Richard Wyckoff

Richard Demille Wyckoff
Richard Demille Wyckoff
Born(1873-11-02)November 2, 1873[1]
DiedMarch 7, 1934(1934-03-07) (aged 60)
Sacramento, California, U.S.
OccupationsSecurities speculator and financial media publisher
Spouse(s)Aleminia Wyckoff
Cecilia Gertrude Shere
Alma Weiss

Richard Demille Wyckoff (November 2, 1873 – March 7, 1934) was an American stock promoter, investor, and securities speculator, as well as a financial media author, editor, and publisher. Notably, Wyckoff founded the Magazine of Wall Street, at one point the world's most widely-circulated financial publication.

Life and career

Early life

Richard Wyckoff was the son of Walter Wychoff.[2] Walter was a financial media publisher and financier.[3][4]

In 1888, Richard Wyckoff became a messenger boy for a firm of brokers, later becoming a broker and stock promoter himself before entering the publishing world in the early 1900s.[5] Wyckoff would continue to act as a stock promoter, trader, and investor, speculating mainly in stock and bonds, until the end of his life.[6]

Wyckoff Estate

Walter Wyckoff contracted architect Chester A. Patterson and landscape designer Clarence Fowler to build a 7600 square foot mansion on a 10-acre estate, dubbed “Twin Lindens” or the "Wyckoff Estate", next to Alfred P. Sloan’s home in a wealthy part of New York (West Shore Road, Kings Point, Great Neck).[2][7][8][9][3]

The Wyckoff Estate (Twin Lindens) c. 1927

Richard Wyckoff later inherited this property from Walter.[2] While several independent sources indicate that Walter bought and built the Wyckoff Estate, Richard claimed that it was he who purchased the land and built a $250,000 mansion (in contemporaneous USD).[10] The discrepancy might stem from the fact that Richard tried to hide or protect his assets[11] from the numerous personal and professional lawsuits he was subject to throughout the 1910s[12] and 1920s[13], by placing those assets under other peoples' names.[14]

The Magazine of Wall Street

Circulation and financial success

Wyckoff founded The Ticker, of the Ticker Publishing Co., in 1907; it was rebranded in 1911 as The Magazine of Wall Street.[15][16][17] The magazine went on to become the world's most widely-circulated financial publication in the early 1900s, surpassing The Wall Street Journal.[5][18][15]

In 1929, near the magazine's zenith[19], its value was reported to be between $39,000,000 and $117,000,000 (in 2026 USD) and it employed 200 people.[14][20][21]

The Magazine of Wall Street. May, 1911.

Loss of control

In highly publicized[14][22][23] and prolonged[21] divorce-related proceedings, Wyckoff was forced to sell the magazine to Cecilia Wyckoff (née Shere), Wyckoff's one-time mistress and later wife.[5][14]

Shere, called "redoubtable" by Benjamin Graham,[24] initially became Wyckoff's secretary and stenographer at the magazine and took on a decision-making role within the magazine thereafter.[5][14] Wyckoff gave Shere 25% of the magazine on engagement and a further 25% upon marriage. Wyckoff gave another 49% of the magazine in later years as he sought to protect his assets from litigation.[14]

Wyckoff alleged that Shere had gained 99% control of the magazine through manipulation, emotional and otherwise. Shere countered that she earned control through sound business practices. Wyckoff rebutted that her claims of "genius" business decisions were propaganda and a ruse intended to take credit for all of his work and success.[10][11][25][5][26][23][15] The courts adjudged, and contemporaneous reports stated, that Shere was the reason for why the magazine was profitable in the first place and that, early on, she had taken equity more so than salary as compensation for her work. The court in the case stated that Wyckoff never turned a profit prior to Shere taking over major business decisions. It was further stated that when Shere had a prolonged absence due to illness, Wyckoff indebted the company once again, which Shere later reversed. Wyckoff had apparently devoted most of his time to stock promotion and other investment activities rather than running the magazine.[14][21][26]

The courts ultimately gave Shere full control of the magazine, the entire Wyckoff Estate (Twin Lindens), and custody of both of their children.[14]

In return for losing control of nearly everything he had, Wyckoff settled for a nominal position and a good salary within the magazine but was quickly fired by the sole owner at that point, Shere. The divorce proceeding further awarded Wyckoff $500,000 in 7% bonds.[26] However, the interest on the bonds didn't cover child support, forcing Wyckoff to further compensate Shere every year. The process ultimately left Wyckoff in poor health[14] and financial strain serious enough to temporarily live in "a broken-down public inn".[14]

Wyckoff entered semi-retirement[27] after losing control of the magazine, focusing on a small publishing enterprise consisting of selling stock-related books, courses, a newsletter, and a magazine.[28][15][5][29]

Personal life and death

Cecilia Gertrude Shere c. 1928

Wyckoff had a daughter, Jane, with his first wife.[30]

Soon after founding The Ticker, Wyckoff began having an affair with a young singer from Detroit, Cecilia Gertrude Shere (alternatively spelled as Cecelia). Wyckoff's then-wife, Aleminia Wyckoff, became suspicious and hired a private detective, discovered the affair, and filed for divorce. Shere and Wyckoff were married shortly thereafter, on August 26, 1913. They had two girls, Gloria Wyckoff Dennison (b. January 23, 1916) and Dorothy (b. March 21, 1918).[5][23][31][32]

After Wyckoff's divorce from Shere, he married Alma Weiss, who became executor of his estate after his death.[33][34][30] Wyckoff died from a heart condition on March 7, 1934, in Sacramento, California. His body was taken to a funeral chapel in Brooklyn, New York.[30][35]

Supporters and critics

Posthumously, Wyckoff’s supporters and the promoters of his methods have stated that he is “now considered a legend” and that he began his publishing career because of the “appalling losses in securities suffered annually by millions of people who do not realize what they are risking and have an amazingly small knowledge of the market”.[36][37]  

In support of this assertion, Wyckoff himself stated in one of his last works, where he reveals his methods of trading and investment:

“This Method is for those who have had either little or no experience operating in the stock market, or for those who have had much experience but who have never been shown the real rules of the game. Out of the very limited number who really understand the inner workings of the stock market, practically no one has been willing to show the public the real inside. I believe it is time for someone to step forward and do this. The appalling losses, in securities, suffered annually by millions of people, are enough to make the angels weep.”[38]

Wyckoff had detractors and related legal troubles during his lifetime. Notably, in the July 5, 1920 edition of Financial World, Louis Guenther (the founder of Financial World) authored an exposé on Wyckoff.[39]

Therein, Guenther accused Wyckoff of making himself out to be nobler to the public than he actually was. Guenther alleged that Wyckoff was a “hypocrite” and “scheming promoter” out to use his influence and publishing empire in order to knowingly promote failing investments to his trusting readers; the promotion of which would net Wyckoff a profit, while leaving the subscribers who invested based on Wyckoff’s advice with losses.[39]

Guenther laid out a series of contemporaneous articles to prove his claims. The evidence Guenther presented showed that Wyckoff plagiarized, nearly word-for-word, an older investment article from The Arizona Republican as part of his own, longer, promotional article for a failing silver mine stock. During the article’s publication, Wyckoff was the magazine’s founder, owner, and editor but his article did not include a byline. At the time of Wyckoff’s recommendation, Guenther hired an analyst who showed the stock was “more a myth than a mine”. The stock’s price collapsed not long after Wyckoff’s recommendation.[39]

Guenther went on to accuse Wyckoff of knowingly promoting many other failing enterprises to his readers, leading to large losses for his subscribers. In one instance, one of Wyckoff’s readers managed to successfully gain restitution from Wyckoff, “on charges of fraud and deceit”, with records of the case held by the U.S. Supreme Court. The reader recovered more than $50,000 in damages (in 2026 USD). Despite this, Guenther lamented that U.S. authorities did not scrutinize Wyckoff’s “scandalous” “manipulations” more often and more closely.[39]

In the months after Guenther’s exposé, Wyckoff’s magazine published several anonymous articles defending Wyckoff and attacking Guenther. These articles attacked Guenther’s business practices and reputation. The articles further defended Wyckoff, stating that Guenther was out to tarnish Wyckoff’s and his magazine’s reputation for competitive reasons, and that Guenther had published “half-truths”. The matter led to several years of litigation between the two parties, not the first, with Wyckoff pushing for a public trial. Ultimately, the parties decided it was in both of their best interests to simply drop the matter quietly instead.[40][41][42][43][13][12]

Wyckoff method

Wyckoff wrote about numerous trading techniques. These techniques evolved and, at times, contradicted one another throughout his decades of published works; including books, articles, and interviews. For example: Wyckoff at one point criticized charts and held that tape reading was a superior method to trading, but later admitted that he changed his mind over time.[15][44][45][46][38]

Towards the end of his life, Wyckoff sold a multi-part correspondence course on the method he claimed to use to trade speculative financial assets. The course material was leased, not sold, at a cost of approximately $10,000 for the first, 400-page, part of the course (in 2025 inflation-adjusted USD).[47][48]

Since then, this method has been dubbed “The Wyckoff Method” or “The Wyckoff Theory”. Wyckoff’s course focused on price action and some aspects of volume analysis; although Wyckoff stated that a thorough look into his style of volume analysis required an additional work, which he did not live to publish. Part of the instructional course did not disclose key details of his method of price-volume analysis, instead upselling the reader on an additional subscription service whereupon the necessary analysis would be mailed out instead.[46][38]

Wyckoff stated repeatedly in his works that his method of trading is subjective and cannot be reduced to “mechanical” or mathematical means, which may help explain the contradictions and ambiguities throughout his own texts, including those within the aforementioned course. As a consequence of the Wyckoff Method’s subjectivity, contradictions, and lack of completeness, it is not possible to objectively measure its efficacy and this, thereby, may help explain why peer-reviewed and falsifiable research into its efficacy is almost non-existent. Limited published research on very specific aspects of the broader Wyckoff Method may cite—not Wyckoff’s own published materials—but the derivative materials composed by his later followers and proponents. Such derivative methods are generally dubbed “Wyckoff 2.0” in order to distinguish them from Wyckoff’s own works. Researchers may erroneously conflate Wyckoff 2.0 with the original Wyckoff Method, even though such derivative methods may not accurately mirror Richard Wyckoff’s original information.[44][45][46][38][49][50]

Selected Works

Richard Wyckoff authored several books on stock market trading and technical analysis, including:

  • Studies in Tape Reading
  • How I Trade and Invest in Stocks and Bonds
  • Stock Market Technique
  • Jesse Livermore's Methods of Trading in Stocks

See also

References

  1. ↑ "New York, World War | Selective Service System draft registration cards: New York City. Draft Registrations 1917–1918". FamilySearch. 1918-09-12. Retrieved 2026-07-23.
  2. 1 2 3 "Wychoff - Kings Point, Great Neck, L. I., N. Y." nyheritage.contentdm.oclc.org. Retrieved 2025-06-17.
  3. 1 2 Spinzia, Raymond E. (2006). Long Island's prominent north shore families : their estates and their country homes. Internet Archive. College Station, Tex. : VirtualBookworm.com Pub. ISBN 978-1-58939-785-9.
  4. ↑ "University of Rochester House Data". lizzycarr.digitalscholar.rochester.edu. Archived from the original on 2025-01-29. Retrieved 2025-06-17.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "The Press: Prima Donna of Wall Street". TIME.
  6. ↑ The Tax Magazine 1931-07: Vol 9 Iss 7. Internet Archive. CCH INCORPORATED. July 1931.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  7. ↑ Raymond E. Spinzia. "Long Island's Prominent North Shore Families" (PDF). spinzialongislandestates.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2024-01-27. Retrieved 2025-06-17.
  8. ↑ Long Island country houses and their architects, 1860-1940. Internet Archive. New York : Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities in association with W.W. Norton & Co. 1997. ISBN 978-0-393-03856-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  9. ↑ Mateyunas, Paul J. (2007). North Shore Long Island : country houses, 1890-1950. Internet Archive. New York: Acanthus Press. ISBN 978-0-926494-37-4.
  10. 1 2 "SAYS WIFE CAJOLED $2,000,000 FROM HIM; Wyckoff, Asking Separation, Charges She Got Magazine of Wall Street by "Nagging," GAVE HIM $500,000 BONDS But $14,000 Interest Is Unpaid, He Asserts, Because She Demands $31,244 for Support". The New York Times. 1928-11-29. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-08-21.
  11. 1 2 "MRS. WYCKOFF ASKS CASH.; Publisher Defends in Court Holding Interest on Husband's Bonds". The New York Times. 1928-12-04. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-08-21.
  12. 1 2 The Financial World 1916-07-29: Vol 27 Iss 5. Internet Archive. Financial World Partners. 1916-07-29.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  13. 1 2 The Magazine of Wall Street 1923-11-10: Vol 33 Iss 1. Internet Archive. 1923-11-10.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph - 1929-11-03. Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph. 1929-11-03.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 Wyckoff, Richard Demille (1986). Wall Street Ventures & Adventures through forty years. Internet Archive. Greenville, S.C. : Traders Press. ISBN 978-0-934380-13-3.
  16. ↑ The Ticker 1907-11: Vol 1 Iss 1. Internet Archive. November 1907.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  17. ↑ The Magazine of Wall Street 1911-05: Vol 8 Iss 1. Internet Archive. May 1911.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  18. ↑ Scharff, Edward E. (1986). Worldly power : the making of the Wall Street Journal. Internet Archive. New York : Beaufort Books. ISBN 978-0-8253-0359-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  19. ↑ "Obituary: Gilbert Kaplan (1941–2016), No Ordinary Dreamer | Institutional Investor". www.institutionalinvestor.com. Retrieved 2026-08-24.
  20. ↑ The Atlanta Constitution 1929-11-01: Vol 62 Iss 139. Internet Archive. 1929-11-01.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  21. 1 2 3 The New York Times 1929-09-28: Vol 79 Iss 26180. Internet Archive. New York Times Company. 1929-09-28.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  22. ↑ Time 1928-12-10: Vol 12 Iss 24. Internet Archive. Time Incorporated. 1928-12-10.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  23. 1 2 3 "MRS. WYCKOFF GETS DIVORCE IN NEVADA; Publisher of The Magazine of Wall Street Charges Cruelty and Desertion. ACTION IS UNCONTESTED Mrs. Wyckoff Was Once a Clerk for Her Husband, Who Owned the Publication. Once a Clerk in His Office. Wyckoff Continued as Editor". The New York Times. 1929-09-28. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-08-21.
  24. ↑ Benjamin Graham (1996). The memoirs of the dean of Wall Street. Internet Archive. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-024269-2.
  25. ↑ "Magazine of Wail Street Sold to Woman Who Edits It". The New York Times. 1927-03-11. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-08-16.
  26. 1 2 3 "The Press: THE PRESS: Wyckoff Suit Withdrawn". TIME Magazine. Feb 4, 1929.
  27. ↑ Editor and Publisher 1934-03-17: Vol 66 Iss 44. Internet Archive. Duncan McIntosh. 1934-03-17.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  28. ↑ Financial World 1934-03-14: Vol 61 Iss 11. Internet Archive. Financial World Partners. 1934-03-14.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  29. ↑ Financial World 1933-04-19: Vol 59 Iss 16. Internet Archive. Financial World Partners. 1933-04-19.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  30. 1 2 3 "iR.D. WYGKOFFDIES; FINANCIAL WRITER; Founder of The Magazine of Wall Street Succumbs to a LonE illness". The New York Times. 1934-03-09. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-08-22.
  31. ↑ Durward Howes (1937). American Women. Internet Archive. American Publications, Inc.
  32. ↑ TIMES, Special to THE NEW YORK (1935-07-11). "MISS WYGKOFF WED TO HOTEL EMPLOYE; Daughter of Publisher of the Magazine of Wall St. Wed to Alfred G. Dennison". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-08-21.
  33. ↑ "MRS. RICHARD WYCKOFF". The New York Times. 1973-02-14. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-08-22.
  34. ↑ Magazine of Wall Street 1934-10-27: Vol 55 Iss 1. Internet Archive. 1934-10-27.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  35. ↑ "Richard D. Wyckoff, Stock Market Authority, Dies". Brooklyn Eagle. 1934-03-09. p. 17.
  36. ↑ CMT Curriculum Level II 2023: Theory and Analysis. John Wiley & Sons. 28 Dec 2022. ISBN 978-1394184781.
  37. ↑ Hutson, Jack (1 Oct 1991). Charting the Stock Market: The Wyckoff Method. Technical Analysis. ISBN 978-0938773061.
  38. 1 2 3 4 Wyckoff Method Of Tape Reading.
  39. 1 2 3 4 The Financial World 1920-07-05: Vol 34 Iss 1. Internet Archive. Financial World Partners. 1920-07-05.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  40. ↑ The Magazine of Wall Street 1920-09-04: Vol 26 Iss 9. Internet Archive. 1920-09-04.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  41. ↑ The Magazine of Wall Street 1920-09-18: Vol 26 Iss 10. Internet Archive. 1920-09-18.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  42. ↑ The Magazine of Wall Street 1920-10-02: Vol 26 Iss 11. Internet Archive. 1920-10-02.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  43. ↑ The Magazine of Wall Street 1920-10-16: Vol 26 Iss 12. Internet Archive. 1920-10-16.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  44. 1 2 Richard Demille Wyckoff (1910). Studies in Tape Reading. New York Public Library. Traders Press.
  45. 1 2 Wyckoff, Richard Demille (1983). How I trade and invest in stocks and bonds. Internet Archive. Fraser Pub. Co. ISBN 978-0-87034-069-7.
  46. 1 2 3 TheBullButCheR. The Richard D. Wyckoff Method Of Trading In Stocks.
  47. ↑ Woodward, Burton M. (1968). The Dow theory and the management of investments. George A. Smathers Libraries University of Florida.
  48. ↑ "The Richard D. Wyckoff Method of Trading and Investing in Stocks". shapero.com. Retrieved 2026-07-20.
  49. ↑ Sharma, Monika. "Wyckoff Theory in the Mind of the Market: A Psychological and Structural Reappraisal". Journal of Information Systems Engineering and Management. 2024, 9(4) (e-ISSN: 2468-4376).
  50. ↑ Pal, Jai (2024). "Long Short-Term Memory Pattern Recognition in Currency Trading". arXiv:2403.18839 [q-fin.TR].
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