Have YOU done a trading course ? Do tell us......

[Pat494]

Trading is hard, there is little doubt about that.
So should one look for a good course that is not too expensive and not a scam ?
Well that is also a hard one to answer.
The purpose of this thread is for those that have done and paid for a course to relate their opinions of it to help others decide.
Especially those that have a grievance about paying too much for too little.

 

[Pat494]

Personally I have spent over 10 years looking for an EA or trading system that is profitable.
Trying lots of different ways to make a profit.
I feel that if I had found the right course in the beginning it would have saved me a lot of time and expense.
I suggest you use * in the n*me for legal reasons.

 

[NVP]

Hey pat

Great idea for a thread....and something that gets my blood pumping as well.....

I monitor most trading training stuff especially in forex....I cant help it....sign into any website or YouTube or facebook link and you seem to be tracked to join ......they want you!

So people please comment....jees theres so bloody much training out there these days its ridiculous....

If people follow me they will know I have some very strong opinions on most trainers , schools, academies and courses out there ....but this is an open forum for contribution

So come on and join in guys !

N

 

[NVP]

I rarely hear of any generic course that really delivers....basically you are paying for free training available if you look hard enough on the internet....

Maybe the odd decent bit of info may fall out....but rarely.....these vendors are peddling recycled knowledge for lots of money.....lots of money !

Traders making money trading don't need to train others.....they are making money....that's it....and they are not going to share such precious information for a few thousand dollars....

Seriously ?.....

Sure some traders will comment in sites like t2win and offer a little help and advice....but it will not constitute paid for courses or training....its just some advice trying to save newbies from these expensive recycling centres !

I maybe have 1 or 2 traders publishing that I really rate.....but I did try to publish a list and t2win said I was advertising.....so took it down

So not sure if I'm allowed to name them now

N

 

[cantagril]

About 7/8 years ago, I read "The Way of the Turtle" by Curtis Faith but only after I'd looked at quite a lot of training offered on the web, some of which was veeeeery expensive.

The book was published in 2007 and basically set out in great detail the trading methodology developed by Richard Dennis and William Eckhardt in the late '70s/early '80s.

I subsequently found this: https://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/files/turtlerules.pdf - which predates the book by a few years but essentially lays out the same ideas.

In both, you'll find the following by Richard Dennis "I always say that you could publish my trading rules in the newspaper and no one would follow them. The key is consistency and discipline. Almost anybody can make up a list of rules that are 80% as good as what we taught our people. What they couldn’t do is give them the confidence to stick to those
rules even when things are going bad.” – From Market Wizards, by Jack D. Schwager.

I have been impressed that out of the thousands of courses, seminars, webinars, Tweets, Twats, farts and assorted shite that gets offered to aspiring traders for real money, the overwhelming majority (I'm talking about 90%+) regurgitate the same ideas set out by the Turtle guys, often verbatim.

If you're starting out trading, or rather learning about it, just read the book. It's available on Amazon - and elsewhere as a download. The very few bucks you'll spend might well save you a lot more money, time and effort in the future. If you feel like signing up to a course afetr that, at least you'll be able to recognise the smell of manure before putting your hand in your pocket.

PS: Sorry Pat!

 

[Pat494]

Great to see some trying to answer this all important question.
Sorry the mods see fit to take down the interesting bits though !!
It could save newbies and others a lot of time and money.
I changed my modest system even last week, trying to improve it.
I may have to back out of it should it not work.
It did keep me busy though for years.
People do seem shy of explaining their pet system.

 

[barjon]

Unlike the static chart pictures paraded by the “trainers” with their obvious ‘in here” “out there” hindsight opportunities, the market is a vibrant, continually moving, backing and filling beast. It”s how you deal with that which sorts things out.

For example, how do you deal with the conflicting (albeit sound) statements: “You must have balls of steel courage to maintain your position to maximise your profit” and “You must have iron determination to control and restrict your losses”. Balls of steel courage didn’t help Nick Leeson much as he brought Barings down.

Or a breakout. Does a millisecond poke above the line in a volatile market count? ”Buy the dips”. How do you know (you don’t) the dip has finished? And so on and so on. In my view unless you can manage all this it doesn’t matter what system you might use.

Also, managing all that has to be within the context of your own personality, strengths and weaknesses if it is to work best. I’ve no courage, for example, so I must take little chunks out of a trend rather than experiencing nerve wracking pressure to “take it” as profits mount. Therefore I exit to target, but have a re-entry method if it keeps going. Overall it means I’ll be lucky to take 50/60 points out of a 100 point move. It suits me, though, and is lot better than the days when I used to be frightened out for 10/20 points.

I believe it is you and your skill that counts, not the system.

 

[Pat494]

Strange but no one has named any courses for their merits or otherwise etc.
Anyone feeling sore having spent umpteen dollars on a load of crap ? Get your own back by exposing them ?

 

[Rufus_Leakey]

I took the free version of
Machine Learning for Trading
by Georgia Institute of Technology
Offered at Georgia Tech as CS 7646

Artificial Intelligence for Trading | Udacity

Learn online and advance your career with courses in programming, data science, artificial intelligence, digital marketing, and more. Gain in-demand technical skills. Join today!

www.udacity.com

and attached notes I took from it.

The course relies heavily on python, and I currently use a few ideas from it (though not in python).

 

[Pat494]

Thanks for sharing.
The above looks really hi powered stuff but the bottom line still applies
Is it consistently profitable ?

 

[Rufus_Leakey]

Thanks for sharing.
The above looks really hi powered stuff but the bottom line still applies
Is it consistently profitable ?

The main technique I tried after going through the videos was k-nearest neighbor on chart patterns, and this works well enough for me.

But the course just provided a starting point. The application of the ideas is what made a difference.

 

[esseemme]

How about this online book?

THE MARKET WHISPERER
hxxps://books.tradenet.com/en/mobile/index.html

 

[Big_P]

Trading is hard, there is little doubt about that.
So should one look for a good course that is not too expensive and not a scam ?
Well that is also a hard one to answer.
The purpose of this thread is for those that have done and paid for a course to relate their opinions of it to help others decide.
Especially those that have a grievance about paying too much for too little.

I did a course back in 2007. It was a trading arcade where I paid about £5k I think, from memory.

It was the usual setup -

Listen to generic rules about how to trade.
Sit on a sim for a few weeks.
Go live. (with your own money)
Blow the account and get kicked out.

The business model was pretty decent from the guys who ran it.
4-5 intakes per year, with around 8-10 students in each.
So bringing in around 200k a year , plus their cut on commissions.
Ok, not mega money, but an ok salary for the main guys who did 1 or 2 hours of lectures a day.

My opinion ... and this will be controversial ..... it was a really great experience and I would do it again.

Why?

I had less of a clue how to trade after a few months than before when I went in.
I didn't make any money at all.
Many will tell you that I could have saved my £5k and got the info for free online.

However...

The course introduced me to (a totally random list coming up, off the top of my head)

- different trading platforms
- trading software
- trading terminology
- direct market access
- futures
- a proper trading floor
- hundreds of markets and strategies I didn't know existed
- a decent work ethic

Ok , the list is muddled, but you get my point.

I went in wanting to learn how to trade. I didn't get that.

But I came out understanding the 'infrastructure' around trading. I watched real (sometimes profitable) traders and got inspired. I felt part of something. I got excited. I made some amazing friends. I will never forget sticking 5 lots on the Bund and making a few hundred euros in less than a couple of minutes. I'll also never forget doubling down on a DAX position and losing around 1k in the same amount of time. Ok I was gambling, not trading. But it didn't take me long to realise that I was never going to be consistently profitable unless I took a much more structured approach which has stuck with me to this day.

I'd say that experience was worth £5k.

Big_P

 

[tomorton]

Fair enough Big_P.

Some perfectly respectable and conventional businesses are built on selling things which you can find and collect for much less or even for free.

 

[Big_P]

Fair enough Big_P.

Some perfectly respectable and conventional businesses are built on selling things which you can find and collect for much less or even for free.

Absolutely, I'm not disputing that.

But not many people will get to experience , for example , sitting on a trading floor and there being a surprise interest rate cut during a global financial meltdown.

It was the experience that was worth the money. To this day, some memories make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, I'm really not exaggerating!

I could name the arcade if people like but I'm not sure it would achieve anything. I think they ceased operating years ago anyway.

 

[yiehom]

FUTEX

Absolutely, I'm not disputing that.

But not many people will get to experience , for example , sitting on a trading floor and there being a surprise interest rate cut during a global financial meltdown.

It was the experience that was worth the money. To this day, some memories make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, I'm really not exaggerating!

I could name the arcade if people like but I'm not sure it would achieve anything. I think they ceased operating years ago anyway.

 

[arudge]

I did a course back in 2007. It was a trading arcade where I paid about £5k I think, from memory.

It was the usual setup -

Listen to generic rules about how to trade.
Sit on a sim for a few weeks.
Go live. (with your own money)
Blow the account and get kicked out.

The business model was pretty decent from the guys who ran it.
4-5 intakes per year, with around 8-10 students in each.
So bringing in around 200k a year , plus their cut on commissions.
Ok, not mega money, but an ok salary for the main guys who did 1 or 2 hours of lectures a day.

My opinion ... and this will be controversial ..... it was a really great experience and I would do it again.

Why?

I had less of a clue how to trade after a few months than before when I went in.
I didn't make any money at all.
Many will tell you that I could have saved my £5k and got the info for free online.

However...

The course introduced me to (a totally random list coming up, off the top of my head)

- different trading platforms
- trading software
- trading terminology
- direct market access
- futures
- a proper trading floor
- hundreds of markets and strategies I didn't know existed
- a decent work ethic

Ok , the list is muddled, but you get my point.

I went in wanting to learn how to trade. I didn't get that.

But I came out understanding the 'infrastructure' around trading. I watched real (sometimes profitable) traders and got inspired. I felt part of something. I got excited. I made some amazing friends. I will never forget sticking 5 lots on the Bund and making a few hundred euros in less than a couple of minutes. I'll also never forget doubling down on a DAX position and losing around 1k in the same amount of time. Ok I was gambling, not trading. But it didn't take me long to realise that I was never going to be consistently profitable unless I took a much more structured approach which has stuck with me to this day.

I'd say that experience was worth £5k.

Big_P

Sounds much the same as the course I did around the same time, wasn't TCA by any chance?

People look for secrets that don't exist, they look for methods and plans that effectively remove the responsibility of decision making from them. It doesn't work like that.

When I traded the dax and the bund we only ever used support and resistance, the rest was in the news, and to interpret the news properly you need to be completely immersed in everything else that's going on, and thats when it takes your life over.

If you just trade off charts then your missing the main element that's driving that chart, so you'll always be way behind the ball.
Even when news broke we would wait until the support or resistance line broke, then we would pitch in, never try and second guess if that line is going to hold or not.

But the hardest part is being able to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done, that's what messes with your emotions and controlling your emotions is where the real training lies.

A gun is easy enough to use, you simply squeeze the trigger and off it goes, anybody can do it. Try pointing it in a man's face and pulling the trigger, then you'll understand how powerful emotion can be, and only a few are capable.

 

[Pat494]

That one featuring Anton Kreil might just be OK. It was featured on the BBC.
He has some videos on U tube. Cass Business school.

 

[NVP]

I did a course back in 2007. It was a trading arcade where I paid about £5k I think, from memory.

It was the usual setup -

Listen to generic rules about how to trade.
Sit on a sim for a few weeks.
Go live. (with your own money)
Blow the account and get kicked out.

The business model was pretty decent from the guys who ran it.
4-5 intakes per year, with around 8-10 students in each.
So bringing in around 200k a year , plus their cut on commissions.
Ok, not mega money, but an ok salary for the main guys who did 1 or 2 hours of lectures a day.

My opinion ... and this will be controversial ..... it was a really great experience and I would do it again.

Why?

I had less of a clue how to trade after a few months than before when I went in.
I didn't make any money at all.
Many will tell you that I could have saved my £5k and got the info for free online.

However...

The course introduced me to (a totally random list coming up, off the top of my head)

- different trading platforms
- trading software
- trading terminology
- direct market access
- futures
- a proper trading floor
- hundreds of markets and strategies I didn't know existed
- a decent work ethic

Ok , the list is muddled, but you get my point.

I went in wanting to learn how to trade. I didn't get that.

But I came out understanding the 'infrastructure' around trading. I watched real (sometimes profitable) traders and got inspired. I felt part of something. I got excited. I made some amazing friends. I will never forget sticking 5 lots on the Bund and making a few hundred euros in less than a couple of minutes. I'll also never forget doubling down on a DAX position and losing around 1k in the same amount of time. Ok I was gambling, not trading. But it didn't take me long to realise that I was never going to be consistently profitable unless I took a much more structured approach which has stuck with me to this day.

I'd say that experience was worth £5k.

Big_P

Hey BP

Thanks for this frank and honest response .....I correspond with a lot of traders About trading and your words ring true ....

What you have paid for was also an experience and not necessarily just an education

And that is at ,least something worth paying for ....very true

Many experienced traders forget the privilges they he’d when learning their skills and the environments and people they learnt from and spent time with

For example I spent my first 12 years working on the trading floors of a large oil company in london ...,surrounded by crude oil and products traders ....Priceless

And prior to that as a kid growing up I worked in my for my dad and grandad in their betting business both in their office and on uk racecourses which was a phenomenal learning time in my life

So I agree some courses could provide some authentic experiences and merit their exorbetant charges ...but would suggest they are few and far between

I do note that certain academies and schools are swinging in this direction Now....but sitting with a few 12 year old trainers in a room with a lot of other newbies hardly represents a trading floor ? ....

N

 

[NVP]

That one featuring Anton Kreil might just be OK. It was featured on the BBC.
He has some videos on U tube. Cass Business school.

It’s not bad.....but hardly teaches people to trade ...and set him up for his extensive teaching operations ....one of his sidekicks talks a good story as well ....Mark someone...names will come to me eventually