the Nasdaq.
At first I was looking for the divergence, then I noticed that when
both the Dow and Nasdaq were in sync, the S&P 500 followed. The
rest is history!
If you read my Simple-As-123
trading manual and/or spend time with my friend Dick Bernard and I
in our Paltalk chat room, you will see how we use the Dow and
Nasdaq markets as a primary indicator for our trading method. We
call our method Simple-As-123 because we know of no simpler way to
learn and trade the E-mini S&P 500 futures.
Pic of Marsh and Terry at the San Diego
Padres ballgame
