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

[Handle123]

Courses should only be bought by more experienced traders, we have already done our 10,000 plus hours of screen time and studying and testing and... If you can't get a 60 day return policy, don't do it and only use credit card, take screen images of return policy. You most likely will have to get with credit card people for returns.

Buying anything, you will still have to put in the time, think in these terms, trading is more difficult than Harvard, so buying even a 10k course is less than what you pay at Harvard for 4 years.

Stick with charting books and make your charts by hand, yes I know you have a computer, but doing by hand you will see more by doing. Learn price, you be trading price.

This will take a few years to digest.
http://thepatternsite.com/chartpatterns.html

 

[JSOP]

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.

People all learn differently. Some people can learn by reading books or materials online, some have to have somebody explain to them what they have just read, summarize it for them to basically reinforce it for them. Everybody is different. I find though the best way to learn how to trade or manage money is just by doing it. Start small, start with demo trading and go from there. Trading is a very practical thing. No matter how much you read, how much you listen to someone talk about it or even show it to you, you won't know how to trade until you actually get your hands dirty doing it yourself. Anyway, that's my personal take on it.

 

[Trader Curt]

I think it depends on how motivated you are. Most people don't want to do the work of learning but they want to be successful, so they buy online courses. The problem is you can't trust who you're learning from. Why would a successful trader waste their time teaching people the same exact strategy they use when they could be making millions of dollars trading?

Use your common sense, and take everything you hear with a grain of salt. I've found that when multiple "pros" all tell you the same tip, then it's usually true. But I've also seen questionable videos out there that could have the wrong information. And I don't know if it really is the wrong information because I am a begginer. So watch what you learn

 

[wrbtrader]

Money management videos on Youtube...its free @ https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Money+Management

Also, check with your local community college...they usually have a course on money management, personal finance, budgeting and so on.

wrbtrader

 

[NQurious]

Do elitetraders agree that books and internet are more effective than expensive courses?

I can't imagine an expensive course or some fancy red light/green light software is ever going to be a wise investment with respect to learning to trade.

On the other hand, there are a few free sources of information and some relatively inexpensive books I have found very useful.

In the end, the most useful material I found was that which I came to generate based upon my own hours of watching price move tic by tic, minute by minute. I doubt I am alone in having that experience.

Now, if there were a course that could teach me what I know now but didn't know then, I'd be tempted to buy it, knowing what I know now. But there is a pretty good chance that I'd be wasting my money on that course if I didn't already have the benefit of hours and days and weeks and months etc of "screen time."

You mention "managing money." What kind of trading are you looking to do?

 

[Kevin Schmit]

I can't imagine an expensive course ... is ever going to be a wise investment with respect to learning to trade.

I don't know about that. For example the CMU Masters in Finance program seems worth the time and not insignificant cost. On the other hand, Grul/VolPunter/AsiaProp claims to be a graduate, so I might be completely mistaken in my assessment.

The right books can be very useful also. Work your way through Hastie, Tibsharani, and Freidman's "Elements of Statistical Learning" not skipping any chapters and working all the problems and you'll be ahead of 99% of your competition.

Blog posts and websites, however, are more problematic. There are some good sites out there, but they are buried in a mountain of trash (just like posts on ET!). You really have to know which authors to pay attention to and which to ignore (also just like ET). Pay attention, for example, to Francis Diebold, ignore Nassim Taleb. Unfortunately the Talebs of the world state their theses with utter confidence and get 1000x the hits of the Diebolds of the world.

 

[NQurious]

I don't know about that. For example the CMU Masters in Finance program seems worth the time and not insignificant cost.

I'm a blue collar day trader, so when someone asks about trading education, my mind would not ever entertain recommending a graduate degree in finance lol

At the same time, for a job in finance, I'm sure one could do much worse than a Master's from CMU

 

[wrbtrader]

...You mention "managing money." What kind of trading are you looking to do?

I believe the OP is talking about "managing money of others" or learning how to better manage his own money.

In other posts he has talked about "money managers" and he made a comparison in this thread that there's a 3 day course > the tuition costs of a college education of the most expensive universities in the U.S.

Simply, I think he's talking about a finance degree or something the results in being a money manager. Thus, I don't think he's talking about "trading" or "trading courses" although some of the replies so far in this thread has been in reference to the latter.

Regardless, that stuff (money managers) requires someone to pass certification tests and/or have a degree. Thus, I never heard of a 3 day course to get such.

wrbtrader

 

[JSOP]

I believe the OP is talking about "managing money of others" or learning how to better manage his own money.

In other posts he has talked about "money managers" and he made a comparison in this thread that there's a 3 day course > the tuition costs of a college education of the most expensive universities in the U.S.

Simply, I think he's talking about a finance degree or something the results in being a money manager. Thus, I don't think he's talking about "trading" or "trading courses" although some of the replies so far in this thread has been in reference to the latter.

Regardless, that stuff (money managers) requires someone to pass certification tests and/or have a degree. Thus, I never heard of a 3 day course to get such.

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.

 

[slvrrisc]

Don't do those 3-day "academy" courses that cost a medical operation OP. They're all likely scams. 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. If you want to go about it a far cheaper way, there are good suggestions already mentioned in this thread. You can also get a bunch of ideas free from the videos posted on yt such as from ninjatrader or futures.io; just filter out the ones that are only babbling and just upselling courses.