Mike Baghdady - should I take a course or not?

[jmpower]

Mr Hare, I think I speak for all of the turtles when I sincerely say that none of us would be so rude as to imply or claim that you are a crap trader. We have no idea how you trade, what your targets are and how often and what you trade - so how could we comment... more importantly how dare we comment.

For those asking for results: After a full 12 months of trading its possible to draw some preliminary conclusions about the performance of the program, but not as Mr Hare correctly allude to - within 4 months. Even at the 12 month mark it is dubious (in my opinion). That is why the repeated demands for verified results will be ignored for now.

We use a methodology that produces home runs 30% of the time, those home runs erase the losses from the remaining 70% and add to the account. From a simple maths point of view, the system needs time to perform. When its had sufficient time Im confident Mike will release the results.

I trust this explains why we are not producing results as demanded. I know it will not satisfy, but thats how it is. Get indignant in 12 months, be cranky in 18 months and scream foul after 3 years if you havent seen results but in the meantime give the endeavour the opporutnity to succeed.

 

[pboyles]

And what are you all going to do when you've spent 3 years waiting and it doesn't work out? You'd do well to research the success rates at professional prop houses like Schneiders or Futex. Only a small percentage (maybe 1 to 5%) can make money over the medium to long term. But I forgot you've got the world trading champion teaching you.

 

[jmpower]

I again speak for the turtles when I say that what we do at the end of our tenure is entirely our business and none of yours. We are all intelligent people Im confident we will survive.

Appreciate your advice about researching Schneiders or Futex and I would say thats good advice for everybody who reads anything to do with trading, experienced or not.

It seems you have a major beef with Mike over the world trading champion thing so why dont you call the office and come and talk to him about it?

 

[pboyles]

I again speak for the turtles when I say that what we do at the end of our tenure is entirely our business and none of yours. We are all intelligent people Im confident we will survive.

Appreciate your advice about researching Schneiders or Futex and I would say thats good advice for everybody who reads anything to do with trading, experienced or not.

It seems you have a major beef with Mike over the world trading champion thing so why dont you call the office and come and talk to him about it?

Not just the false claim to be world champion, there was also the matter of Ben appearing in the TV ad pretending to be a hedge fund manager (for a fake hedge fund) plus his brother Joe claiming to be an 'institutional trader'.

The bottom line is that he made several false representations clearly with a view to getting more customers and making more money. You'd do well to read Section 2 of the Fraud Act to see how the law views this type of behaviour.

Fraud Act 2006

 

[the hare]

For those asking for results: After a full 12 months of trading its possible to draw some preliminary conclusions about the performance of the program, but not as Mr Hare correctly allude to - within 4 months..

The problem is, this statement is completely at varience to the type of claims Mr Baghdaddy tends to make in his webinars.

For example, in the FXStreet webinar, Mr Baghdaddy breifly explained that his methodology identifies a price above which he's biased long, and below which, he's biased short. He then went on to point out examples of several dozen winning trades (no losing trades where highlighted)

In the case of one particular trade, he made the claim that profits of over $30,000, would have been available to his students if trading a $10,000 account, and that this profit would have been earned over a period of approximatley 3 weeks.

Before critisising, perhaps I should go back and analyse that trade in more detail, but I'm pretty sure, that most traders would agree its simply not possible to triple an account in just 3 weeks without taking excessive risk. Since you claim to have a 30% strike rate, which of course increases the probability of long losing streaks, taking excessive risk does not seam particularly prudent or wise.

The marketing message from the webinar that I watched last week implied a far higher strike rate, and implied that profits where almost guarenteed on a weekly basis.

If you make claims of 300% per month in a marketing webinar (from 1 trade), and then claim you need 3 years before releasing performance data, people will comment on those discrepensies.

If Mr Baghdaddy makes claims that are obviously false, (the TV ad, claims to be world trading champion etc), then you he can only expect that he'll be called out

If Mr Baghdaddy threatens legal action, and coerces t2w to remove damaging materials, then certain members are going to use that as a stick to beat him, and the management and staff at t2w.

Lets not even mention the riduculous attempt yesterday at reputation management.

If the turtle program is an attempt to make an average 25% per annum from the group, over a 3 year period, thats realistic, and the participants might even learn something. However if thats the case, why not market it as such ? Thats a rhetorical question of course because noone who watched webinars at FXStreet or Currensee would be remotely interested in such an opportunity, they want to triple their accounts every month, and Mr Baghdaddy is happy to show retrospective example after example where they could have done that.

 

[GerryB67]

Hi Everyone,

I've been trading for the last few years and invested a lot of time in reading books and trying out various methods. Overall, I'm still pretty flat, which is not too bad, but neither is it great! I've decided to bite the bullet and take a course. I know that you guys are rather vitriolic about most trainers, but trawling through all the online offerings, I'm more confused than ever. I discounted a load of people but did attend a workshop with Mike Baghdady at Training Traders. What a bizarre set up! His office is a shabby unkempt flea-pit down a side alley. The office was a shambles inside - very dirty, very soul-less and definitely not somewhere I felt comfortable spending my money. My student flat was nicer than Mike Baghdady's office so the prospect of paying him £5,000 is a joke! So, after all the time procrastinating about spending the money to do a course, I was wondering if anyone can help me out with recommendations and save me wasting my time with people like Mike Baghdady. I tried to do a search for him on this website but I found lots of references to the fact that he likes litigation. Also, on the New Turtle Traders Facebook page, someone requested an update at the beginning of the year but the silence from Training Traders was rather telling. Does this mean that his system doesn't work and Mr Baghdady is running scared of telling people? I'm sure we would be bombarded with daily updates if the turtles were making money using his system. Anyway, I 'd appreciate your thoughts and any guidance on Mike Baghdady please

I am a customer of Training Traders. I have traded for around two years and initially bought training from another provider. About six months ago I decided to improve my game and trade for a living. I attended introductory sessions provided by several trainers and invested £18 in one of Mike Bagdady's Sunday Forex review sessions to see how it went. I found Mike's review of currencies very interesting chose a currency pair based on his analysis that made over 300 pips by the following Wednesday. I visited the Training Traders offices at Aldgate and found them to be surprisingly spacious and well appointed. There was a good atmosphere between students, staff and traders. Mike Bagdady seems fascinated by trading and charts and wants to pass his enthusiasm on the anyone who shows any interest.

I invested in the training course/four month mentoring package. Mike's approach is momentum based and uses rules for entering and exiting trades. He believes that charts show everything and that there is no need for tools such as RSI and Bollinger bands etc. I found that my knowledge of price behaviour improved significantly during the six day course. Graduates of the course are encouraged to repeat it (at no cost) and I did this much to my benefit.

My trading has certainly improved as a result and I am delighted with the investment. Its not an easy fix - it requires hard work! There is Training Traders software that can be used to help identify pairs and entry and exit points but this is a support tool and is not essential.
Would I recommend the course - Yes!

 

[GerryB67]

Maybe someone threatened legal action.

Or Maybe some other reason!!!

 

[Digbyarbuthnot]

I trust this explains why we are not producing results as demanded. I know it will not satisfy, but thats how it is. Get indignant in 12 months, be cranky in 18 months and scream foul after 3 years if you havent seen results but in the meantime give the endeavour the opporutnity to succeed.

Hi JMPower,

Please don't think that this forum is a criticism of you or your trading acumen or that of your fellow Turtles. I'm sure that most people would be happy to see you succeed rather than struggle, which means you can dismiss the nay-sayers as haters. You're trading someone else's rules and you're bound by that - I get it.

This is a forum questioning the integrity of what Mike Baghdady claims in his marketing compared to the only results we can judge his system by. I'm not expecting you to be millionaires after a few months trading, but I'd hope that we'd have more of an update than a wall of silence. I think Mike Baghdady would be better off admitting that things might not be going as well as he thought they would when he started out (assuming our conclusions from the silence means that the results aren't what was anticipated).

But as The Hare has said, it is the vast discrepancies between his claims in workshops, webinars etc and the silence that ensues - when asked to back up these claims when his rules are put into practise via the Turtles - gives us a stick to poke him with.

Also, does your post that you need more time to prove yourselves mean that everyone taking a course with Mike Baghdady should have an expectation of 1yr - 3yrs before they will be profitable? This is definitely NOT what Mike Baghdady claims.

Also, I'd like to return to my repeated question from yesterday that was never answered amongst all those extolling of Mike Baghdady by everyone in his office. Were you all funded the £100,000 that was promised so publicly by Mike Baghdady at the beginning of the Turtle process?

Again, I understand that you are being loyal to Mike Baghdady and I want to repeat that I am not questioning the character, integrity or trading skills of you & your fellow Turtles.

 

[Digbyarbuthnot]

Maybe someone threatened legal action.

:clap::cheesy:

 

[pboyles]

"I visited the Training Traders offices at Aldgate and found them to be surprisingly spacious and well appointed"

What is this, A Place in the Sun or something? Phil and Kirsty will be along in a minute to tell us how much this office is going to be worth in a few years.

 

[ChocolateDigestive]

can someone please give us the facts on these 'turtles' so we can all have a ruddy good laugh.

 

[pipsplease]

Interesting to review the postings from overnight and this morning.
Some questions I think!

For MATT from Training Traders

Bailiff’s explanation: This is complete and utter nonsense, there has been no instance of bailiffs turning up at the TT offices. What so ever.

We would like to know the answer to the question put to you by digbyarbuthnot about this statement. Are you willing to stand by it or withdraw it? Have you asked Mike Baghdady about it?

Stop digging into the useless name changes of companies too, people register, strike off, and rename companies daily its part of protecting brand names and moving forward with your company

Could you let us know how old you are and what business experience you have that allows you to make such a statement?

or a sour ex director who is bitter about the way things ended.)

We are told that two directors resigned and left the business last July. Can you name which ex director you are referring to and why he was "sour" and could you enlighten us on "the way things ended"? It seems you know.

 

[Sappy101]

hi sappy, so you're the web person, the one in charge of the updating of the training traders/new turtles web site, yes?

if yes, then i'm sure you're the one to ask as to why the new turtles web site stopped updating it's news feed on new turtle activities.

last entry was september 11



one would have thought that the news feed would have been kept up to date a little more often perhaps.

I find your inquiry fair and with merit.

I do build and maintain their sites. If there is a coding issue, a design issue, an issue with functionality, If they need a new site or a redesign, I am the person to go to. It is my job to make sure the servers are secure, the coding is updated and the sites do not go down.

I liase with Matt on a daily basis to make sure that one or both of us is keeping an eye on site updates.

I am aware of the lack of updates to our blog/feeds. When I originally set up the site is was designed to inform about the new turtles event. However, as it evolved, we wanted the turtles to be more active on the site. We believe that having the Turtles themselves post updates, may be a better approach.

In order to accommodate this, I am in the process of overhauling the site's core for ease of use for our turtles. We are expecting to have an updated site in place very soon, after which, we will be encouraging the turtles to post frequently.

 

[pboyles]

I find your inquiry fair and with merit.

I do build and maintain their sites. If there is a coding issue, a design issue, an issue with functionality, If they need a new site or a redesign, I am the person to go to. It is my job to make sure the servers are secure, the coding is updated and the sites do not go down.

I liase with Matt on a daily basis to make sure that one or both of us is keeping an eye on site updates.

I am aware of the lack of updates to our blog/feeds. When I originally set up the site is was designed to inform about the new turtles event. However, as it evolved, we wanted the turtles to be more active on the site. We believe that having the Turtles themselves post updates, may be a better approach.

In order to accommodate this, I am in the process of overhauling the site's core for ease of use for our turtles. We are expecting to have an updated site in place very soon, after which, we will be encouraging the turtles to post frequently.

Will you also be removing all remaining false information and claims by Mike Baghdady? I appreciate this may be a lot of work for you so I'll give you a clue where to start.

Our Training Traders Client List

 

[Sappy101]

and peace be with you Cherita..........

I respect your efforts to maintain your workflow.....dont worry he will keep paying you whilst he is generating income from customers as you are a Key Supplier..try to expand your client base though so that he is not a Key Customer

Thank you. I appreciate your words and I hear them as I hope you intended. I currently work for Mike because it is my choice at this time to do so. I do hope that Training Traders continues to thrive, not because it's a source of revenue to me, but because I believe that everyone deserves to find success in what they love doing. Make no mistake, Mike loves Trading and he loves teaching others to trade.

I will be okay, as my livelihood is rooted directly in me. Whether I personally succeed or fail, is no ones doing but my own.

 

[pipsplease]

Question for Sappy101.

This is not intended to be rude as you seem to be a real and genuine in your beliefs.

Following your first post, digbyarbuthnot asked a question and depite posting an additional two times you have failed to answer it.

I will repeat the question:
Is it true that you have NEVER met Mike Baghdady?

 

[Sappy101]

Hi Cherita

Thank you for your post and honest approach. Whilst I'm very grateful for your character reference, is it true that you have NEVER met Mike Baghdady? I'd be very grateful if you confirm or deny this.

Thanks

Digby

PS I agree with Lightning McQueen, perhaps as the person in charge of the web, we could get a few updates on progress?

Lightning McQueen's question was valid and I did post an answer which I hope will suffice for the time being.

It is true, I have never MET Mike. I "virtually met" Mike a few years ago through someone I trust. I was not just handed this job because of this person, I had to submit quotes and portfolios, just like any other potential web developer.

Mike and I have very different styles, I'm pretty calm and he's go go go. Still, the one thing we have in common as that we don't sleep until the work is done. I may have a calm disposition, but I also have opinions, and Mike is always willing to listen, even if we don't agree. I talk to Mike almost daily, and though we've not met in person, I feel I know him as well or better than any other person I've worked for or with.

 

[Sappy101]

Question for Sappy101.

This is not intended to be rude as you seem to be a real and genuine in your beliefs.

Following your first post, digbyarbuthnot asked a question and depite posting an additional two times you have failed to answer it.

I will repeat the question:
Is it true that you have NEVER met Mike Baghdady?

My apologies for not responding sooner. It takes time to type up a response and I did post only moments ago.

I will always try to respond to any questions asked, if I am silent, it is because I am either writing a response or not at my computer.

Thank you for checking in.

 

[pboyles]

My apologies for not responding sooner. It takes time to type up a response and I did post only moments ago.

I will always try to respond to any questions asked, if I am silent, it is because I am either writing a response or not at my computer.

Thank you for checking in.

Are you in India?

 

[pipsplease]

Would MATT from Training traders care to answer earlier questions ?
You are watching so it should not take you too long.