Stock courses

[beamstas]

Not all educators are there to rip you off.
This thread is getting a bit long for my attention span, i've only done one "course"/"seminar"/"workbook" (i guess it qualifies as a stock course? ) and it is WELL worth the money.

 

[juststarting]

Thank you to everyone that replied. I know absolutely nothing about the stock market and certainly nothing about options, but I know many of you are very experienced traders, can anyone out there tell me if they have had personal experience doing a course and what price would be fair. I have to crawl before I can run.

 

[warezwana]

can anyone out there tell me if they have had personal experience doing a course and what price would be fair.

I can shamefully say I was suckered into the slick sales of Optionetics as a blinded newb and NO...thats a NO I do not think their course is one to take $3000-4000 best spent on books, questions on the forum and hours and hours and even more hours of Virtual trading.

My current direction as a newbie might be where your at also (or could head) - trying to get AmiBroker set up with some sort of settings to run scans and backtesting and apply some buy/sell signals... My spare time - buying Calls and selling Puts.

 

[Sir Osisofliver]

There are various levels of educators:

1. Full ASIC licensed. These need to show that they have the skills to provide the service and that these skills have been learnt from actually working in the business - not just studying it trading one's own account. They also need to have adequate indemnity insurance, be externally audited, provide ASIC all trading statements when requested, prove any claims made and complete ongoing education.

2. Rented ASIC license. These are usually held by people who don't qualify for some of the above yet have a product that they wish to operate under a license. There are a few operators who will 'lease' their license out to 3rd parties.

3. Accredited Training Courses. These people do not hold any ASIC license but have gained some accreditation for being able to teach others, in this case, trading. Anyone can do the course by walking in off the street and become accredited without any prior education in the markets. Subjects: Select a profitable company in a timely and accurate context; Determine the purchase price of a share; Select stock market strategies; Implement a trading plan; Trade options with use of leverage strategies; Determine portfolio requirements; Apply basic communication skills; Operate a Personal Computer; Using a keyboard; Use business technology.

4. Others. These tend to be people who have not thought to get a license or who would like to circumnavigate the reasons for getting a license. A very large proportion of operators fall into this category. Some mean well, others not so.

As usual - "its buyer beware" and "if its too good too be true, then it usually is"

I mentioned RTO (Registered Training Organisation). An RTO (which has nothing to do with ASIC licence holders) is able to accredit specific courses, a requirement of which is that the presenter/slash teacher has Cert IV qualifications (registered trainer). It's an education department thing.

It means that a company that has an ASIC licence AND is an RTO can run courses that comply with CPD (Continuing Professional Development) point requirements, can give examinations, and can issue professional acreditation within that course. Eg Kaplan Higher Education Pty Ltd holds an RTO (I think).

Cheers

Sir O

 

[Ruby]

Sir O........ I have been following this thread with great interest and would like to add my view....

I don't agree that all trading courses are a scam. I started my trading career with one - quite expensive - in 2000, and it was well worth every penny. Just reading books is not enough. You need a mentor - someone to guide you through the minefield, keep you on the right track, give you support

There are some very honest people selling very good courses, with lots of follow up support, who also produce trading statements. I know some of them.

If someone spends months preparing and writing a course, using years of hard-won expertise, collecting data for examples, testing strategies, and then has to bear the cost of marketing etc, then he / she is quite justified in charging suitabley for services. Otherwise it is just not viable.

In the end it comes down to value for money, and that is difficult to determine. Word of mouth is a good way.......

I also once worked for a share trading educator in Bris, and their couse is a big rip-off - absolute rubbish - antiquated and full of padding. Do lots of research !!

 

[Medici]

For $7000 i could buy some BHP today for a day trading

 

[wayneL]

Perceived Value

Can I ask a rhetorical question of the forum? Let's say you are in the market for a course... tech analysis, options, whatever. You find three separate vendors of courses that all sound like they are offering what you think you want:

Course A is $500
Course B is $2000
Course C is $5000

Which one would you buy?

In the cold light of day, and presuming all offered comparable information, the $500 course is a no brainer, but people tend to prefer to pay for the more expensive courses because of "perceived value"

Folks think more expensive must be better.

On the other side of the trade, the vendor is thinking - How many courses do I have to sell to make a million?

Is it just as hard (or perhaps even harder) to sell a $500 course as a $2-5000 course?

You have to sell 2000 $500 courses to make a million.
You have to sell 500 $2000 courses to make a million.
You only have to sell 200 $5000 courses to make a million.

What is the demand at each price point.

How much marketing effort and expenditure is required to achieve the above results?

It's an interesting question, because here is the detail on some option courses I have stumbled across recently

A covered call course for $297 USD
A put spread course for $5000 AUD
A comprehensive and very good entire option trading course for $2000 USD

The covered call course is quite good for what it is teaching, but I could write up a pamphlet and cover the same thing in probably 5000 words.

The put spread course is outrageously poor value, the less said there the better.

The "whole enchilada" course seems quite good value as it covers just about everything in a very capable fashion.

Yet the laughable put spread course is pulling in plenty of muppets coughing up $5k for what again could be covered in about 5000 words or less.

The same clown is doing a one on one day trading options course for $20k Yet when I asked him on his forum - why day trade options instead of CFDs or futures - He couldn't give a sound answer.

Further more pressing questions were deleted. (I was damaging that "perceived value" )

It's a fascinating marketing study.. well I find it interesting anyway.

Any thoughts?

 

[prawn_86]

Going slightly off topic here Wayne, but as you may know i study a marketing degree and perceived value is a big part of what we get taught.

Im happy to talk about it in another thread if you think its worthy.

Essentially (and obviously) people/co's should try and increase their perceived value as much as possible. The higher the perceived value, the higher the profit margin. Think Lexus and Toyota. Essenially the same parts, just tweaked a little, yet sells for so much more because of the 'luxury' tag they have attached to the brand.

I could go on about this for hours, but i'll stop here...

 

[Nero64]

http://shop.elder.com/shopexd.asp?id=340

roll up roll up

Dr Alexander Elder's trading camps in the carribean

price US$2475

Something is not quite right. Having a trading camp on an island where chicks are toplesss on the beach and bars are like pickup joints. How could you conentrate on trading. Surely you could learn all his trading ideas in his 4 books and study guides. I have nearly read two of his books. I prefer him to Van Tharp.

 

[It's Snake Pliskin]

Going slightly off topic here Wayne, but as you may know i study a marketing degree and perceived value is a big part of what we get taught.

Im happy to talk about it in another thread if you think its worthy.

Essentially (and obviously) people/co's should try and increase their perceived value as much as possible. The higher the perceived value, the higher the profit margin. Think Lexus and Toyota. Essenially the same parts, just tweaked a little, yet sells for so much more because of the 'luxury' tag they have attached to the brand.

I could go on about this for hours, but i'll stop here...

Prawn,

I would love to hear all about it if you have the time.

 

[wayneL]

Prawn,

I would love to hear all about it if you have the time.

Yep me too.

 

[Nick Radge]

I tend to agree with Prawn. Perceived value is something we see a lot of. People compare our $330 course to others at over $5000 and usually go with the $5000. I actually just spoke to a gentleman yesterday who attended our $220 seminar in Melbourne last year. Who said to me just yesterday that he sat in the seminar waiting for the sales spiel for the $5000 course thinking the $220 was an introductory course. It never came.

My view is twofold on both parties:

The Client -
1. expects a higher value course to provide more profitable strategies
2. tends to be in a hurry to make profits and is in 'fast track' mode

The Seller:
1. High value seller looks for one off sales without expectation of repeat business
2. Low value seller looks for repeat business and reputation

We have clients who have been with us for over 10-years and will buy anything new we offer. Same with someone like, Colin Nicholson, Alan Hull and Daryl Guppy - we never get a single Guppy book, its always full sets of 4 or 5.

There is a course here in Noosa that does weekend seminars, 2-days, for over $5000. All the info is presented very stylishly, but its also found on the ASX website for free.

Interested in your views to Prawn.

 

[tech/a]

Lower pricing repeat business is good business,if of course results and feedback remain positive.

Client bases increase --- word of mouth increases.
So the one off pedlars dont care what feedback they have---they have their money and are gone.

Sound educators with continuing proven track records will grow as will their following/client base.
Value then becomes very real to both the client and the educator.

Client--genuine value
Educator--loyalty

 

[dasmith1973]

Wandering off topic too...perception of value seems to me to be a key driver. This question (what course do I do?) comes up many times doesn't it as a person starting out is trying to find their way (me included in the beginning). I admit I have done a course myself & in hindsight I have thought at times 'why did I spend that money' but for my personal situation it did provide the education I required at the time & commenced my trading journey. With the knowledge I have now I would do it differently but that's called hindsight isn't it & now my perception of value has changed!

I can see a few issues that needs to be wrested with:

Firsly there is the basic legal or moral question, ie is the course / presenter ripping me off or making faudulent claims. That's what these forums are great at, sifting the wheat from the chaff, but once that is sorted you are left with the 2nd even more difficult question of value.

How do I value the proposed information (ie course etc) & is a personal question. I come from a professional field (engineering) where you realise a person's time & information does have value & is worth paying for. When you add up the numbers ($/hr, cost of materials, hire etc) its not hard to see why a person has to charge at least some reasonable amount to cover costs, then there is the value of the information (or Int property it could be called), even if its repeating information found elsewhere it has value doesn't it, you are paying someone to collate the information for you!

What's hard sometimes as its overlapped by the first point isn't it as a lot of 'interesting' claims are made by vendors. I have no problem with someone choosing a $200 or $2K course as long as they genuinely get 'value' whatever that is.

The other option of course is to DYI (do it yourself) but again takes time & money, it can't be escaped, education takes time & money.

There certainly are a lot of options out there & I hate to give a recommendation as everyone is different, at least the forum discussions highlights the junk & gives some ideas about what might be worth trying.

The one thing I will note it the one training area I think is lacking is for those interested in modelling, backtesting, programming etc, that takes a lot of personal time to figure out & very few, maybe 1 organisation actually teaches it (for a fair number of $ of course). If I had more time I would write one myself!

just my personal 2c of babble...........

Chrs, Dave