Warning: Online Trading Academy (tradingacademy.com)

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120511-714084.html?mod=wsj_share_facebook

These 4 profit schools are just about as sleazy as OTA promising dreams that will never come true and in the case of the 4 profits, permanetly burdening students with debt that will take years to be paid off and is non dischargeable.

Students get loans for bachelor degrees that cost as much as $80,000 and Associates porgrams that cost as much as $35,000.
These schools promise job placement and claim having as much as a 90% placement rate. YEAH RIGHT.

But what does OTA do? They charge up to $65,000 for thier passport program. They claim it will be paid back by tuition reimbursement (ENT) and make grandiose claims about income potential of using their proprietary techniques.

Bottom line. OTA students lose money. The tuition reimbursement is a farce.

I see OTA as being the next online education company to get busted and rightfully so.
 
The problem is that 99% of us are able to use common sense and know to avoid these "educators".

However, it's the person who doesn't know what an SPY, VIX or option is and somehow is dumb enough to give away lots of their hard earned money to people who has likely not proven success.

Fortunately, in this economy it is much harder to get money from people, so this kind of "premium" service will likely fail. maybe not this year, but soon. then all the "educators" can get their own site and do their thing. what a waste of an existence.

to spend your whole life as a fraud must be fun.

we need people to launch massive lawsuits. that will accelerate things.
 
Quote from BlueTurtle:

The problem is that 99% of us are able to use common sense and know to avoid these "educators".

However, it's the person who doesn't know what an SPY, VIX or option is and somehow is dumb enough to give away lots of their hard earned money to people who has likely not proven success.

Fortunately, in this economy it is much harder to get money from people, so this kind of "premium" service will likely fail. maybe not this year, but soon. then all the "educators" can get their own site and do their thing. what a waste of an existence.

to spend your whole life as a fraud must be fun.

we need people to launch massive lawsuits. that will accelerate things.
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I completely agree with you. People should launch massive lawsuits and that will accelerate things. But before that, I would just like to see them come clean and offer good training, drop the
high pressure used car salesmen crap and actually offer education that is proprietary and unique instead of something ripped off of books that anybody can get at their local bookstore.
 
Quote from AM Bankus:

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and actually offer education that is proprietary and unique instead of something ripped off of books that anybody can get at their local bookstore.
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I don’t think you will find what you are looking for. There is no Holy Grail. There is no proprietary system that wins all the time. There is no secret or unique method that the pros use that some school will teach you for a few thousand dollars.

OTA claims to teach the 7 pillars of trading. If they actually do this you’ll probably have enough basic knowledge to begin trading.

Is it worth the cost? That will depend on the individual and where they are in their trading learning curve.

Where OTA loses credibility is that they give you the impression that the pros have a big secret that you will learn by taking their classes. The problem is that the secret is common knowledge.

Follow the 7 pillars.

Do your Fundamental analysis, ie: don’t trade against the market. Use Technical analysis to find set-ups and enter and exit trades. Use a direct access broker. Have a decent trading platform with a live feed. Control your risk. Have a written trading plan and most importantly have the discipline to follow your plan.

If they could teach you all the above, especially the last point, in 7 days it’s probably worth the cost. However most aspiring traders will have personal biases and will only focus on what they perceive to be the important issues and rationalize that the boring stuff like risk control, and having a written plan don’t apply to them.

There is some decent material for free on OTA’s web site. It’s all geared to get you to sign up to learn the secrets but you won’t have to cause I just game em to you.
 
OTA does teach the 7 Pillars. It comes ona cheap cd-rom and is ever so basic. I am curious though, you say that "OTA claims to teach the 7 Pillars and that should be enough." How can you make that claim unless you are familiar with the 7 Pillars? I am and I was not impressed.

My issue with OTA Is that they claim to offer proprietary information that you won't find anywhere else. I was already a successful trader looking to hone my skills. What I got from OTA inlcuding their XLT course was information that was ever so basic.

You are right - there is no Holy Grail and I wasn't looking for one. I was looking for advanced information. Sort of like a college grad taking additional classes. What OTA offered was more like the 4 profit schools that have been exposed over the last few years. Only worse

Suggest you get your hands on a copy of OTAs "The 7 Pillars" and then see if you still think it is enough. People were selling them on Ebay for a couple of bucks (way too much) or you can suffer through a Power Trading Workshop, allow yourself to be a prisoner for 1/2 a day and get one for free, that is if you ask. If you don't they will pretend to forget thet offered that in the promo.

STAY AWAY FROM OTA!!!!!!!
 
AM: I looked at the free video on their web site. They give a brief overview of the 7 pillars. Just my own experience is that if you have these 7 points under control you will probably be a successful trader.

Just my opinion but I feel that every trader has to develop his or her own trading methodology. I probably couldn’t trade your system and you wouldn’t want to trade mine because we wouldn’t have confidence in the system.

I guess that’s OTA hook. We will teach you the secrets the pros use. Problem is there are no real secrets. The difference between you and a pro is probably capitalization. Any one trading a firm’s money has strict money and risk management rules they have to follow.
You hear stories of traders who worked for a company going out on their own and blowing up because they didn’t have the supervision. Kick out that one pillar and you’re in trouble.

The traders who trade their own accounts have the 7 pillars firmly in place.
 
Quote from deaddog:

AM: I looked at the free video on their web site. They give a brief overview of the 7 pillars. Just my own experience is that if you have these 7 points under control you will probably be a successful trader.

Just my opinion but I feel that every trader has to develop his or her own trading methodology. I probably couldn’t trade your system and you wouldn’t want to trade mine because we wouldn’t have confidence in the system.

I guess that’s OTA hook. We will teach you the secrets the pros use. Problem is there are no real secrets. The difference between you and a pro is probably capitalization. Any one trading a firm’s money has strict money and risk management rules they have to follow.
You hear stories of traders who worked for a company going out on their own and blowing up because they didn’t have the supervision. Kick out that one pillar and you’re in trouble.

The traders who trade their own accounts have the 7 pillars firmly in place.
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7 Pillars is general basics and not enough to turn you into a top trader or even enough to begin trading. It's like handing a airplane pilot a checklist and then saying, "Ok you are ready to fly a plane" without actually teaching this guy how to fly a plane.

"Difference between me and a professional trader? Excuse me; I am a professional trader and all real professionals know that school is never out. You can always learn, er, unless you go to Online Trading Academy's road show circus. In which case you will be inundated with high pressure sales gimmicks to upsell you and feed regurgitated basic information.

I bumped into another OTA victim a few days ago who got suckered into their XLT program. This person was extremely dissappointed with the education and the fluff.
 
Quote from AM Bankus:

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Excuse me; I am a professional trader and all real professionals know that school is never out.
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I'm sorry I didn't know..:D :D :D
 
Quote from AM Bankus:

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I completely agree with you. People should launch massive lawsuits and that will accelerate things. But before that, I would just like to see them come clean and offer good training, drop the
high pressure used car salesmen crap and actually offer education that is proprietary and unique instead of something ripped off of books that anybody can get at their local bookstore.
More...

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Some of the things that I and others have done and are doing is contacting IBD and letting them know that if they sell our names to OTA or any other comparable ripoff company, we will cancel our subscriptions

Also contacted CNBC and other channels that OTA advertises on and suggested they examine their advertisers a lot closer. To wit, I have not seen any television ads for OTA since we started doing this.

I have a philosophy; why get mad when you can get even?

I have to wonder who gets treated worse though, clients who overpay for a crap course like OTA offers or employees? I hear that employees who try to do the right thing by giving a 2 week notice are told that OTA does not honor 2 week notices and told the employees to clean their desks out, take the 2 week notice and shove it and get the f'k out of here. Really? No wonder those OTA employees use so much high pressure selling tactics on us when we come in.
 
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