Investor's Toolbox (www.investools.com)

B

BrooksRimes

This is supposedly a popular tool combining both fundamental and technical analysis. Reportedly, 8000 people/month attend their free seminars and 139,000 people have taken their training.

I've seen the software it appears to be a nice product, well designed and integrated. Its $40-50/month to use it.

Unfortunately, you must take a $3000 course to be able to subscribe to the service ($2000 if taken at home).

It surprises me that there is so little information about it on the internet outside their website. There is no forum on Yahoo or Google and I don't believe they have a forum for users. I can find no postings or comments for it anywhere on the internet.

Would be interested in hearing from past or current customers - like to hear pros and cons of this service/product.

Brooks
 
Thanks for posting.

That thread is 141 messages and points to another one that is 343 messages.

Before I read almost 500 messages, could you say a little more - just what is this in a nutshell?

Are you trading this Jack Hershey's method successfully and how long have you been doing it?

Have you had any exposure to Investools?

Brooks
 
I know those who use Investools, master level, and what I've concluded so far is that those who really have a chance to make money are those who are dedicated and willing to pay the additional $7000 after the initial $3000 for the next course (master level) and I believe get access to more powerful tools. The Investools instructors will tell you, once you get into their advanced courses (they call them Master or PHD level courses) that most of the people that only paid the $3000 will never make any money. Why? Because most don't have the skills, nor the time and discipline to learn the skills on their own needed to make money, and don't have access to the better tools. Going a step further, paying an additional $7000 or more for each additional course, there are even more powerful skills and tools for trading, stock screening, charting, etc. All those people you see on their Infomercials are a small percentage of the people paying the initial $3000 (and monthly access fee), and many of them took the advanced course. So bottom line, as with anything, if you want to make money there's no easy way. You need to be deadly serious about learning how to trade, have some money (the more the better), pay for the advanced courses, and practice, practice, practice! All the advanced courses and tools will do for you is help you obtain and enhance your trading skills and make you much more efficient using those skills and their tools, and therefore more successful at trading, compared to learning on your own using free or low cost tools. But as I said you have to be deadly serious (and competent) or you’re just throwing your money away! Investools is good, but they’re in this to make money and they’re going to sugar coat everything they do for mass consumption. They’re not going to kick you in the ass and weed you out like the Marine Corp. They want your money first!
 
First I want to say that I am new to trading, and I haven't actually traded real money yet. I started to learn about stocks in November, and I've been paper trading for a month so far.

I am currently using Investools at the moment, and honestly I feel like I've been ripped off. The site is fine, nothing wrong with it. It's just the courses you pay for. I can be considered a "Ph.D. student" since I bought all of the home courses, but I haven't gone to (I didn't pay for the "privilege" to attend the other classes) any of the classes besides the initial 5 step program. I haven't had any personal trainers either. I personally think that's a waste of money, but that's just my opinion and off topic. The material that you buy for the prices is something that you can easily read from books that you can buy which would cost less than 8K+. Investools courses might be for those kind of people that need to be "babied" to learn things. I'm not that kind of person, I've always went "hardcore" (I devote about 12 hours a day to stocks, but then again, I'm just a 21 year old college student who has a lot of time on his hands) in anything I do, and I'm pretty competitive. Aside from those Investool course books, I've bought another 10 or so books that i've already read which maybe totals a thousand dollars, and it said everything the course materials said and much, much more for a much cheaper price.

For the kind of trader that I consider myself to be, which would be momentum/position/swing trader, IBD can provide the kind of service I need for a cheaper price than Investools website. All I need is a quality list of stocks (which I have), and I just trade them when I get the signals/patterns/price action/volume I'm looking for (Amongst other things). I only buy leaders, not laggards, etc.


Its worth noting that I don't do options, and I just like common stock. Investools makes it seem like that is the best way, and that you make more money that way, which you can if everything goes well, but it's not as easy as they make it seem, and it's too risky for me. It's just not the kind of trader that I am.

In conclusion, if it were just for the website, it wouldn't be much of a problem, but they make you buy the course material for a reason. That's where they're ripping people off since you can get the same information else where for A LOT less money. They're preying on the ignorant and the newbies. They make it sound simple with that green arrow crap, and that's how they hook the newbies. They do say it's more than just the arrows, but to newbies, it still sounds simple. They're also too busy promoting their options courses in the beginners course to convince you to buy it. "That's where the big money is made, with options." They hook the newbies even further thinking they can get rich quick(They don't actually say use options to get rich quick, but you tend to believe that). "You see this stock, it says optionable?" "What that really means is M-O-N-E-Y!" "Say it with me, MO-MO-MO-NEY!" Hehe, they really hype you up...

I still use it only because my subscription isn't over for another three months or so, and I will not renew it.


By the way, they do have yahoo group forums. Here they are:

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/investoolsBG/ <---You use to be able to read that one without being a member, I guess not anymore.

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/investoolsUG/ <--- Must be a member.


Edit: Just noticed that this is an old thread, and the one who bumped it is probably trying to advertise Investools....I'll leave my message here anyway, perhaps anyone looking for Investools information will find this some what useful.
 
Ok, I feel the need to add a few more comments. For anybody interested in this product, don't buy it. This poster reminds me of those "teachers" back when I attended the beginners class. They're pretty arrogant, and make you believe like you'll never make it without using Investools. When I said I wasn't going to purchase the other classes, and personal training, they tried to make me feel like I will fail without it. That I will have a hard time, blah blah blah. ( I don't need the same material being said to me by some "personal trainer" that I can read and apply myself from reading a book) They don't listen to your reasoning behind it, they just try to sell their product. They even jacked up the price of the books because they knew I wasn't going to buy the classes, personal training, and the other crap they were offering. I'm doing just fine reading my other books, and paper trading. Made 13% in my month (I actually began losing, and took the next few days off + weekend to read more books, and see what mistakes I made. It was mostly money management, and emotional mistakes. Then I gained it back) of paper trading, and it had NOTHING to do with Investools. I'm not expecting all months to go that well what so ever, but the fact is you can learn about stocks through reading a lot of famous, and recommended stock books, and it's both better, and cheaper.

So to any newbie that reads this and is interested in Investools, do yourself a favor, and go buy some books. Books like how to trade in stocks by O'neil, The Chart Pattern encyclopedia book by Bulkowski, and Elder's Trading for a living. Cramer's Real Money book is an ok read to. Livermore was a good read as well. You get my point.


For the "Serious" traders out there who want to learn, like that poster is talking about, I suggest you stay away from Investools, too expensive. You can go to their own Prophet.net (Investools owns them now) and pay for the same charting they use, and use IBD for stock screening. This is just one example, you can use a lot of things out there. They aren't "low cost tools" to subscribe to, but it will take you years before those subscriptions amount to the 20K that Investools wants you to pay for all their courses...

If you can't learn things on your own, and you need people to feed you the same stuff that you see in a book, then go to Investools.

But then again, I'm still a newbie, what do I know?!

As you can see, I'm kind of pissed at getting ripped off. =P
 
Scott63,

I may be mistaken, but my understanding is that all the tools of the website are available to those with a minimum subscription.

I think the higher fees just get you additional training.

I have not seen their infomercials.

In the last week, I decided to take the plunge with the minimum training. This is $2200, up 10% since 1/1/2006.

There IS sales pressure to sign up for coaching, in person training, advanced training, etc.

To their credit, they do address setting stops, controlling losses, etc.

IMHO, the quality of the training is very good. Their tools are very good. You could subscribe individually to Zacks, Market Guide, etc., but it would be much more expensive. Investools puts it together into a nice package.

Brooks
 
I agree brooks, the training isn't bad, neither is the site. My issue is price. You can get the same education else where for cheaper. Like I said before, if you're the type of person that needs help understanding things, and if you need people telling you the same thing that's in a book, then go for it.

I also do believe you need to pay for the extra courses to have access to additional charting tools like Fibs, etc. I'm pretty sure you must buy the Advance technical course. So that other poster was correct by saying that.

As far as Zacks and all that is concerned, I guess that's up to the type of trader you are(It is useful, most of the things on the site is). Personally, I simply go for the market leaders, and look for price action and volume, but like I said, the site is nice. Too bad you need to pay 3K minimum to use it.

Infomercials and stocks don't go together, I agree... Funny thing is, I didn't know this was an infomercial, I saw it at the Real Estate Wealth Expo here in NYC....Turns out, everything at that expo was just one big infomercial!

Just my two cents. :D
 
In response to earlier posts after my intial post on this thread. I’m not instructor. Wish I was, I could get all this stuff free and know how to use it. I’m just trying to shake some trees to see what I can find out from others on Investools. As I said, I know a few people that have taken the courses through the master’s level. I would tend to agree with the comments by others. At least I would agree that for many people this is a waste of money for many reasons. And I agree, of course, you can learn all the stuff from books and get the tools various places on the Internet. Perhaps the only value is if the tools really give you an edge and save you a lot of time. I think that’s the big question. I know some posters think the tools are useless and that’s good to know as it makes me more suspicious. But, if anyone thinks they do work and can explain why, I’d like to know. What I especially want to know about is their advanced tools, like the stock chart pattern recognition software they got when they bought Prophet.net (no longer available on the Prohet.net website). I know for a fact that it’s only available through an advanced course and only after you’ve gone through their so-called master or PHD courses. Lot’s of money!

I also agree that trading and Informercials don't go together, but that's how Investools is getting their mass sales even though most who buy in don't or can't follow through. For those who do follow through, the question for me remains. Is it worth it?
 
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