Change at the Top

My background – the final part

By the time the article came out I was becoming quite well known, mainly through word of mouth and networking because I was too mean to pay for fancy stuff like PR. I was a regular contributor to a couple of columns, one in a weekly paper called Asian Voice, the other I can’t remember. I was asked to speak at various conferences and I was also invited to author a couple of books. One of these was on Level 2, the other a trading book primarily aimed at newcomers.

I spent hour after hour writing the Level 2 book and it took much longer than it should have as I was still doing my ‘day job’ as a trader, although we were focusing more and more on position rather than day trades by now so the pressure was eased somewhat.

After many, many months it was finally finished and I was very proud of it.

The publisher hated it.

There ended my writing career.

So, lets deal with that awful FT article before I close the tale by bringing it up to date.

I was approached by a contact at a spread betting firm who had been asked by the journalist to recommend someone who could be profiled as a successful ‘amateur’ trader. I must admit that I was quite excited at getting my 15 minutes of fame especially as I thought it might help boost the TT membership.

This was when I learned all about journalistic licence and I have regretted it ever since.

I’m not going to go through the article bit by bit as it was 8 years ago and don’t forget as I pointed out in my introduction the other day, until Paul G made contact it was very much in the past. Instead I have tried to show you the context of my work at the time so you can draw your own conclusions. Unlike the article this is straight from the horses mouth. I have not hidden anything and I have not embellished anything.

What the article did do was cause us to think long and hard about what we were doing and why. We had experienced a number of difficult situations on TT and the amount of time my ‘celebrity’ status (ho ho!) was taking up was starting to impact on our trading plan. In addition it was all costing us money. TT was funded by us directly, we had a bit of advertising revenue but it was nowhere near enough to pay for the upkeep of the site and it certainly did not pay for the time spent sorting out the behaviour of so called adults who really should have known better.

So by the end of 2004 we were feeling a bit low about our public work while our trading was the opposite. Neither of us wanted to stop doing the other stuff but we had to be realistic and put a time frame in place and some targets we would have to meet to make it worthwhile.

Sadly it not was not to be and in late 2005 we took down the TT site, closed our offices, sold the furniture and headed back home, much to the disquiet of Mrs Anderton who had enjoyed the peace and quiet. I still did the odd 1:1 if any enquiries were made but it was not too long before I turned people away. I don’t think you should do anything if your heart isn’t in it.

So for the next few years I carried on with my consulting work (which had never stopped), started sitting and developing my career as a Magistrate and earned the bulk of my living from trading as did Rob.

For the last few years I have been on my own as Rob has gone into business with his brother, they run a firm specialising in programming social media platforms. I’m pleased to say that they made a flying start and have worked with some pretty big name clients, Rob certainly deserves it after putting up with me for several years. He still looks after the IT elements of my trading which is just as well because I would be scuppered without it.

So there you have it. That’s the background and I am more than happy to stand up and be counted for everything I did. Some of you will more than likely have done some things differently and I might have done as well with the benefit of hindsight. But that’s all in the past and it is not a place I believe in dwelling. I have my new job at T2W to concentrate on and there is much to do so my energies are better concentrated on that in my view.

I’m sorry this has been such a long series of posts but I felt it was important you understood my journey so you can form your own views about me and can see where I am coming from in the next several months as we start to interact more frequently.

Right, that’s it. The end.
 
Steve,

Thank you for your remarkably long posts. Interesting though they are, they manage to completely avoid answering the questions that I asked and that I think the membership would be most interested in.

Can you tell us whether you are profitable or not, and if so is trading your primary source of income? Or to put it another way, are you a professional trader?


Perhaps I should have stated it explicitly - that question applies to now rather than the past.

The other was:

There have been allegations that certain vendors have made false claims in their marketing in order to convince potential customers of their expertise and prowess, thereby making it more likely that those customers will be converted from potential to actual by forking over sheets in return for the said vendors' products and services.

Put simply, it has been alleged that untruths have been told in order to get people to part with their money.

In your view, as a magistrate, is this (or is this likely to be) fraud? I would be interested in your views both legal and ethical.

To give an example, let us say I am a vendor. I claim to make my living from trading (in order to convince potential customers that I can do what I teach), but in fact this is not true and I make my living not from trading - because I can't - but rather from taking money off people in return for teaching them alleged trading skills. I have told them a lie in order to get them to part with their money, and of course it is a lie of great import. If I said to potential customers "I cannot trade - pay me to teach you how to trade" I would receive very few enquiries, I think.

So am I in this instance committing fraud in your opinion? Is what I am doing wrong according to your personal ethical standards?


I am confident that the membership would be very interested in your replies to these questions.
 
Hi Steve, and good luck with your new job. (y)

I hope you have appreciated the incredibly warm welcome, as exhibited in this thread so far.
I am sure you will bring your trading and social media experiences to bear on T2W.
It might be useful for you to lay out your experiences of T2W and what kinds of ideas you have in mind to make T2W more popular and also what kind of personal stamp you hope to make here.
 
I remember TacticalTrader.
I visited it daily to see what 'swagger' had to say.

lol,touche did you go on that course where he did his live trade.Now there a mentor:) also thats where I saw Mr charts and chris locke. Aperfect example of what we are talking about. At least swagger was quickly seen through
 
Thanks for the welcome Trendie, yes i'll definately be posting some thoughts and i'll be keeping everyone informed about what I am working on. There will be no closed doors, transparency is the key in my view so i'll do my best to make this the norm.

Leopard, thanks for pointing out that my history posts had not answered several of your questions, that's because they were not meant to. If you look at my short post directed at you (6.38pm yesterday just after episode 1 of the story) I said I will give them some thought and get back to you. that's still the case so they will be answered by close of play today.

Swager, now there's a name from the past. I remember that seminar, there was also a chap there talking about moon cycles if I remember correctly.
 
lol,touche did you go on that course where he did his live trade.Now there a mentor:) also thats where I saw Mr charts and chris locke. Aperfect example of what we are talking about. At least swagger was quickly seen through

Oh. My. God.

I was there too. Swagger was in his multi-coloured waistcoat. Doubled up when losing, as I recall.

Mr Charts impressed me the most for me to go on his course.

I remember the Planetary Cycles guy. brilliant, although for most, impractical.
Somewhere, I still have those notes!
 
Seems like we were all there and also participated in allowing Mr Charts to extract £600 from us. I also signed up with a broker recommended by TH,by the time id sent my $ to america id lost 5% and another 5% on its return.
The moon cycle guy was Chris Locke and was introduced by TH as his guru.As for swagger,what a clown. He was using a $tick chart and waiting for it to reach 1500 before selling or buying.i remember it went 5 points his way,everyone applauded and then it bombed out. It just proves our point about these mentors and how few are genuine or can trade but still survive.

STEVE.. I did ask earlier how much you charged for you 1-1 and group training. I ask that question because there has to a value at which we can assume you were passing on useful info for a sensible fee and we hope that was the case. Thanks
 
Sorry LF, I have not forgotten, I want to give the right figure but I don't have it written down anywhere now. However, I am sure it will be in Rob's computer archives somewhere so I have asked him to do some digging. I have a rough idea but that's not good enough if there is precise information available.

I'm hoping to have your answer later on today.
 
I don't really get why Steve is getting so much flak about trading.

I thought his remit was social media, and promoting T2W, and giving T2W some sort of identity that attracts would-be traders.
His trading ability, or otherwise, surely would be secondary to his understanding of how to utilise advertising, generating content, etc.

I wonder how much time Sir Philip Green spent working at the tills at Marks and Spencers before buying it?

It should be enough that Steve can get good content, attract and keep membership, and for membership to get first dibs on offers, or even get unique deals for us.
If he has an understanding of trading, all the better.
 
I don't really get why Steve is getting so much flak about trading.

I thought his remit was social media, and promoting T2W, and giving T2W some sort of identity that attracts would-be traders.
His trading ability, or otherwise, surely would be secondary to his understanding of how to utilise advertising, generating content, etc.

I wonder how much time Sir Philip Green spent working at the tills at Marks and Spencers before buying it?

It should be enough that Steve can get good content, attract and keep membership, and for membership to get first dibs on offers, or even get unique deals for us.
If he has an understanding of trading, all the better.

I'm not sure it's flak, just questioning. Speaking of flak, this is the serious trader's flak gun of choice:

groningen3.jpg


Why is it relevant that he can trade? It is not essential, but I think it might well be very helpful. That way he will be better able to distinguish good from bad, he will have the experience and insight to engage with the forum, he might be better placed to see what will appeal to serious traders and so on.

It would be good as well to help avoid a repetition of certain incidents in the past. I won't name names or episodes, but you will probably be aware of the kind of thing I am talking about. Certain people got taken in and made recommendations and so on and this really shouldn't have happened.
 
Reminds me....

Life is like being a monkey in a tree.

When you are at the top of the tree, you look down and all you see is smiling faces.

When you are at the bottom of the tree, you look up and all you see is ar$eholes....

Or maybe the reverse is true for a trading site...
 
So, the first reply as promised, this one is about the charges we used to make for the 1:1 sessions. To be clear about one thing, LF asked about group and 1:1, other than doing a 3:1 on just one occasion I did not do any paid group teaching.

When I first started to think about doing the training it was certainly something I thought I would be doing but it did not work out that way. There were several reasons for this but I don't want to end up with more lengthy posts like last night so i'll leave it there.

Returning to the 1:1 sessions, we charged £500.

This included as much time as was needed on the phone beforehand, in reality of course, some people used this and some did not. I also made it clear that I would be around to help once they were setting up and actually trading. Some people I never heard from again, others took up a fair amount of time.

Other than that there were no gimmicks, no freebies and no hype, there was enough of that around elsewhere. They were paying for my time and expertise so at that rate it seemed about right at the time.
 
Steve I have to say that I am shocked to hear this. How can you possibly justify charging that much when what could you really know that couldn't be found. Had you said under £200 then I would have said fair enough if someone wants to pay that amount for training,but for £500 for a day you have to be teaching them well above the norm. I have spent much of my time asking vendors to justify their fees or at least prove what they are teaching is worth the money.So far none have ever done this so I dont know what to think about this. Could you explain or show us why you felt this offered value for money, thanks
 
I'm not saying that 500 a day is unreasonable, I cant judge because I dont know what was covered. At one end of the spectrum it's an absolute bargain, a deal, a steal, sale of the feckin century, and at the other end of the spectrum its daylight robbery.

IIRC the times article stated profits of 60K per year. That's an average of 300 a day assuming 200 trading days. The article states an income of 25K in year 2, an average of 125 a day, and of course in year one, a small loss.

The irony is he could make more from teaching than trading, and that's just selling to retail muppets. If you really enjoy teaching, why not consult for clients with a decent budget ?

If I could make more teaching, that's probably what I'd be doing, particularly if I was in the position of having a wife and kids to support.
 
I'm not saying that 500 a day is unreasonable, I cant judge because I dont know what was covered. At one end of the spectrum it's an absolute bargain, a deal, a steal, sale of the feckin century, and at the other end of the spectrum its daylight robbery.

IIRC the times article stated profits of 60K per year. That's an average of 300 a day assuming 200 trading days. The article states an income of 25K in year 2, an average of 125 a day, and of course in year one, a small loss.

The irony is he could make more from teaching than trading, and that's just selling to retail muppets. If you really enjoy teaching, why not consult for clients with a decent budget ?

If I could make more teaching, that's probably what I'd be doing, particularly if I was in the position of having a wife and kids to support.

so after all that youve said you would quite happily take the money under false pretenses? Anyone paying £500 is expecting to learn something special are they not,particularly if the vendor has made certain claims.
 
I'm not saying that 500 a day is unreasonable, I cant judge because I dont know what was covered. At one end of the spectrum it's an absolute bargain, a deal, a steal, sale of the feckin century, and at the other end of the spectrum its daylight robbery.

IIRC the times article stated profits of 60K per year. That's an average of 300 a day assuming 200 trading days. The article states an income of 25K in year 2, an average of 125 a day, and of course in year one, a small loss.

The irony is he could make more from teaching than trading, and that's just selling to retail muppets. If you really enjoy teaching, why not consult for clients with a decent budget ?

If I could make more teaching, that's probably what I'd be doing, particularly if I was in the position of having a wife and kids to support.

You would make an Interesting teacher, in a lulz kind of way. The thought of all of us in a classroom is priceless
 
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