I learned yesterday that one of my contemporaries – for whom I had the utmost respect – passed away in his sleep the other night. Nelson Freeburg was for as long as I can remember the editor of Formula Research, a newsletter he published which detailed any and all manner of objective trading methods.
Although I considered him my friend, the odd truth is that we never once managed to actually meet in person. But we had mutual respect or one another’s work, and communicated by email and phone fairly often a number of years ago. Nelson took a few “obscure” ideas I wrote about many years ago and turned them into actual systems with full-fledged objective buy and sell signals. He gave me full credit for the initial idea and allowed me to gain a little notoriety primarily by virtue of his work. He also took the time to help me flesh out and improve upon a number of ideas on my own. In truth, we didn’t have much contact in recent years, but I remained and remain ever grateful for his selfless input.
Beyond all that, my recurring thought regarding Nelson was that when it came to developing well thought out, objective (not mention kicka#$) trading systems – in my opinion he was simply the best. And I know for certain – because I have seen and heard comments to the effect over the years – that I am not the only person who believes that statement to be true.
As I mentioned, we never met in person. But I have heard from many others that he was an excellent speaker and a heck of nice guy.
Nelson, thank you for the vast contributions that you shared so generously with us. You will be sorely missed.
Jay Kaeppel
Hi Jay,
I also heard of the news of Nelson’s passing
Here are the details for his funeral:
“Visitation for Nelson will be on Monday, July 6 at noon
with the service to follow at 1:00.
All will take place in the chapel at
Canale Funeral Directors, 2700 Union Avenue Extended, Memphis.”
I was in contact with Nelson via email
and had the privilege to meet him (with Linda Raschke)
in London a few years back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9u-lOF_YIE
He was a true gentleman and a true pioneer in the field
of systematising intermarket analysis.
Despite his deep level of knowledge,
he remained very approachable and relaxed.
He will be missed,
may God rest his soul.
All the best
Alex Spiroglou
I’m very sorry to hear that. I bought several of his newsletters from the 1990s, as well as his free sample one. All were very helpful in learning how to build and test trading systems. I also contacted him via phone and email several times (though probably less often than you did). I always found him helpful and approachable. He will certainly be missed, even by those of us who never met him in person.
I believe he was also a friend of Paul Tudor Jones growing up (both were from Memphis). He later presented some of his work to Jones and his staff. That’s a pretty good sign that “you made it” in the trading world.
As Alex said, God rest his soul and RIP.
Shocked to read of his passing. I credit Nelson with furthering my journey towards systematic money management. His communication style and insight has helped me immensely. He has helped me save my clients tens of millions of dollars over the past 17 years (including the crashes of 2000 and 2008). I still use systems learned from his newsletter in my practice today.