Robert Rhea
The next great Dow theorist, Robert Rhea, initially stumbled upon
the Dow Theory during his endeavor to find "a system" for helping him
make money in the stock market. In his attempts to disprove the theory,
he became a convert. Rhea was a very serious student, and he was able
to utilize the Dow Theory as interpreted by Hamilton to his advantage,
buying and holding stocks in 1921, and basically holding them until
late 1928 (he reversed his short position when he realized Hamilton's
advice was incorrect in early 1926), missing only the final blowoff
phase. He also "played" the short side successfully during the
subsequent deflation. In 1932, he began publishing his newsletter based
on the Dow Theory, called the "Dow Theory Comment."
Rhea called the bottom of the stock market in July 1932 almost to
the exact day and the subsequent top in 1937. On July 21, 1932, with
the Industrials at 46.50 and the Rails at 16.76, Rhea instructed his
broker to tell his friends "the Dow Theory implied heavy buying for the
first time in over three years." Further, on July 25, 1932, Rhea sent a
memo to 50 correspondents, part of which is reproduced below:
The declines of both Rail and Industrial averages between early
March and midsummer were without precedent. The thirty-five year record
of the averages shows a fairly uniform recovery after every major
primary action, and such recoveries average around 50% of the ground
lost on the decline; are seldom less than a third and more than two
thirds. Such recovery periods tend to run to about 40 days, but are
sometimes only three weeks - and occasionally three months.
The time element is in favor of a normal reaction at this time -
because the slideoff was normal (the normal time interval of major
declines being about 100 days).
The market gave the unusual picture of hovering near