I think most of them turn into long term traders for some reason, I will let you know more if I can find it.
Yes, I'm a member. The basic reason to be a member is to attend the regular meetings in Orange County. Richard Reub, the guy who owns DayTradersUSA does a good job of getting a variety of interesting speakers for these meetings. The speakers generally do more than just promote themselves as market gurus / educators. You usually come away with something valuable. Because I live a ways from Orange County, and am not available on Saturdays, I have never attended the Sat. meetings 'in the flesh.' However, Richard records each meeting and posts it on the website so you can listen to it online. I've listened to quite a few of the meetings and found them quite useful. Just about everyone of the speakers has a product to promote or sell, so you have to keep that in mind. The rest of the site is not very useful. There are reviews of software and educators, but Richard has been very slow in posting reviews. I think he's got too much going--He's a trader himself and I think he's running DTUSA to pay his trading bills. (I know that Richard is a disciple of Tom Busby and his Road Map. He's had Tom come out more than once to speak to the group and also hosted Tom's training with a 'special price' for DTUSA members.)That's about all there is of substance on the members' side of things--the main thing being access to the streaming audio of meetings. I think a year's subscription would be particularly useful to someone new to trading. You would get exposure to a very wide variety of market analysis, psychology, money management and so forth. Just be careful to not spend money on the first person you hear, becasue next meeting you'll wish you could spend your money on that guy, and the next, and so on... Hope this gives you a perspective that is useful... Cheer, kp
I was a member of this organization for my first few years of trading. It served a two fold purpose of education and self-promotion. The guru of the week would speak at each meeting, and then people would rush to take lessons from this person or group. After the internet boom, the owner sold the business to Richard Reub. I consider Richard to be a well meaning guy, with certain abrasive quirks, who bought that business at the wrong time. I found the way he ran the meetings insulting to the audience and the speakers for the most part, however, the meetings are still a good benefit to the organizations' members. The educational value is the only reason people attend the meetings. Eventually though, most leave because they are made to feel uncomfortable by the owner at meetings. I thought that that aspect of the group was supremely unprofessional. Nobody likes to be insulted when they have sincere questions, and that even happened frequently. As a former teacher I was appalled at the way many meetings were moderated. Most of the gurus from the boom days disappeared as speakers probably in direct proportion to their dwindling account equity. Attendance and meetings dwindled too.However, a few very knowledgeable and real traders continued to speak and attend meetings in the past few years. The ones that I have learned quite a bit from have been: Ray Grant, Dave Floyd, Sammy Chua, and Fernando Gonzalez to name a few. To me, these gentlemen are good, teachers and excellent traders. Tony Oz was a frequent speaker there as well, although I don't put him in the same category as the teachers/traders I previously mentioned. Tony was more showbiz than the other guys who seemed genuinely interested in teaching. Everyone did promote to some extent though. Its a good organization, with good material and its nice to go to those meetings and listen to speakers. Sure most will try to sell you something and the group itself has a bent on promoting things too. But if you take from it, like here at ET, good info and apply it, its useful as an educational tool and a place to perhaps meet other traders with whom you may enjoy getting to know. I recall that I was one of the few professional traders at most of the meetings. Most attendees were newbies and sheep, and definitely are looking for someone to follow. Mostly all the traders are retail, in my opinion because thats most of what is promoted at the meetings. Richard and Dan Gibby, this kinda annoying little merlin from Pristine trading, seemed to be in each others pants a lot, so I imagine they had some kind of kickback scheme to direct traders from the meetings to that firm. A lot of talk about selling courses, no talk about the fact that you could go to a firm, get a license, and get trained for free. I found that definitely negative, but i can understand their viewpoint, albeit not in the best interests of all members. And some of the training may be good, but I would be very selective. Conflicts of interests could be found in every corner, but if you are interested in learning it has some good value for a member.
try to get a sample of the webcasts before joining.... i joined for the webcasts and found the quality of the recordings below par... when i mentioned it to the owner.. richard rueb.... as previously noted.. he was incredibly obnoxious and abrasive... i stopped listening to these infomercials and obviously did not renew my membership..anyway the cost $59 was less than one bad trade so maybe it will work for you....