Does it matter if the educator is trading live or on a sym or just showing trades in hindsight. What is important is whether they are imparting anything of value to their students. I haven't had much experience with educators. I have received some complimentary courses from brokers, supposedly worth thousands, for opening trading accounts. In my opinion a total waste of money. There is enough info available for free or through books that anyone willing to spend the time can learn the basics. The debate should be about the value of the course rather than the method of marketing them. Take a look at the disclaimer on Kens Testimonial video: (my bold) Disclaimer: The testimonials seen may not be representative of the experience of other clients. The testimonials seen are no guarantee of future performance or success. No compensation is paid in exchange for any testimonial. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. No profitability nor performance claims are being made; trading is a high-risk speculative activity. The education we provide is for papertrading/educational use only. We do not claim that these are typical results that consumers will generally achieve; generally-expected results are that all active traders will lose money and not be profitable. Testimonials are customer-satisfaction related, not performance-related. The testimonials are not necessarily representative of all of those who will use our products and/or services. All information is for educational use only; consult with a registered investment advisor, which we are not, prior to making any trading or investment decisions."
Yeah, it does. It shows that the educator has gotten over the psychology of trading live real monies, believes in their method, and is willing to expose their students to the same method.
K, I suppose that is proof of a profitable year. But there are two and a half problems with it. A.) It is from 2009. B.) It is from 2009. Ba.) 16K profit on 5 million in trading NAV. Do you have a statement from the last 5 years? (And before you say it doesn't matter what year it is from, I will say it does. Because while you are showing a verifiable track record of making $16K profit in trading 11 years ago, you are not showing anything recent. I think that is very important. 2009 is not NOW). Don't try to fool people with that 4.9 million number in NAV, or "notional value" or whatever. It is irrelevant. I am sure futures traders would exceed that notional with the same net profit figure. Notional is just not that important.
Of course not. My point is that educators simply show proof that they really trade. Like a recent blotter. That's completely different from making performance claims. Like claiming x% wins. Let's get back on topic
I think the issue is that there are a lot of hobbyist traders who prefer to have a sense of comfort and mystery in their trading. Reminds me of martial arts — some folks love to study wing chun and want to believe in chi. But going up 1v1 against an mma/ufc fighter is pretty much slaughter. Trading educators, especially folks reliant on TA, are like your old wing chun teacher. And that’s ok as long as their students expect and want that. However, if you want to learn to fight (or trade) learn from those that actually compete and have superior track records.
I read a great book years ago, titled "The Talent Code". While the book was not about financial markets per se, a few lessons are undeniably correlated. The greatest coaches are silver medalists at best if not complete failures. But, somehow they create world champions, who never coach anyone. Back to the financial world, I have never seen, nor can I imagine a successful trader with a working system come out on social media, calling him/herself "the greatest ever" and trying to make money selling it. It is a complete BS to me, no offence to anyone's business ventures. Great topic otherwise!