Expensive study courses

Hi Everyone,

This is my first posting. I am just familiarising myself with the whole idea of spreadbetting after a friend told me about it.

My biggest question/dilema is that she spent £2000 on a step by step course that she feels is fantastic. Is this necessary? I'm one of those people that likes to get to the nitty gritty of everything so I want to be as equipped as possible but is it going to cost me £2000?

Where/what would be the best recources? I feel a step by step guide would be helpful.

My motto is that if I'm going to do it I want to do it properly.

Many thanks in advance

yellowbellies said:

My motto is that if I'm going to do it I want to do it properly.

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There's no need to spend any money on training just to get to grips with the basics. All spreadbet companies offer training, seminars and open evenings for FREE.

They are pretty keen to get your custom. THINK about this for a second! It's because the vast majority of people throw away lots of money, thinking that they will succeed at trading just because they know a few candlestick patterns.

Try finspreads.com. They have free seminars and they used to allow their clients to trade very small for a trial period. Also, there's a vast amount of knowledge on trade2win - for free.

My advice would be to open a demo account and trade using that for at least several months just to see how it goes - whatever you do, don't get too carried away!

H T Helps
c6

Thanks for that - looks like you could have saved me a couple of thousand quid (which I don't have lying around)

So if I read everything, go for free training and then work with pretend money and make my mistakes with that until I feel ready to take the plunge, but not too quickly.

I need to be one of those in the minority group that succeeds

Knowledge is power

Thanks again

c6ackp said:

There's no need to spend any money on training just to get to grips with the basics. All spreadbet companies offer training, seminars and open evenings for FREE.

They are pretty keen to get your custom. THINK about this for a second! It's because the vast majority of people throw away lots of money, thinking that they will succeed at trading just because they know a few candlestick patterns.

Try finspreads.com. They have free seminars and they used to allow their clients to trade very small for a trial period. Also, there's a vast amount of knowledge on trade2win - for free.

My advice would be to open a demo account and trade using that for at least several months just to see how it goes - whatever you do, don't get too carried away!

H T Helps
c6

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yellowbellies

Send me a private messages and I see if I can help you. I dont like people throwing they money away.

I see if I can give you a method to trade, to suit you.

My biggest question/dilema is that she spent £2000 on a step by step course that she feels is fantastic

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Which course was this ?


Paul

I'm sorry, I have no idea. I just listened to her master plan, thought it sounded really interesting and then nearly choked at the £2000. I just know she said it is really in depth, home study and is more in depth than the £70 ones she came across.

So I was left really wanting to do it too but not at £2000

Trader333 said:

Which course was this ?


Paul

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Research for a while and then re-evaluate

yellowbellies said:

I'm sorry, I have no idea. I just listened to her master plan, thought it sounded really interesting and then nearly choked at the £2000. I just know she said it is really in depth, home study and is more in depth than the £70 ones she came across.

So I was left really wanting to do it too but not at £2000

Click to expand...

YB
As you have already been advised, I would hold off from paying this for a course at present. First you should look at all the free options. These include:
- the spreadbetting and other threads on this site. Use them to get to understand the basics and to determine which SB firms are good and which ones are bad. Also look at the threads on training courses. Some may cover SB courses, but equally they will show you the pitfalls of jumping into training courses too quickly
- learn some technical analysis through this site, the web and basic TA books
- using this site to find spreadbetting firms or use google, you will find plenty of free documentation and/or courses given by these firms who will be fighting each other to bring you on board as a customer

Once you are armed with this knowledge you will be much better able to evaluate whether you want to go on a training course. I would wager (which I would not normally do, but we are talking about SB and it is the day after Aintree !) that you will find the contents of the courses to be fairly basic after you have done enough of this background work. It's all a question of timing - you can search for information for yourself, which will take longer but is probably more rewarding in the long-term or you can pay money and sit there to learn in a shorter time, if the course is good.

You might consider asking your friend if you could look through her training material to see if the course would be worthwhile, but not yet - wait until you have some basics to properly evaluate it.

Finally you might consider opening a spreadbetting demo account e.g. capital spreads

http://www.capitalspreads.com/public/

or one that has small bet sizes e.g. finspreads 50p

http://www.finspreads.com/IFXWeb/Finspreads/Code/en/Main/index.aspx
, once you have completed this research.

However read the bottom of the screen of an SB firm first

Spread bets carry a high level of risk so you should only speculate with money you can afford to lose. Stop-losses are automatically allocated with each bet you make, but these stops are not guaranteed. You may lose more than your initial deposit. Before you open an account, please ensure you familiarise yourself with the risks involved.

Charlton

Charlton said:

YB
As you have already been advised, I would hold off from paying this for a course at present. First you should look at all the free options. These include:
Charlton

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Thank you Charlton. That sounds just the job. It will be satisfying to do all the research and then I can step back and look at how much I know and how much more I still need to know without parting with great wads of cash in the early stages.

Great post - thank you

If you think about it.. why are all these people who run the courses not off sunning themselves instead of teaching, if they know how to trade so well?

trading

Training courses like the one you’re talking about are most likely note very good. I cant comment directly on this one in particular, however what I can say is that; trading isn’t something that can be taught using technical analysis alone, a full understanding of the markets, how they interrelate, interact, and cause and effect of different control mechanisms have massive weighting on the markets. More than simple chart patterns. If TA worked 100% of the time then it wouldn’t work in the first place. I was in your position two years ago, the best advice I can give you is; put your money into a savings account, open up a “paper money” account, read the FT, study for @ least your investment management certificate, and understand why things happen, this is far more likely to make you money than TA alone believe me I’ve been there!

Warmest Regards

Pietro

www.uksip.com

pietro said:

Training courses like the one you’re talking about are most likely note very good. I cant comment directly on this one in particular, however what I can say is that; trading isn’t something that can be taught using technical analysis alone, a full understanding of the markets, how they interrelate, interact, and cause and effect of different control mechanisms have massive weighting on the markets. More than simple chart patterns. If TA worked 100% of the time then it wouldn’t work in the first place. I was in your position two years ago, the best advice I can give you is; put your money into a savings account, open up a “paper money” account, read the FT, study for @ least your investment management certificate, and understand why things happen, this is far more likely to make you money than TA alone believe me I’ve been there!

Warmest Regards

Pietro

www.uksip.com

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Pietro's advice is sound and I would agree that spending 2k on a training course is a bit hasty. I like to see what I will get for my money before spending it. I have, however, spent approximately that much with the spread betting companies as I traded for real. Over one year I gained and lost and at the start of this year I have made a profit so far (50% up since January). As someone who trades using exclusively technical analysis I would say that it saves me from having to do huge amounts of research and number crunching the p/e, peg etc. of a stock. It does not provide an answer to a full understanding of the markets. It merely provides an indication of how a stock or market is performing and from that some probable outcomes. Once I have done the analysis I chose what to trade and when, once the trade is placed I put in a stop and monitor the price activity. The market cannot be predicted with certainty otherwise we would not be participating in it. If I were to start again my advice would be to start small and in particular not be ambitious about what you might get in terms of profit. In particular pay attention to minimising loss.