--- title: 'Why Smart Money Doesn''t Work: Explained Simply' source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=QzXLJZTM4S4' video_id: 'QzXLJZTM4S4' date: 2026-07-18 duration_sec: 465 channel: 'Alpha_Crypt - Вся правда о трейдинге и майнинге' --- # Why Smart Money Doesn't Work: Explained Simply > Source: [Why Smart Money Doesn't Work: Explained Simply](https://youtube.com/watch?v=QzXLJZTM4S4) ## Summary This video debunks the Smart Money concept (Smartmania) in trading, tracing its origins to Richard Wyckoff and modern promoters like Michael Huddleston (ICT). The speaker argues that these methods are marketing scams with no proven profitability, exploiting newcomers' search for a trading 'grail.' ### Key Points - **Smart Money as non-working technical analysis** [00:02] — The speaker claims Smart Money is just repackaged, non-functional technical analysis, but scammers still sell it to inexperienced traders. - **Richard Wyckoff's background** [00:15] — Wyckoff was a magazine founder, not a proven profitable trader. He had no trading reports or audits, only self-promotion via his magazine. - **Wyckoff's marketing machine** [01:10] — He used his magazine to publish laudatory articles about himself and suppress critics, building a reputation without evidence of trading success. - **Revival of Wyckoff's ideas** [02:08] — In the late 1980s-1990s, marketers revived Wyckoff's methods to sell as a new 'grail' after technical analysis lost credibility. - **Michael Huddleston and ICT** [03:22] — Huddleston created The Inner Circle Trader (ICT) in 2010, claiming 30+ years of experience but providing no evidence of profitable trading. - **Fake reviews and scams** [04:20] — 90% of ICT reviews are fake, with bots and paid testimonials. The speaker shows examples of fake Slavic names used to attract Russian-speaking victims. - **Smart Money as a derivative scam** [05:45] — Huddleston repackaged Wyckoff's fantasies with his own terminology, making millions from training without ever showing a live trade. - **Why people fall for it** [06:12] — The industry is full of scammers using common producers, sponsors, and closed chats to maintain the myth. People seek new solutions and marketers exploit that. ### Conclusion Smart Money is a marketing invention, not a profitable trading method. The speaker advises viewers to avoid such scams and instead watch his other videos for entertainment and education. ## Transcript made a video about smartmania. And I am sincerely glad that many have begun to understand that this is the same non-working technical analysis, only in a different package. However, there are still scammers selling these noodles to hamsters. And I'll tell you why this is nonsense, who came up with it, promoted it, and why someone still believes in this, God forgive me, concept. So the story begins with Richard Wyckoff. a renowned investor and technical analyst, he was a recognized stock market expert. Recognized by whom, you ask? Marketers and people who have never traded but pretend to be traders. You may have even come across his books. Scammers and bloggers will, of course, dance to the marketing hype and, for the sake of views and money, say that this is good and working literature. But who was Vaykov? There is no evidence whatsoever that Richard is profitable. No trading reports, no account audits, no nothing. Just words and clever marketing, which he himself came up with. How did he do it? Richard Wyckoff was the founder of The Magazine of Wall Street. And this is not some small magazine. At one point he had over 200,000 subscribers, and this was in those years. So Richard made a fortune and commissioned people to write laudatory articles about himself. And those who publicly doubted his skills were immediately destroyed by journalists in articles in his magazine. There were only a couple of financial journals in those days, but his was the only one of its kind. He occupied the niche of trading and investments, which also included recommendations. Therefore, having such authority, he quickly removed critics and enriched his reputation. At one time, Gerchig, Zvezdi and others also occupied a niche on YouTube. But years passed, competitors appeared, and then Yacht appeared, which showed people who they really are. In parallel with the magazine, Richard sold his books, in which he acted as a video guru who understands this world completely and knows how to make money in the market. Then his wife took over his magazine, and he lived out the rest of his years selling books. All this time, naturally, without trading or investing, neither during his life nor after his death he had any assets, well, except for the bucks he earned selling magazines and books. Then, around the end of the eighties, beginning of the nineties, there were the first attempts to extend his method to the modern market. What do I mean ? The stock market, the currency market, the raw materials market, cryptocurrencies, it doesn’t matter. market, the raw materials market, cryptocurrencies, it doesn’t matter. This is all 99% marketing lies. and 1% of truth and real traders. In marketing, the main task is to sell. Marketers are constantly coming up with ways to sell [ __ ] the goods he needs. And when the Goi begin to realize, for example, that technical analysis doesn't work, even on the stock market, from which it, one might say, arose, then marketers look for something new. After all, sales are falling and the niche is dying. And in those years, craftsmen remembered the old Wycof and decided to sell his ideas under a new sauce. They say that everything we learned doesn’t work. But then the genius of the dinosaur era left his work, and having refined it, we invented that very grail. official receipt of payment. Here I am showing you one of the courses, the Agral course. Later, traders began to realize that this was just another scam, lost money, and left the stock market. But time passed, and in 2010, The Inner Circle Trader ICT Trading brand, created by Michael Huddleston, was born. You may have seen it before. He has a YouTube channel created in 2012. The total number of views is almost 190 million. All these people, of course, lost money. Who is Michael Huddleston? This is a man who claims to have been in the market for over 30 years. But, like Vovicoff, there is no evidence that Michael Huddleston ever traded, let alone traded profitably. All the videos on his channel are post-factum art on graphs. Or launch a trading emulation. The favorite method of all scammers. But a newbie, as a rule, does not understand what is happening. But maybe I just don’t understand, and after all, I do n’t have thirty years of experience. Let's turn to the reviews then. And it turns out that 90% of reviews are fake. Moreover, Michael's sales department Here, for example, is how Russian-speaking people are being scammed. Michael, this is Michael, by the way. It's just that our people don't believe in Michael. And Mishka, Mishka is , yes, he’s one of our guys. Take all the money, Mishka. Here's Michael, just in case. And here is our Mikhail. me so much over the past year. I can't say much during the live sessions, but I came without knowing anything so I could have a good understanding. I hope to put this to good use. Observe this space. Well, in Mikhail’s view, the Slavs have nicknames [laughter] Svorok. It's strange that the next comment was n't written by Perun. Michael Huddleston. Oh, n't written by Perun. Michael Huddleston. Oh, not Misha anymore. The best I've ever seen. Well, this is already something biblical. You may also have encountered bots that write overly generic advertising comments under videos in different languages . How the great Michael, aka Misha, saved them from poverty, and now they drive their Lamborghini and bought their parents a house. Well, in general, everything follows the infocygan template. It was he who took Wyckoff's fantasies, seasoned them with technical analysis, but replaced them with his own terminology and promoted the phenomenon of SmartMoney. And he himself made a fortune from this, without showing a single trading session, but selling hundreds of thousands of trainings. And all the other infocygans are already its derivatives. Some of the most popular sellers of this, God forgive me, concept were Cryptology, a Ukrainian school of misguided trading founded by Kosei Kudo, the same one who shot himself in his Lamborghini after losing his and other people's money, and many other would-be traders who sell this nonsense to the poor. As you can see, the person who came up with this idea, and all his followers, did not actually make money thanks to smartmania. The concept didn't work and they knew it, but they made money selling their services. Why do people swallow this? As I've said many times, this whole industry, crypto, stock market, and so on, is filled with scammers. The scammers have the same schemes: common producers, sponsors, and closed chats where they communicate and share their results on how to warm up the [ __ ]. I think many of you have already seen that they all interview each other, come up with different collaborations, and so on. As the saying goes, one hand washes the other, so it is in their interests to maintain the myth of efficiency and continue to deceive the [ __ ]. I caught technical analysis, then price action, then smart money. There was also VCA, wave analysis and Shimoku and a dozen other nonsense invented in order to fool Goi. People are always looking for something new, and marketers come up with ways to wrap up something old and sell it to them as new. Perhaps you were looking for a solution, yes, and now you are upset. Better this way than to lose. I advise you to distract yourself completely. I also have a fun format. For example, watch the video about Crypto Bosh. This is a prime example of a marketer, a dyed-in-the-wool infocygan, posing as a trader. Look, I think you'll smile. Profit and all the best to everyone.