Here it is, 12/13/08: "Christmas Wish List for the Industry - It's a short list: (1) Either full regulation or abolishment of free and subscription trading-based chatrooms, and (2) Full disclosure of performance results for anyone providing trading or investment results/advice, including "mentors" and chatroom "gurus". The rest is good too, but let's just quote the end of it: "Sorry folks, but we're talking money here and accountability should be first priority. The gig should be up and it's time the curtain is fully opened. If you're legit and can comply with ramped up regs, you'll have no problems. And yes, everything I've posted in this blog would withstand a 100% audit. You can take away my exchange seat if it didn't."
This is a very interesting question, and let me defend Don here, since Bob is doing such a bad job. 1. My understanding is that Don did make it very clear to the Jellies that 90% of traders fail. 2. He also advocates trading only 4-6 times a day. Now I going to provide criticism against this: 1. Sure a warning is good and necessary in this business, but when you have a teacher who just made 200+% on a big account, students tend to be overly hopeful. After all, Don didn't advertise his last 5 years average returns, what would have been a more modest approach. 2. It looks like his trading and teaching are different, which invalidates his results. If he did his 200+% return with high volume scalping then teaching 4-6 trades a day is well, something else....
You can dance around this issue all day, be sarcastic, use different aliases but in your own words "we are talking about money here, where is the accountability?". Don? Too bad you can not live upto the standards that you were setting for others in the industry. from your blog on 12/13/08: "Christmas Wish List for the Industry - It's a short list: (1) Either full regulation or abolishment of free and subscription trading-based chatrooms, and (2) Full disclosure of performance results for anyone providing trading or investment results/advice, including "mentors" and chatroom "gurus". "Sorry folks, but we're talking money here and accountability should be first priority"
Unfortunately, Bob Frank / Don Millar is a sick and desperate individual. His method of trading is simply" do what i say...not what I do". the day a "jellie" comes forward, not that I think it will ever happen, will blow the cap off this Walter Mitti.
So true. I think the Jellies are get rich quick people who don't want to put in the work themselves and are looking for shortcuts or the holy grail. The one thing about trading is that there are many different ways to make money. But for most people, human emotion and psychology get in the way of implementing them.
Come on now. He is sick in a way that he has serious backproblems. But desperate? If you ask me, he is pretty smart and rich too because according to my estimates he has just reached the 1 million for this year. Congratulations Don, time to take a break! But seriously speaking, anyone who is namecalling here, put yourself in his shoes first, then tell me if you haven't done the same? He had a successful blog and readers had been nagging him if he was going to teach or what? Then he hit a plateau in his trading and he decided, what the hell, if people would pay a very decent amount, why not? That is not his fault that people are willing to pay 7-10K to learn trading. Hell, in another thread a guy was willing to pay 25K, without seeing broker statements. Don did warn them that it is not a cakewalk and they most likely won't make it in this business. Blame the students, if you want to blame someone after all, if there was no interest, Don couldn't charge as much for the mentorship. As far as the students feel that they got back in knowledge sufficient value for their money, there is no reason crying about Don's business. My guess is that no, most of them are not going to make a living out of trading, but yes, they got valuable knowledge, and their trading is probably going to improve... So Don, if you are reading it, I would like to be the first to congratulate for your second year passing the 1 million mark:
Good points Pek, but if Don truly had confidence in his teaching and method wouldn't he have been better off going the true turtle route as he compared his efforts too? A reasonable 50-50 split from even just 5 well capitalized individuals who could produce his same results after training, would yield him 2.5 times his own annual take for whatever cotractual period agreed upon.
You are making an huge assumption here by thinking that Don wanted to make a bunch of mini-Dons. That wasn't the case. Don most likely knows very well, that what works for him probably doesn't work for most. I am sure he explained this to the Jellies. If they were still willing to pay, hey, this is still capitalism last I checked... Not to mention business-wise a sure 4-500K now is better than a maybe 1-2 million later. My personal opinion is that GENERALLY trading can not be taught*, so if 20-30% of the Jellies can make a living after the course, I would count it as a huge success. But this also means that out of your 5 well capitalized students only 1-2 would make it. * Thus this thread and my interest in Don's teaching efforts.
Anyone care to guess what Don's 2009 Christmas wish list would look like?..I bet it wouldn't look anything like his last year's ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Donâs 2008 Christmas Wish List for the Industry (from his blog, link attached) â http://donmillerjournal.blogspot.com/search?q=christmas+wish+list It's a short list: (1) Either full regulation or abolishment of free and subscription trading-based chatrooms, and (2) Full disclosure of performance results for anyone providing trading or investment results/advice, including "mentors" and chatroom "gurus". Make a stock or futures "call"?, I want to know if you're trading it, your exact entry and exit fill (missed fills alone would eliminate 90%+ from room "calls"), and your result with full audit rights. If you're not trading it, why the hell not?? And don't give me the "First Amendment", "we can't legally disclose our client's trades", "we're precluded from trading what we advise", "it's simply entertainment", "I'm not really providing advice", "buyer beware", or "I'm a mentor, not a trader" arguments -- all of which are self-serving either for subscription revenues or their own front-running purposes. As for the last point re: mentoring/teaching, sorry, I wouldn't want to learn to stop smoking from a coughing doctor, learn to lose weight from the hot dog eating champion, or learn to fly a plane from someone who's a "good teacher" but has never flown extensively and successfully. Frankly, I want to see the detailed records of Suze Orman, Jim Cramer, Mario Gabelli, every interviewee on CNBC with a recommendation, and every chatroom "leader". This will of course all but seal I never get invited again to a chatroom interview. Sorry folks, but we're talking money here and accountability should be first priority. The gig should be up and it's time the curtain is fully opened. If you're legit and can comply with ramped up regs, you'll have no problems.
Now you now why he stopped posting those returns > he didn't want to sell his course based on those obvious FAKE returns and get legally accountable for such...