The $10,000 Las Vegas Bet That Helped Beat Wall Street VIEW IN BROWSER  | BY KEITH KAPLAN
CEO, TRADESMITH |
In 1961, Ed Thorp took a $10,000 stake from legendary gambler Manny Kimmel – and more than doubled it in a single weekend at the blackjack tables. Wearing a false beard, sunglasses, and a hat, Thorp wasn’t easy to recognize. That was the point. This MIT researcher, leading probability theorist, and part-time investor wasn’t in Vegas to gamble. He was there to test a theory he’d developed by running thousands of simulated blackjack hands on an IBM 704 mainframe computer at MIT. What he discovered was revolutionary. By keeping track of the cards that had already been played, you could tilt the odds in your favor. And it worked. He walked away with more than $21,000 – at a time when a university professor’s annual salary was roughly half that. To avoid detection by casino bosses, Thorp used various disguises: false beards, out-of-town accents, and drugstore glasses. He wasn’t cheating – he was just trying not to get thrown out for playing smarter than everyone else. And blackjack was just the start. Thorp later applied the same kind of statistical edge to the stock market. And he built one of the most successful hedge funds of all time. Between 1969 and 1988, his Princeton/Newport Partners fund earned annualized returns of 19.1%. And it had only three losing months. Thorp didn’t just beat the house. He beat the market. And he did it without taking wild bets, swinging for home runs, or trying to predict headlines. Instead, he found repeatable patterns that put the odds on his side – and traded accordingly. It’s that kind of pattern-seeking logic that powers the “green day” trade ideas from our TradeSmith seasonality tool. Over our 18-year backtests, these trades delivered 857% in total returns – more than twice the return of the S&P 500 over that time. Even in 2007, the strategy’s worst year, it delivered an annualized return of 37.9%. So, today, let me show you what green days are… the science behind this system… and the gains it’s produced. Once you understand how these statistical patterns work, and how they can boost your profits, you’ll never look at the market the same way again. Stocks Have Their Seasons, Too To the naked eye, stocks trade erratically – soaring one day only to plummet the next. But when you comb through troves of past stock-price moves with pattern-spotting software, you find something you can’t see with the naked eye. Some stocks trade so consistently – rising or falling during specific windows, year after year – that you can map out a year’s worth of great trades. Turns out stocks have their own “seasons” to rise or fall. A kind of summer… and a kind of winter, too. Repeating year after year. And those seasons provide a powerful edge over most investors. We call the days when a stock tends to rise green days. By spotting upcoming green days, and trading them, you can stock the odds in your favor. This isn’t about trying to predict the future… or pretending we can guarantee returns. It’s about discovering patterns that tilt the odds in your favor – then acting on them with the kind of cold, calculated logic Thorp is famous for. It’s not 100% accurate. No system is. But some stocks have hit their green days 80%, 90%, even 100% of the time – including years when the market as a whole was falling. It’s fair to be skeptical. Surely, if these patterns exist, they’d be common knowledge. But there’s a reason why stocks’ green days remain hidden to most investors. We Analyze 50,000 Stocks a Day It takes a ton of data to identify seasonality trends in stocks. So, even folks who recognize the power of seasonality can’t get specific enough to pinpoint exact days to buy and sell. But our algorithm runs 50,000 tests a day to analyze every stock in the major indexes and zero in on the ones with the strongest seasonality trends. That’s what it takes to point out the best opportunities, down to the day. We have another advantage – a team of 74 people, including computer programmers, “quant” investors, and data scientists. I dedicated them to the task of gathering the data and then creating an algorithm to serve up these cycles automatically. And when you see it in action, the strength of these trends can blow you away. Wins we’ve made using this system so far include… - 107% gain on Aon (AON) calls in 23 days
- 124% gain on Booking Holdings (BKNG) calls in 15 days
- 180% gain on Analog Devices (ADI) calls in 14 days
- 130% gain on Alexandria REIT (ARE) calls in 15 days
- 248% gain on Intuit (INTU) calls in 15 days
No wonder it’s been such a huge hit with the first group of traders who had the courage to try our breakthrough when we unveiled it back in January. In fact, it was one of the most successful launches we’ve had at TradeSmith in our 20-year history. Seven Chances to Double Your Money Since January Since then, we gave those intrepid traders the opportunity to double their money seven different times on our recommendations – before, during, and after this April’s “tariff tantrum” plunge. Even the free stock idea we posted back in January, Netflix (NFLX), rose 15% right on schedule. Now imagine if you’d bought call options like the ones I listed above. But don’t worry if you missed out when we launched. I’m hosting a new seasonality webinar on Tuesday, July 22. That date isn’t random. I want to get ahead of a major market inflection point our tool says will hit on July 30. I’m not talking about a crash or a bear market. What’s coming could help you recover any losses you’ve incurred this year by embracing a more rapid-fire, data-driven style of investing. So, make sure you register for that here. After you register, we’ve set up a website where you can run your stock tickers through our TradeSmith Seasonality tool. You’ll be able to find your stocks’ green days… and red days (days when seasonality trends favor a falling stock price)… on stock you own or are thinking of buying. To give you a better idea how it works, here some recent examples of how spotting stocks’ seasonality windows has paid off. Seasonality Windows in Action Let’s start with e-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN). Between May 24 and July 13, it’s gone up 100% of the time over the last 15 years – with an average return of 10.2%. This year, it’s done even better. If you traded that seasonal window here in 2025, you’d have made 11.9%. 
Or how about toymaker Hasbro (HAS)? Our seasonality tool shows that the best time to own this stock is April 14 through April 27 – with an average return of 6.7%. As you’ll recall, April wasn’t exactly a settled month for the stock market. President Trump had just announced a raft of tariffs on imports entering the U.S. And the S&P 500 fell as much as 12%. But folks who trusted seasonality and bought Hasbro made more than 13%. And as you can see, Hasbro is in another bullish seasonal window now… 
But it’s not just stocks that show seasonality patterns. We’ve also uncovered seasonality cycles in stock-market indexes like the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100, even currencies and commodities. And we’re one of the few firms that can crunch enough data, the right way, to spot the most profitable seasonal trades. If we wanted to, we could launch a hedge fund with this tool. But at TradeSmith, we’re not interested in that type of business. Instead, we’re putting it in the hands of everyday investors. That’s how we’ve built one of the world’s most successful fintech companies. Already, more than 120,000 members use TradeSmith track $30 billion in assets. And our software breakthroughs have landed us on CNN, CNBC, in Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal. But we’re always growing… and always improving. And Tuesday’s seasonality webinar will be the next leap forward. I hope to see you there! All the best, 
Keith Kaplan
CEO, TradeSmith P.S. The market regime shift I see coming at the end of the month isn’t the only big call I’ve made based on seasonality patterns. Here’s what I said on January 8, when we first launched… I think there’s going to be a reckoning in 2025. Our quant system is pointing to historic volatility this year. In other words, big swings UP, when everyone thinks the bull market will last forever… followed by big swings DOWN, when everyone panics. I think you’ll agree that I was spot on. Now, I’m stepping forward with another warning, which should be good news if you understand what’s coming next. I’ll get into all the details on what’s coming and the rapid-fire opportunity it’s creating during my webinar on Tuesday. Here’s that link again to sign up to attend. | 
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