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Lesson 1 is now available online!
View all four sections of Lesson 1, "The PLdot", including Methodology, Philosophy, Psychology, and Exercises.

About the Authors

Overview and Principles

Course Outline

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FAQ's

Tution and Fees

About the Authors

Who are Charles Drummond and Ted Hearne?

One of us is a major market theorist and one of the significant "super-traders" of the 20th century; the other is an experienced trader and market theorist, and a professional writer who has a great deal of skill in explaining and writing about this material.

CHARLES DRUMMOND

Charles Drummond was born and raised in Ontario, Canada. As a young man he enjoyed studying literature and geometry in school. His market experiences started in a conventional way with various experiments in buying stocks and commodities. He lost money on penny stocks, he lost money on futures contracts, he lost money following broker recommendations. After these losing experiments, he decided that if he was going to lose money, it would be in his own way, and not following the recommendations of others, and began his serious study of the markets.

During the 60s and early 70s, as he was trading in a variety of markets, Drummond developed the basics of his market theory, and published these findings privately in a series of books, starting in the late 70s. During the 90s he has continued to add to his theories and develop new insights and has published a number of significant enhancements.

Drummond has always had a small group of private students and his theories have been taught by several market technicians.

However, Drummond himself has always preferred to maintain a low profile and generally eschews publicity and public exposure of any kind. His students have all been bound by non-disclosure agreements, and by an understanding that they were privy to a rather special set of information that is worth holding closely. Thus most of Drummond's insights have remained in private hands and have not been widely distributed. In this current electronic format the lessons will be more accessible, but they will still be carefully controlled.

If you enroll as a student and undertake to complete these lessons, you will join this small elite group, and you also will sign a non-disclosure form covering the contents of these lessons, and the books and materials which accompany them. We ask that you "keep the faith" and abide by both the spirit and letter of this agreement. Little can be gained by the participants if this information is available on every street corner and used by every market participant.

"Charlie" currently lives in Eastern Canada where he trades every day, raises prize game birds and hogs, and maintains an organic vegetable farm.

TED HEARNE

Ted Hearne is a trader and consultant who lives in Chicago; he has been studying P&L methodology privately with Charles Drummond since the early 90s. He was until recently member of the Mid-America Commodities Exchange, and has written about Market Profile and other trading methodologies.

In the course of his research into technical analysis, Hearne has also investigated the psychology of trading, and has practical expertise in the field of hypnotism. His experiences in this area led him to develop a series of self-hypnosis tapes, which coordinate with the P&L methodology and lesson plan.

Hearne was born and raised in the Eastern United States and now lives in the Midwest. His undergraduate education was at the College of Wooster in Ohio and the Middle East; his graduate education, at the University of Chicago, focused on literature and psychology.

Prior to his work in the markets, Hearne worked as a foreign correspondent, a film producer and director, and a consultant on mass communications and behavior change. In the 1970s and 1980s Hearne founded and managed a 30-person communications firm with a national client base. He is a professional writer, and has had an extensive career in communications involving award-winning print, film, and multi-media productions, for a wide range of clients.

In recent years Hearne has lived in Shanghai China and Michigan, where he trades, develops new software, writes on market topics and other matters, and guides traders in their development.

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Contributions

In the late 1960's, Drummond introduced the concept of "time period usage", which is to say, how to overlay the energy of one time period directly onto another. He focused on charting the market geometry of energy flow, exhausts, and extremes in this context.

Drummond created a method that concentrates on the geometry of three price bars.

He developed a theory that combines the two concepts noted above, and applied it to the market.

Working with these original concepts, he classified market action by "types of trading," such as trend runs, congestion entrance, congestion action, congestion exit, and developed clear and unambiguous definitions for each of these types of trading.

He has instructed students on these principles, in various ways, since 1975, always keeping in mind, however, that students need to seek out their own ways to apply this knowledge. A number of original studies and theories were written for Drummond's students.

In 1982-85, Drummond developed a series of computerized formulas, which drew from historical price data and predicted key energy points in the future: the "the O-Cap, the Pro-Cap, the Thunder Dot" and so forth. (The story of these developments can be found on the pldot.com website.)

When the technology became available, Drummond developed a large number of geometric studies, using Omega Research TradeStation. (Who could resist using the adventuresome technology of TradeStation?)

All of the above accomplishments and contributions are based on a single, simple concept -- reality, and all that we experience in life, is a form of energy, and the best way to deal with energy, is to monitor it. Drummond teaches that a reality must be monitored through a dialectical process. We must be aware of what creates a reality in the first place, which is the opposition of energy forces flowing back and forth.

Thus, when viewing a geometric energy field, such as an area of price action on a chart or graph, we can become aware of what creates that price area. What we see on the chart are the geometric manifestations of the energies flowing back and forth in the world.

This is done by observing the energy of various time periods as they play out against each other in regular, repeatable geometrical patterns (every time frame has similar patterns). Some students have difficulty understanding this concept, but experience great success as they develop their skills in picking out the patterns which are manifested by these energy flows.

The bottom line is that prices will react to energy flows in a geometric, patterned manner -- and traders can take advantage of that fact whether or not they understand the theory. In time, however, most students do eventually understand the dialectical process of the opposing forces of energy.