The Adam Theory of Markets or What Matters Is Profit
$25.46
The Adam Theory of Markets is a philosophical yet practical exploration of market behavior written by Welles J. Wilder, the creator of iconic indicators such as RSI, ATR, and ADX. Unlike conventional technical or fundamental analysis books, this work challenges the reader to reconsider what truly drives markets: human behavior, self-interest, and the relentless pursuit of profit.
Wilder argues that markets are not governed by complex economic theories or predictive models, but by a simple, universal principle—the desire to maximize profit while minimizing pain. Drawing on psychology, experience, and market observation, he presents a framework in which prices move according to collective human action rather than mathematical perfection.
The book deliberately avoids rigid systems or mechanical trading rules. Instead, it focuses on mental models, decision discipline, and understanding crowd behavior. Wilder encourages traders and investors to strip away unnecessary complexity and focus on what matters most: market reaction, risk control, and profitability over ego or prediction.
The Adam Theory of Markets is not a “how-to” trading manual. It is a mindset-shaping work that helps readers develop clarity, patience, and realism—qualities essential for long-term survival and success in financial markets. Its simplicity is intentional, making its lessons both timeless and widely applicable across asset classes and market conditions.
✅ What You’ll Learn:
- Why profit, not prediction, is the true driver of market behavior.
- How human psychology shapes price movement and trends.
- The limitations of overly complex market theories and models.
- How to think independently from the crowd without fighting it.
- Why discipline and mindset matter more than indicators.
- How to simplify market decision-making without losing effectiveness.
- A philosophy for approaching markets with realism and clarity.
💡 Key Benefits:
- Strips market analysis down to its essential principles.
- Enhances psychological discipline and decision clarity.
- Complements technical and fundamental trading approaches.
- Encourages realistic expectations and long-term thinking.
- Written by one of the most influential figures in technical analysis.
👤 Who This Book Is For:
- Traders seeking a deeper understanding of market psychology.
- Investors frustrated by over-engineered trading systems.
- Readers interested in the mental side of trading success.
- Market participants who value simplicity, discipline, and realism.
📚 Table of Contents:
- TO SUCCEED IN MARKETS WE MUST
- THERE IS REALLY A LOT LESS TO TRADING THAN MEETS THE EYE
- WHAT MATTERS IN MARKETS? – PRICE
- AVOID ARBITRARINESS
- TRADING SYSTEMS
- WHAT IS A TREND?
- WHAT IS THE MOST BASIC FORM OF REPETITION?
- WHAT LEADS TO THE GREATEST SYMMETRY?
- PROJECTING THE SECOND REFLECTION
- CONSTRUCTING THE SECOND REFLECTION CHART THE EASY WAY
- WHICH MARKETS TO TRADE
- HOW ABOUT TOPS AND BOTTOMS?
- THE MOST IMPORTANT STATEMENT ABOUT MARKETS
- WHAT IF WE GET STOPPED OUT?
- WHEN DO WE ENTER A TRADE?
- THE TEN TRADING RULES
- THE PLAYFUL COMMODITY TRADER
The Adam Theory of Markets or What Matters Is Profit By J. Welles Wilder
| Author(s) | |
|---|---|
| Product Type | Ebook |
| Format | |
| Skill Level | Beginner to Intermediate |
| Pages | 140 |
| Publication Year | 1987 |
| Delivery | Instant Download |
15 reviews for The Adam Theory of Markets or What Matters Is Profit
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Kyson Corona (verified owner) –
I like the book for it is written in simple, straightforward text for even a non-professional traders to understand. Not like other technical trading books, this one give you another insight on how to ride on a big trend to earn and more importantly how to consistently ride on profits – The adam way of tradings !
Luke Conley (verified owner) –
Well presented! A lucid, easily comprehesible account of the author’s Adam Theory. However the theory, in this reviewer’s opinion, would have limited application to certain situations which may not arise as frequently as the author would suggest.
Gavin Ryan (verified owner) –
Adam theory is basically correct…all that matters is price. The secret of success in the markets is to buy when a stock or commodity is going up, buy some more if it keeps going up, and buy some more if it keeps going up and start selling it when it starts to go down. Deceptively simple…too simple you might say! Adam theory presents a method of doing exactly what is so simple. I am not a huge fan of the methodology that is presented to accomplish this “secret of success”…so don’t get hung up on that idea…but do know that there is a nugget of gold in that simplistic idea of “keep buying while something is going up”…there is a key to doing it (maybe many keys)…you as the reader just have to find one. For me…it took 15 years after reading the book to do just that…hey..I’m a little bit slow! At any rate, this book is an excellent read and I highly recommend it.
Salem Beck (verified owner) –
The Adam Theory book is very good written by J. Welles Wilder, a lot of super details, when you first start to read you cant stop. After trying out all examples from the book you want to try the Adam Theory yourself on “your own stocks”.
Does the theory really work ? You have to read the book. I liked it.
Reginald Burnett (verified owner) –
The book remembered me to give more discipline on my trades following the rules of Adam Theory. I beleive is a very helpfull book mainly for the beginners.
Harlow Reyna (verified owner) –
On the one hand, this book is worth the price-tag many times over. While those traders who can’t resist complexity stay forever confused in a pile of “indicators,” Mr. Welles’ “system” helps one hear where a *TRENDING* market is saying about itself. The extremely simple “method” is almost Zen-like. It bars one from kidding oneself, especially when stuck with losing positions.
Besides, probably unbeknownst to Mr. Welles himself, this book contains a fairly reliable way of picking the end of minor corrections in a trending market.
On the other hand, this book is worthless and may even kill one’s trading account. If one were foolish enough to apply the simplistic “system” to an illiquid or sideways market, one will get whipsawed until one’s wiped out.
In a world of computerized trading, volatility is much higher and corrections deeper than when Mr. Welles wrote this. If you blindly apply his trailing profit-stops, you will keep getting stopped out of profitable positions.
Mr. Welles’ “system” should be borne in mind as central to playing a confirmed trend, but stay carefully within its limitations. Also, you need a better system of your own to determine your exit points.
Eduardo Barnett (verified owner) –
you need to combine it with a 100% systematic trend following approach or the book is useless.
Wish I read the book sooner. It took me 3 years to figure out how solid the concepts of the book are and how well they work once you have the tools ( a trend following system ) to apply them.
Kenji Howell (verified owner) –
This book should be on every traders desk.
This book can change the way you live your life. Ask yourself do you like spending days reading charts, staring at a computer screen? Do you enjoy that feeling when a market goes against your long trade even though all the indicators say it should be going up? If the answer is yes then dont bother with this book.
But if you’d like to find those big trends, ride them up or down for those massive profits, no hassle and no stress then this book is for you!
And if you want to do it all in half an hour a day and spend the rest of the day with your family or playing golf then buy this book. Stop trading against the markets, trying to predict highs and lows, when you can just use whatever the market is doing right now to make those profits all day long….
The book is concise, simple and can be read in an hour or so. The principles apply to any market, futures, stocks, even modern day spread betting.
This book is the first book I ever bought on trading (talk about good luck!!) and I’ve never bought another trading book since. I dont need to, everything I would ever need to know is right here. Do you want to buy my ebook. No chance I wouldnt sell it in a million!!!
This book works- buy it before its too late!!!!
Myra Walker (verified owner) –
Very good
Marianna Park (verified owner) –
Forget the other trading books on so-called ‘trend following’. This is it. This is where it’s at. In a nutshell, this book espouses getting onboard the natural moves of the market, not against them. It’s so simple albeit not so easy that it makes you wonder why you haven’t thought of it first.
Morgan Grant (verified owner) –
I cant belive i spent $25 on this book !! this book is for the very new trader (and i mean NEW) it is filled with cliche
1. trend is your friend
2. cut losses let profits run…..ect If you are a serious trader then look elsewhere….sorry
Emberly Costa (verified owner) –
Once you realize that with all technical indicators amount to noise in the crowded room of trading, you come to an end to yourself and realize to listen to the markets one needs to just listen in on the person your talking to not 20 other conversations in the room.
Adam represents a theory on the inner market symmetry charts form according to clues the price action gives one.
Really its all about Price Action!.. I suggest in reading the book a couple of times to catch things you didn’t the first or second time around.
Wilder has a couple of books on the market but this book and Delta are essentials when dealing with price action alone.
Kara Wu (verified owner) –
I read this, eager to learn a deep secret about the markets. What I learnt was interesting and certainly original – but my big issue is that choosing WHEN to use the theory is left open. This is an important source of arbitrariness, which goes against the grain of the theory. Choosing the moments from which to project is something where no serious insight is given and the language becomes very fuzzy. I don’t know – does it work? Could it work? I’m not convinced. If I’d paid a million dollars for this, I would probably have been left wanting.
Leon Harrell (verified owner) –
This book gives the general ideas for determining stops and selection of investments but Dunnigans Book gives you the objectively defined structure to apply the book to and how to define the structure of the markets
Daxton Santana (verified owner) –
I just can’t put it any more directly.
Welles J. Wilder is old school. Could probably be considered the father of technical analysis. Almost everyone who is trading, is using some method that has its root in his work.
He made ALOT of money, lost a lot of money (which every trader understands is the cost of trading….learning to do it for real) and then made even more. So when he comes along and at the end of his career says, you know what…..all that is really a waste of time, it’s actually simple…..do this.
Maybe….just maybe….people should listen.
Wilder is not actually saying anything unique or profound. More like common sense. The most accurate prediction of what a market is going to do, is what it just did. That’s it.
The Adam technique in a nutshell. Put up a chart…any chart. Take a screenshot (that is windows key + print screen). It’s in your documents folder. Click on it. Hit the rotate key twice (rotate 180 degrees). That is your best prediction for what the market will do next.
Ask fundamental questions like….would I trade this. What direction. Where should I place my stop. Where should I look for a take profit point.
Simply update whenever a new bar forms and keep asking those questions. It becomes OBVIOUS when you should and should not enter a trade. Obvious how to trail stops. Obvious when to cut your loses or cash out your profits.
Much more importantly, this method does what no software can do….show you, directly, how well behaved a market is. How much it’s whipsawing back and forth, how “good” a trend is, if it exists. It is an art to do these things just looking at a chart….Adam makes it easy.
There are probably a good dozen very effective trade following systems, some of them developed by Wilder himself. This book shows you how to tell if its a good idea to use one on a particular instrument at this time. But because its not fancy schmancy, high tech, people dismiss it.
What is too funny is Wilder practically mocks these people during the first third of the book. They just got to be right and if the markets don’t agree….well…..well..it’s got to work…here is all my money….flush.
It doesn’t work that way. The market does its thing, it offers opportunities. And you follow. Adam is how to do that.