dmoo
02-06-2008, 09:34 PM
Hello all,
I recently let myself be talked into going with a buddy to a 'Free Trading Seminar' put on by BetterTrades.com in the mini-ballroom of a local hotel. Obviously, it was a recruiting session for their paid seminars.
Long and short of my post here is that I'm interested to know if anyone in the forum has actually paid for the BetterTrades sessions; and if so, whether there's any real value to be had.
Certainly there's a good bit of info on them out in the wild - tucked away in nice dark corners like RipOffReport,com - along with positive reviews that mostly offset the negative. It's hard to know what's real however, since the company clearly has shills out there who aggressively rebut any defamatory claims.
Several things are clear. The negative:
1. They use late night infomercials to solicit attendees. Need I say more?
2. Their slogan is "Bringing Wall Street to Main Street." See #1 above.
3. The audience of my freebie seminar was comprised almost entirely of stay-at-home-Moms, retirees, and me and my buddy.
4. They use slick-as-snot sales tactics to convince you to pay $3k-$4k to attend their 2-Day training seminar (which also supposedly gets you 12-months worth of mentoring).
5. As near as I can tell, once you're in the paid training sessions, they *encourage* you to cough up another several thousand$ for their proprietary platform and tools.
The positive:
1. They've been compared online to Optionetics and InvesTools. Well...actually, I don't know if this is a positive or a negative.
2. They have a ton of material available online for free, just search 'BetterTrades options strategies.' Some of it is decent, including a regular number of freebie video sessions - "Free (pre-recorded) trading classrooms." I viewed a couple and thought the content and presenter wasn't completely horrible.
3. The reference point of the entire preso was supposed to be their Ten Best Trading Tactics, which you would purportedly learn through their paid training sessions. In the intro, they referenced Chicken Trades (straddles), Trading the News, and Channeling...all valid, to a point.
I guess my query here stems from the knowledge that all the best lies are based on a kernel of truth - and I'm wondering if anyone can comment from first hand experience on whether those kernels may actually be worth ponying up the buck$ to do one of their seminars.
Oh...and I've been meaning to introduce myself a bit better to the forum at large, so here goes: I've been lurking for the last couple years, just started participating. My background is that I started a tech company during college, built it up, blew it up, sliced it, diced it, spun it - or parts of it - in, then out, for about a decade; then did some other M&A and a little private equity stuff; all the while doing a good bit of real estate dev on the side; occasionally nursing an equities habit; before selling off my day job a couple years ago to focus on being a full-time investor, and spending time with my family.
Until the past few months, I would say that I was almost a strict fundamentalist: I used to tell people I invested like a business owner, because I was one. Over the past 12 years, that's been good enough for an average yearly return in the 30% range: as long as I had 2-3 years for my investing theses to pan out, I've been pretty good at identifying well managed small to midcap entities with a good earnings argument and an industry upside (well, actually, I can't take the credit: I've just been good at stealing other people's best ideas, and ignoring their bad ones). Occasionally I've faded the market when things got crazy with an issue I knew well, and I've pulled some income from the occasional covered call, but in general I've been a mid-term buy and hold guy. I've had a couple 50%+ years, and not one less than 15%. It also helps that I didn't get blown up in 2000-2001 like a lot of people.
In any case, starting last year I've been schooling myself pretty actively on technical analysis, and shorter-term strategies. My tech background leads me toward program trading, though I just don't think I have the right personality to be a great day trader, and have similar thoughts about Forex and some of the leveraged index plays I keep butting into. So while I school myself, I'm actively looking for a a few good strategies to latch onto as I settle into being a much more active trader, rather than the midterm investor I was when I had other things foremost in my mind.
That all said: I appreciate in advance any comments.
DM
I recently let myself be talked into going with a buddy to a 'Free Trading Seminar' put on by BetterTrades.com in the mini-ballroom of a local hotel. Obviously, it was a recruiting session for their paid seminars.
Long and short of my post here is that I'm interested to know if anyone in the forum has actually paid for the BetterTrades sessions; and if so, whether there's any real value to be had.
Certainly there's a good bit of info on them out in the wild - tucked away in nice dark corners like RipOffReport,com - along with positive reviews that mostly offset the negative. It's hard to know what's real however, since the company clearly has shills out there who aggressively rebut any defamatory claims.
Several things are clear. The negative:
1. They use late night infomercials to solicit attendees. Need I say more?
2. Their slogan is "Bringing Wall Street to Main Street." See #1 above.
3. The audience of my freebie seminar was comprised almost entirely of stay-at-home-Moms, retirees, and me and my buddy.
4. They use slick-as-snot sales tactics to convince you to pay $3k-$4k to attend their 2-Day training seminar (which also supposedly gets you 12-months worth of mentoring).
5. As near as I can tell, once you're in the paid training sessions, they *encourage* you to cough up another several thousand$ for their proprietary platform and tools.
The positive:
1. They've been compared online to Optionetics and InvesTools. Well...actually, I don't know if this is a positive or a negative.
2. They have a ton of material available online for free, just search 'BetterTrades options strategies.' Some of it is decent, including a regular number of freebie video sessions - "Free (pre-recorded) trading classrooms." I viewed a couple and thought the content and presenter wasn't completely horrible.
3. The reference point of the entire preso was supposed to be their Ten Best Trading Tactics, which you would purportedly learn through their paid training sessions. In the intro, they referenced Chicken Trades (straddles), Trading the News, and Channeling...all valid, to a point.
I guess my query here stems from the knowledge that all the best lies are based on a kernel of truth - and I'm wondering if anyone can comment from first hand experience on whether those kernels may actually be worth ponying up the buck$ to do one of their seminars.
Oh...and I've been meaning to introduce myself a bit better to the forum at large, so here goes: I've been lurking for the last couple years, just started participating. My background is that I started a tech company during college, built it up, blew it up, sliced it, diced it, spun it - or parts of it - in, then out, for about a decade; then did some other M&A and a little private equity stuff; all the while doing a good bit of real estate dev on the side; occasionally nursing an equities habit; before selling off my day job a couple years ago to focus on being a full-time investor, and spending time with my family.
Until the past few months, I would say that I was almost a strict fundamentalist: I used to tell people I invested like a business owner, because I was one. Over the past 12 years, that's been good enough for an average yearly return in the 30% range: as long as I had 2-3 years for my investing theses to pan out, I've been pretty good at identifying well managed small to midcap entities with a good earnings argument and an industry upside (well, actually, I can't take the credit: I've just been good at stealing other people's best ideas, and ignoring their bad ones). Occasionally I've faded the market when things got crazy with an issue I knew well, and I've pulled some income from the occasional covered call, but in general I've been a mid-term buy and hold guy. I've had a couple 50%+ years, and not one less than 15%. It also helps that I didn't get blown up in 2000-2001 like a lot of people.
In any case, starting last year I've been schooling myself pretty actively on technical analysis, and shorter-term strategies. My tech background leads me toward program trading, though I just don't think I have the right personality to be a great day trader, and have similar thoughts about Forex and some of the leveraged index plays I keep butting into. So while I school myself, I'm actively looking for a a few good strategies to latch onto as I settle into being a much more active trader, rather than the midterm investor I was when I had other things foremost in my mind.
That all said: I appreciate in advance any comments.
DM