What Occurred to SFO Journal (SFOMag)? Shares, Choices and Futures Journal – SteadyOptions Trading Weblog

The publication was based in 2001 by Russell Wassendorf, a notable govt within the futures brokerage trade who ran a big futures dealer known as Peregrine Monetary Group.
 

SFOmag was principally targeted on the technical facet of buying and selling versus fundamentals. Which made it fairly uncommon in that respect. There’s not likely a well-liked publication as we speak that caters to the technical, price-based dealer. There’s far more cash in studying the tea-leaves of months-old 13F filings and Elon Musk tweets, I suppose.

Given what number of legendary names within the buying and selling group contributed to SFOmag, it’s an actual travesty they shutdown the way in which they did. 

The journal featured notable contributors like: 

• Larry Williams
• Brett Steenbarger 
• John J. Murphy 
• Larry McMillan
• Jack Schwager
• Linda Bradford Raschke
• Tom DeMark
• John Bollinger
• Steve Nison

A venerable who’s who of the buying and selling group of 10-15 years in the past. All nonetheless fairly related. And but nearly none of it’s obtainable anymore.

Sadly, it doesn’t seem to be any full archive of the web site exists anyplace. The Wayback Machine has some hyperlinks archived however it’s very incomplete. A lot of the journal’s traditional articles are inside out-of-print bodily magazines that will by no means see the sunshine of day once more.

Nevertheless, previous followers or just curious merchants should purchase previous problems with the journal on eBay for fairly cheap costs. You too can discover copies of their out-of-print guide sequence SFO Private Investor on Amazon.

There’s a couple of editions of this sequence together with an On-line Trading version, that includes interviews with Linda Bradford Raschke, John Carter, and William O’Neil. Additional, there’s a buying and selling psychology guide that includes interviews with Van Tharp and Brett Steenbarger.

Linda Raschke has one in all her 2005 SFO articles on right here web site right here.

On the floor, you’d suppose SFOmag was merely a melting ice dice. An analog publication in a world that was aggressively pivoting to digital. However actuality is far more grim.

In reality, SFOmag’s collapse had nothing to do with the profitability or efficiency of the journal in any respect. 

You see, SFOmag was owned by financier Russel R. Wasendorf Sr., who additionally ran a big futures brokerage agency Peregrine Monetary Group. Presumably, SFOmag was a software to construct Peregrine’s model as a trusted futures dealer.

But it surely seems, Peregrine was a large fraud. The story of the agency’s collapse was largely overshadowed by that of MF World, one other futures brokerage agency that cratered simply months prior. 

Regulators found that Peregrine didn’t have the capital to satisfy buyer withdrawal requests. The agency had been accepting buyer deposits and never inserting them with the financial institution, as required by regulators. As a substitute, CEO Wassendorf had been embezzling deposits. The Nationwide Futures Affiliation discovered that $215 million in Peregrine buyer deposits had been lacking, embezzled by Wassendorf.

Wassendorf tried suicide exterior of Peregrine’s Iowa headquarters in 2012, confessing to embezzling over 100 million {dollars} in a notice. DealBook reported:

Simply 9 days after his wedding ceremony, the native police discovered Mr. Wasendorf, the pinnacle of the agency, unconscious in his automobile behind the constructing with a tube working from the exhaust pipe into the automobile’s inside. An empty bottle of vodka rested by his facet. He left a suicide notice suggesting monetary crimes had been dedicated.

Finally, Peregrine was compelled into chapter 11 and shut down. Wassendorf was sentenced to 50 years in jail, which is successfully a life sentence on the age of 64. 

It took a very long time, however it seems to be like Peregrine prospects received most or all of their a refund.

As for SFOmag, it was rapidly offered in a hearth sale to buying and selling training web site TraderPlanet, who ceased operations of the journal.

The sale was introduced by way of Twitter on July 10, 2012: