The Big Lie in Trading Education

There are lots of trading educators out there. Some spend days and days teaching the new student all about support and resistance or some other simple concept. I hold three books in my hand that teaches the same amount of material for a fraction of the cost of the course.

Other courses or paths to education imply that trading is easy. Just buy software or attend a webinar and within a few days you are looking at a BMW brochure looking for your next car purchased with your dollars earned on a daily basis. Well you and I know that is nonsense, but there are still so many that line up and sign up.

The transition from “working for a living” that earns a certain income for hard work to trading for a living that offers uncertain income that fluctuates widely on a daily basis is incredibly difficult. But I would reduce my sales, if I were to tell the potential student this was the case. Instead, many course vendors imply that trading is not difficult. Just give them a week and they will have you ringing up profits like a cash register. Well, if that is the case, ask them how many of their students are actually trading for a living after one year from graduating the class.

You would be shocked if you knew the answer. Most organizations do not make such a survey. Why? Because if they had hard evidence of how many, it would open them up for potential legal claims in the future. Hard to make a sales pitch on how easy it is to become a trader, if you know by survey that less than 10 percent of your students actually learn to do it.

Let me make this simple. You cannot learn to trade for a living by taking a one week course! Oh there are a few who will catch on to a methodology and turn the corner and change from being a big time loser to having a small degree of success. But I am talking about the vast majority of the students who are new to trading. “But there are testimonials about students finding success.” Let me tell you about the testimonial game.

Ok. I teach 100 students and they go out and begin to trade. Some of the students will have a great winning streak. Even if the students merely sat in an empty room and watched Lady Gaga videos, some of the students  who trade will have a streak of winning trades. It is nothing but a fact of probabilities. Now some of these students will be so excited about their winning streak they will write a letter or send an e-mail to the course vendors. “I made $10,000 in my first week of trading! Thanks for the great education.”

Now the course vendor will be able to post that letter on their website. It is factual, but it may represent only 5 percent of their students. As I teach more and more students, I get a few more letters, but they represent only a small fraction of the total experience by all the students. As you can imagine, they don’t print the letters that say “What a crock. A total waste of my time!”

Now I have taught students in the past and it may look like I am trashing my own industry. In fact, I am merely coming out of the closet and telling the truth about our industry. You are not told about how few people who take trading courses, attend webinars, or buy a boatload of books actually succeed in trading to the level of replacing their income from their “real job”. It is an extremely low number. Just know that and realize that, if I am selling you a course, I will most likely tell you about the few successes and not the experience of the majority.

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