Are all trading courses scams?

[Thunderdog]

Quote from eagerbeaver:

Of all the billions of courses, seminars, webinars, you-name-it, are any truly legitimate -- e.g., do they actually do what they purport to do, which is to train someone how to trade, consistently and profitanly?

Morfe specifically, has anyone on E.T. become a successful trader after taking one of these courses?

Just wondering...

Courses and seminars are for people who are too lazy to read books. Seminar "leaders" do seminars and courses because they think they can extract more money from the great unwashed that way than writing a book. (What does that tell you?) The insult to injury is that less material can be covered in less depth during the course of a seminar than in a book. And what brings everything together and into perspective is that most trading books are not worth their price, even when deeply discounted. Now what does that tell you about seminars and courses?

As to your more specific question, I have posed a similar question from time to time here, and have yet to receive a response. Most recently:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showt...ht=successful+trader+direct+result#post718240

And what does that tell you?

 

[SteveD]

If I am understanding what everyone is saying is that a large institution such as Goldman, Fidelity etc just hires a guy, gives him a trading account, shows him the computer screen and says to him "go get'm tiger"??? NO training here, who needs stinking training???

Same with lawyers, engineers, beauticians etc, LOL???

You guys are funny. Simple minded, but funny.

SteveD

 

[Samson77]

Quote from SteveD:

If I am understanding what everyone is saying is that a large institution such as Goldman, Fidelity etc just hires a guy, gives him a trading account, shows him the computer screen and says to him "go get'm tiger"??? NO training here, who needs stinking training???

Same with lawyers, engineers, beauticians etc, LOL???

You guys are funny. Simple minded, but funny.

SteveD

I'm not sure which thread your reading but no one, on this thread is saying that at all.

Actually totally the opposite!

Do you know the difference between a prop firm and an institutional house?

So who's the simpleton here ?

Maybe you should read the posts before commenting and insulting people.

 

[Thunderdog]

Quote from SteveD:

If I am understanding what everyone is saying...

Evidently, you are not understanding what everyone is saying.

 

[Lefty62151]

maybe on your planet ("Uranus") Here on earth, institutions choose traders carefully and train them to trade a specific way.

 

[rjl]

An on-line seminar that I found helpful was Mark Fisher's ACD at Nymex. You can watch it off of the exchange's website. He makes no promises as to success but has some good general advice as well as specific ideas about the market that might help. Plus it's free, so all you stand to lose is a few hours of your time.

 

[Thunderdog]

Quote from rjl:

An on-line seminar that I found helpful was Mark Fisher's ACD at Nymex. You can watch it off of the exchange's website. He makes no promises as to success but has some good general advice as well as specific ideas about the market that might help. Plus it's free, so all you stand to lose is a few hours of your time.

I saw the online seminar (because it was free). It was fairly interesting, and Mark Fisher seems to be quite legitimate. I also read the book on which the seminar is based. The book was better. Even so, I have not adopted his principles into my own trading approach. As a matter of personal preference, I favor my own method. The question is, did you adopt his method into your trading and, if so, did it transform you into a successful trader?

As an aside, knowing what you do about the seminar, what do you think it would be worth if it were a paying seminar? Stated differently, in retrospect, how much would you have paid for the seminar?

 

[patefern]

Quote from Thunderdog:

I saw the online seminar (because it was free). It was fairly interesting, and Mark Fisher seems to be quite legitimate. I also read the book on which the seminar is based. The book was better. Even so, I have not adopted his principles into my own trading approach. As a matter of personal preference, I favor my own method. The question is, did you adopt his method into your trading and, if so, did it transform you into a successful trader?

As an aside, knowing what you do about the seminar, what do you think it would be worth if it were a paying seminar? Stated differently, in retrospect, how much would you have paid for the seminar?

Fisher trains interns in a 12 week course, so the book and the seminar don't do justice to his methods, just a taste. The new seminar is coming up, www.mbfcc.com, $2500 or free to clients.

 

[AAAintheBeltway]

Most of us are skeptical about courses because they tend to be quite expensive and either offer what could be gained from some research and reading for little or nothing, or are of dubious value.

There are three typical problems. One, the well-chosen example. The teacher shows you several examples of hypothetical trades where his magic technique worked perfectly. He does not show you the hundreds of times it did not.

Two, the curve-fitted system. A vendor shows an amazing p/l curve, astounding backtest numbers and trades that magically picked highs and lows. Unfortunately, for a myriad of reasons he is unable to offer real results from actual trading, although you are assured that he and his partner are highly profitable fulltime traders. The CFTC files are full of vendors who were caught telling this lie. It is relatively easy to curve-fit a system using past data. It's a bit harder to produce results in realtime.

Three, the cult of the guru. The teacher is a famous trader who has won well-publicized contests or been written up in mags or books. What could be better than sitting at the feet of the master? Well, maybe the contests were fixed by a crooked broker, after the book was written he blew up, he could make money in the old days by exploiting connections to analysts or CEO's etc or his methods no longer work.

For a newbie there is no substitute for getting some backtesting s/w and a lot of historical data and crunching it. Find out why oscillators will never work. Find out why MA crossovers will not work to daytrade the ES. Find out for yourself the relationship between stops and profitablity.

 

[Thunderdog]

Quote from patefern:

Fisher trains interns in a 12 week course, so the book and the seminar don't do justice to his methods, just a taste. The new seminar is coming up, www.mbfcc.com, $2500 or free to clients.

As I said, the book was interesting. But not nearly interesting enough for me to consider a paid seminar/course, and certainly not one for $2,500. In my case, the taste did not whet the appetite.

So let me ask you. Have his methods transformed you from an unprofitable trader into a consistently profitable one over time as a direct and immediate result of his course? If so, any general details you can share about your improved performance would be appreciated.