The Dow Theory, it's the standard weapon of generalization for most traders, and it's proven. Charles Dow didn't elaborate about it but his peers did, it basically identified financial chart patterns that hint at outcomes. Most are not aware, its origins didn't start with Dow, far from it, the land of its origin was Japan, from a man by the name of Munehisa Homma in the 1700s.

Born in 1724 to a wealthy family where he traded the first futures market - rice futures. Munehisa Homma, a samurai due to his uncanny trading abilities, was the prodigious inventor of technical analysis, and candlestick charts, documented in his book The Fountain of Gold - The Three Monkey Record Of Money, which contained quotes such as When all are bearish, there is cause for prices to rise. When everyone is bullish there is cause for the price to fall, the ubiquitous contrarian hymn.

Most importantly, discovered in this book was the rosetta stone for most traders -- chart patterns. You will recognize them, not by their names. These patterns are the cornerstone of technical analysis; they leaped off plateaus and engendered analytics for traders.

Then there is Edward Jones, a statistican who co-founded the Dow Jones and Company and co-invented the Dow Theory. There isn't much documented about him except being a Brown University drop-out with an inclination for numbers, he may have played a key role in introducing averages to Charles Dow, which lead to the Dow Jones Averages.

The mining barons, supposedly worth $900,000,000 in 1879 met Dow on a train to Leadville, Colorado where Dow was covering a story on mining. They may have played a key role in delivering Munehisa Homma's method on wealth preservation to Dow, it should be noted, a couple of years after his return, the Dow Theory was formed along with Dow Jones and Company.

Methods of attaining money has a way of prevailing through time, just as it may have been with Munehisa Homma. Dead men have a means of living eternally through knowledge preservation, while those doing the recording are usually the prodigies.