Selecting A Trading Seminar For Stocks, Options Or Forex
If you are in the habit of watching TV late at night you can not have failed to have seen some of the many infomercials about trading, wether it be stocks, options or Forex. They promise a lot but the question is are they worth it?.
Before embarking on a course of trading seminars there are a few very important points that you need to be aware of before making your choice of educational company. In this article we will try and point out some of the things to be aware of.
There are quite a few companies that got into the trading seminar business recently, at least in the last 5 years. This has been fuelled by the meltdown of the market during 2000-2003 which has led many investors and traders want to self direct and manage their own money. The less attractive option is leaving it in the hands of an often less than competent fund manger, who may not have your best interests at heart.
Some of the companies that that advertise extensively on late night TV are Investools, Optionetics, Bettertrades and Star Trader. I’m very familiar with these companies as I’ve attended the free warm up selling seminar for all of them, and actually bought and attended seminars from 3.
The usual sales cycle is as follows, the infomercial is designed to get you to attend what I call the FREE warm up selling seminar. This seminar is usually in a local hotel and can last anything from 30 minutes to 3 hours. From my experience the free Investools seminar lasted about 3 hours and was actually very informative and educational. The others were much shorter and really nothing more than sales pitch’s to get you to sign up for a starter seminar which could cost anything from $199 to $4K!.
Usually an attractive discount incentive is offered at these free seminars to encourage you to sign up on the spot, which is not normally available, so be prepared to be tempted, if you are weak willed by all means attend but leave your credit cards and check book at home. More often you will be given a set of DVD’s, manuals and website login immediately allowing yourself time to study before attending the live seminar.
The following points should be born in mind before signing up for a seminar:
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1. Check what the return policy is very carefully as this can vary a lot. Sometimes it is 2 weeks, sometimes it is up until noon of the 1st day of the seminar, sometimes until the end of the 1st day etc. The important point is to use this time wisely and fully evaluate the materials that have been given to you. If you are not happy or satisfied be ready to ask for a full refund before your return period ends, otherwise these companies can play hard ball.
2. Ask what the policy is regarding bringing another family member or business partner to the seminar. Usually you are allowed to bring 1 person, take this opportunity as it is better to have the opinion of another trusted person when trying to evalute if the seminar is good value and right for you.
3. Ask if the price that you are paying for the seminar is the lowest price that is being offered, just like airlines tickets you don’t want to sit next to someone at the seminar and find out they paid $500 less than you for exactly the same seminar!
4. Make sure that the seminar is exactly on the correct topic that you are expecting to learn about. Remember an options trading seminar will not spend much time on the basics of stock trading and visa versa, and a forex seminar will not cover much ground on either stocks or options. Also make sure that the course is at the right level, many of these seminar keep repeating the basics over and over, but if you are past that it’s just a waste of your time and money.
Here is something that you need to know, this is very important. All these seminar companies are not going to teach you everything you need to know about trading at one seminar, even if it cost $4K. They all have follow on seminars and courses, and they pretty quickly start to tell you that the seminar you have just attended and paid for is just the basic course and if you really want to be a trader you must buy the other more advanced seminars.
Expect a hard sell for the follow on seminars from some of these companies. The sales pitch is usually well practised and hard to resist so be prepared and don’t act on impulse.
If you are very satisfied with the quality of the education that you have received, and you think the company will be around for the next few years then by all means buy additional seminars. But remember this point, usually you will not get an extended amount of time to evaluate the follow on seminars, only the legal minimum 3 days cooling off period in some states. This could be important if you are buying a series of seminars that run over a couple of years.
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