We created Value Indicator, tested profitability of thousands of investment, trading, and stop-loss strategies, gave lessons & tutorials on high-performance trading, and created Stock Disciplines.

About Us 

Dr. Winton Felt founded Asset Management Systems (AMS) in 1988.  During the following years, Asset Management Systems created a publication called Value Indicator, managed investment portfolios, and computer-tested the profitability of more than 50,000 investment strategies.  This system testing involved complex multivariate analysis, and computer simulations were run using real data spanning many years and a wide range of market environments.  The project usually required 8 to 16 hours a day and continued for 3 years.  The goal of this research was to find investment disciplines (systems) that could consistently outperform a buy and hold approach by at least 20% a year.  AMS also conducted investment strategy seminars and tutorials for investors and brokers.

The personnel, management, research activities, tutorial and training operations, and all other operations of Asset Management Systems merged into our present legal entity (formed in April of 1998 and known at that time as Felt Financial, LLC).  Value Indicator was renamed The Valuator.  Felt Financial, while managing institutional and individual accounts, also devoted considerable time and resources to giving lessons and tutorials on the techniques and strategies of investing (short-term, intermediate-term, and longer-term) and the much greater after-tax profitability that could be attained by shortening the investment time-horizon, by using well-placed stops, and by using time-stops.  This educational program was also provided through the monthly publication of Strategy Updates.

Research and the evidence of trading activity in a real account convinced us that obtaining consistent returns of well over 40% a year was attainable if a person implemented a good well-disciplined investment strategy.  However, in the process of teaching others some of the principles of effective trading, it became clear that most people do not know how to time their purchases correctly, what constitutes a sell signal, or how to determine where to place effective stop-losses.  Also, most did not know how to find good investment candidates.

The average investor tends to depend on television "gurus" who tout their favorite stocks.  They read Forbes, Barrons, and Money to find investment ideas.  Articles like "Five Stocks You Should Buy Now," are favorite reading for finding investment ideas!  How can there be ANY precision in the timing of a purchase when the purchase is made pursuant to the suggestion of a magazine article that was conceived weeks before its publication?  Then there is the portfolio manager in the TV interview who gives a list of his favorite picks.  The viewer does not know that the speaker has been buying those stocks for several months and that it won't be long before he begins to lighten up on his positions.  Such people buy and sell over a period of months and they have an unending source of new money.  The reality is that it may be too late for an individual with a finite amount of money to begin taking his initial position in any of the recommended stocks. 

Unfortunately, most people do not know how to find timely stocks on their own.  By "timely," we mean stocks that are ready to "go" within a few days.  The average investor does not know how to define a non-perfoming stock.  Most do not know how to weigh the risk of holding on to a stock against the probable reward.  In short, most do not have a well-designed discipline to guide them in their buying and selling.  They let others do their thinking for them and follow their leaders like lemmings.  Consequently, they are destined to wallow around in stocks that go nowhere for months on end.  We do not say there is anything wrong with reading these publications or listening to media gurus.  Smart investors monitor the media to tune in on market sentiment.  When the gurus are most bullish, that is usually the time to become wary.  The bottom line is that most investors do not know how to do their own thinking to the point where they can be self-directed.  They are directed by others.  They do not know how to find stocks that are ready, when to buy stocks, or even when to sell stocks.  Thus, we perceived a need for investor "enablement" through training and education.  Over many years, the company has developed tools, disciplines, and resources to enable investors to do a much better job of investing.  Though training and education had been a major part of our business before, we concluded that the time had come to focus our efforts entirely on addressing that need through our publications, software tools, and tutorials.

On December 31, 2005, Felt Financial stopped managing portfolios for others to focus entirely on investor enablement.  In keeping with that shift in emphasis, the company changed its name from Felt Financial, LLC, to Stock Disciplines, LLC.  Only the name was changed.  It remained the same legal entity.  The efforts of our personnel have undergone a seamless evolution of purpose going back to 1988, though our company's legal structure became that of an LLC in 1998.  The goal of the company is to provide investors and traders with the tools and knowledge necessary to invest intelligently and with discipline.

Though the term "trader" is generally applied to a person who holds a position for a relatively short time, we consider all investors to be traders.  Both "traders" and "investors" must buy and sell.  How successful a trader or investor will be is determined, for the most part, by how the processes of buying and selling are managed.  It is this process of buying and selling that requires attention, and that is where we focus our efforts.  We use the terms "investors" and "traders" interchangeably because they both must use the same key processes to implement their plan.  One just moves a little slower than the other.  The other differentiating factor is that "fundamentals" are increasingly important in stock evaluation as the holding period increases.  However, that is not to say that fundamentals are not important to the short-term trader. 

We have stated that "the goal of the company is to provide investors and traders with the tools and knowledge necessary to invest intelligently and with discipline."  How do we realize that goal?  We believe that the key to successful trading is in the correct timing of purchases and sales.  The Valuator (in publication since 1990) was created to help people find stocks that are timely from a fundamental perspective (it now provides both fundamental and technical information on about 500 stocks).  Our other publication, StockAlerts started about 2002 as a private tool used by members of our company to enhance their trading performance.  At first only a few scans were included but that changed quickly and StockAlerts became a major resource in our effort to keep an extensive "watch list" of timely trading candidates (so we could quickly replace stocks recently sold).  In 2007, it was decided that StockAlerts should be made available to the public.  Its purpose is to make it easy for traders (and investors) to find stocks that have recently completed or nearly completed a technical "setup."  By "setup," we mean a pattern of stock behavior that often precedes a price surge.  Buying on a meaningful "trigger event" just after completion of a "setup" is generally a better way to buy than the undisciplined approach used by many people.  There are many "trigger events."  One, for example, might be evidence that the expected price surge has just begun.  Stops was created to help people improve the timing of their sales.  A good "trailing stop" can make an excellent selling discipline.  It can be either a sell discipline in its own right or a backup system to another well-conceived selling strategy.  The educational goal of our enterprise is carried on through our tutorial and training programs.  The "Free Tutorials" link will take you to discussions pertaining to strategies, procedures, or indicators.  Remember that our site is very new and it is still being "tweaked."  We expect that the number of tutorials offered will eventually increase.  Our paid-for training programs are not described on this Web site because they are generally not available to new trainees at this time.  When they become available, an announcement to that effect will be made on this Web site.  Descriptions will be provided at that time.