Is it more effective to learn through books and internet than expensive courses?

[soulfire]

There are short 3-day courses which charge thousands of dollars for teaching you how to manage money. At these prices, they are even more expensive than the most expensive college in the U.S on a daily rate.

Will learning trading through free books borrowed from libraries and free websites and forums such as this one be just as effective? I am highly doubtful how much a person can learn within 3 days. How can one absorb so much knowledge within 3 days? Wouldn't taking time to absorb the knowledge through books and forums be more effective?

Do elitetraders agree that books and internet are more effective than expensive courses? It is definitely more cost-effective.

Reality Check #1:

Reaching the desired level of trading where you are able to make a nice living from it is extremely rare among all those attempting with the best odds from various studies being about 20% and the worst being around 5%, meaning out of 100 people trying to learn how to trade, as little as 5 people will succeed.

Trading is very difficult because it requires you to have a different mindset from what we have based on regular life experiences. You literally have to rewire your brain with regards to analyzing market behavior and entry/exit trade management.

Knowing the high level of difficulty, you have to look at ALL books and trading courses with a BIG grain of salt. I've read a ton of books and reviewed free demos and excerpts from courses offered and read countless reviews of them all. I've yet to see any book or course that would give a new trader the ability to reach competency in figuring out how to consistently pull money out of the market. That's why new books/courses are constantly being created.

If someone offered a book or 3 day expensive course on "mastering" Engineering, Surgery, Plumbing, Aviation, Biotechnology, etc.., would you be inclined to believe them, or would you immediately think false advertising? How about if a sports or Hollywood star offered a book or week program to reach star salary levels?

Reaching mastery of anything takes 3 key components - education, practice, and time. No one is going to "master" anything in a short time- contrary to what is being sold in books/courses.

I would love to see a trading brokerage that offers training courses become stakeholders in their students success by only charging students a percentage of profits made as their fee until the full price of the training is paid. If they don't think that model works, then how good could their training be?

Successful traders I know spent many years developing their own system or apprenticing with a successful trader who was a family member or friend.

If you want the hard truth, your best bet is to ask around your family to see if there are any successful traders and see if they would be willing to assist in your learning, or you will be best suited in creating your own method from scratch. If there are any classes/books I recommend, it would be mathematical modeling and data/graph analysis to help your sort through chart data. Notice I did not say "technical analysis books". You should work on finding your own relationships rather than looking at others opinions.

If I had to do it all over again, I realize it would have been better to skip books and just try to figure things out without getting any data from talking heads on CNBC, books, online videos,etc...

Any grains of good info you could get from those sources will be countered by a ton of needless or worse, wrong information that will serve to make it more difficult for you to figure things out.

 

[wrbtrader]

Well managing money, whether it's managing other people's money or their own money can and in many cases do involve trading in securities so many times the two terms are used interchangeably although in real life it can be different. I have a feeling that that 3-day course covers more on trading than anything else especially with the cost that is involved. Nobody charges thousands of $$'s for just purely "money management" courses anymore.

I think I understand.

Its like as if someone tells you that they "want to manage your money"...they are in fact saying they want to trade your money.

Yet, it may still have nothing to do with trading...he may want to learn about "managing money" for investments...something more along the lines of a "financial planner", "financial advisor" or "money manager".

Regardless, I believe money managers, financial advisors and such must be licensed (e.g. series 7, 65) because I doubt he was talking about learning how to become a "hedge fund manager".

wrbtrader

 

[JSOP]

I think I understand.

Its like as if someone tells you that they "want to manage your money"...they are in fact saying they want to trade your money.

Yet, it may still have nothing to do with trading...he may want to learn about "managing money" for investments...something more along the lines of a "financial planner", "financial advisor" or "money manager".

Regardless, I believe money managers, financial advisors and such must be licensed (e.g. series 7, 65) because I doubt he was talking about learning how to become a "hedge fund manager".

wrbtrader

Agreed still it doesn't really take 3 days to learn how to manage money in the line of financial planning.

 

[Overnight]

...Check out www.tradingschools.org and type the name of the vendor or the organization in the search. There's a good chance Emmett may have exposed the scamsters behind your course already...

Don't fall for Emmett's "unbiased opinions". He's the Jerry Springer of trading review sites. Trust me on that. Do NOT base your decision on trying a place based on his writing.

 

[murray t turtle]

There are short 3-day courses which charge thousands of dollars for teaching you how to manage money. At these prices, they are even more expensive than the most expensive college in the U.S on a daily rate.

Will learning trading through free books borrowed from libraries and free websites and forums such as this one be just as effective? I am highly doubtful how much a person can learn within 3 days. How can one absorb so much knowledge within 3 days? Wouldn't taking time to absorb the knowledge through books and forums be more effective?

Do elitetraders agree that books and internet are more effective than expensive courses? It is definitely more cost-effective.

%%
Yes; but buy the better books also. Some seminars give you a notebook......And some learn better in a group setting, so one size doesn't not fit all.Good question