Marl (http://doublingstocks.com/)..... these things are all over the internet and are all BS. Don't bother. It claims to be some penny stock newsletter. If you want that and know nothing about stocks, start with at least a reputable one such as motley fool or one of the other major ones. Dont bother with this scam trash. Just read the website, there is inconsistencies everywhere not to mention they claim to have been mentioned in the WSJ and Business Week but only began in may of 07. Are you kidding? Neither one has any publication about a program called MARL. Don't you think it is also a little odd that this so called Michael and Carl who worked with GS do not even have their last name printed anywhere. Next, just look at that BMW. THat is a 2000 model 3 series and the guy claims to have just bought it for $52,250 of this year! If it is the software you are looking for, damn, there are tons of stock screeners available which is exactly what this great MARL program supposedly is. I wonder what Goldman Sachs would think about being referenced on their website? Sorry for the rant, I just hate people like this that try to sell nothing to innocent people.
What are you trying to do? Do you want fundamental analysis , tech analysis etc. You might want to check out vectorvest. www.vectorvest.com I really like them. Relatively easy to use, good tutorial videos. Might be worth checking out.
I just returned from a 2 day Investools Workshop in New Haven, CT. I have mixed feelings with regards to the beginners course. At first, it was really informative to such a novice. I was excited to hear the Senior VP, Andrew Scott, speak. However, Andrew and his team were more like car salesmen trying to sell you an Associates; Masters or a PhD program which cost between 5K and 24K. There was quite a bit of pressure placed on the class to dish out even more money after already having paid 1K for the 2 day course. At the end of the day, those who were going to shell out thousands more for advanced courses were asked to stay in the lecture room and those who were not were asked to wait in the hall where Andrew was waiting. He was like a leach trying to suck more money from those not interested in advanced courses. He offered us the opportunity to listen to pre-recorded training sessions for a price of $800. I just felt that this was unethical in trying to guilt people into buying more products. They should have just educated the class and allowed at least 3-4 months to see if the basic course was beneficial. If it was/is, then I'm sure people will inquire to sign up for advanced courses. If it wasn't, then they won't.
That's what is so bizarre to me....They bought out Think or Swim, who are AWESOME.....So now they are essentially the same company.... But yet they take an almost polar opposite approach to selling. I hardly ever see ToS out beating the streets for business, and they have really good programs for savings and rebates, etc.... Just odd to me that's all.
Investools IS really worth the money. I've only been doing it for three months and I've only been investing real money for about a month. I've made almost half of what I started with already just because of the education that I have learned from Investools. I knew absolutlely nothing about the stock market three months ago. I didn't even know how stocks work. Now, I know how to make money even in a downtrending market, which amazes me. However, I do realize that this may not be right for everyone. I am a college student, so I have the free time to do this. It really takes A LOT of time and effort to actually learn how to do this. But once you do, it really pays off. I've heard the motto "if you treat investing like a hobby, it will reward you like a hobby, but if you treat investing like a business, it will reward you like a business" . This is 100% true. If you just fool around with this and then go and invest real money, it's almost guaranteed you'll lose it.
I really do feel sorry for the people who have taken an Investools course and feel scammed. Perhaps trading is not for them or perhaps they were looking for a get-rich-quick scheme. Whatever the case, Investools is not a scam and here are some reasons why. A scam would imply that the company is taking money in and keeping it for themselves. However, a very small amount of research over at Yahoo! Finance would reveal that the company had a NET LOSS of $15,742 in 2005, a NET LOSS of $40,732 in 2006, and a gain of $22,435 in 2007. So with a net loss over the last 3 years of $34,039, please explain to me how this qualifies as a scam. So, if it costs so much for someone to take Investools' classes, how can they be losing money? Because they have been buying and building some of the best trading tools found anywhere. In 2005, the company bought Prophet Financial Systems, a company that created JavaCharts and ProphetCharts. Check out the website at prophet.net. Both Barron's and Forbe's Magazine have consistently named the site as the '#1 Web Site for Technical Analysis'. The owner of the company is now Senior Vice President of Technology at Investools and runs a blog, SlopeofHope.com, which was rated the second best business blog by the Blogger's Choice Awards for 2007. Incidentally, the number one business blog is Optionaddict.blogspot.com (now Optionaddict.net) and the man writing it is Jeff Kohler, an Investools instructor since 2003. In 2006, Investools bought Think Or Swim, a broker that has been ranked first or second in Barron's annual broker comparison the last three years. Them's the facts - do what you want with them. The people at Investools know what they are doing. A little background information on them reveals that they are not scam artists - they are real traders who make a living off the markets. Just check out the 2 blogs I mentioned - very insightful market information and ideas. It may cost a lot to get started, but if you really put in the time to learn this stuff, the money you can make will far exceed the cost of the training. A little about me. I attended the Investools seminar in 2006 while a college student and signed up for the Associate's and Option's programs. Read all of the materials for the classes, did all the exercises for the coaching program, and paper traded successfully for a few months. Then I traded with real money and lost about $1,500 out of a $3,500 account. So I went back and reread the materials and worked on the things that I messed up at - namely that I took on positions that were too big for my comfort and panicked as soon as a trade went against me. I also became an avid reader of slopeofhope.com where I picked up many ideas. Finally went back to trading with a new respect for it and have now almost tripled the $2,000 I had left. I particularly love making money when the market is going down because it happens faster. I am starting to add more money to the account from my new job as a web developer (I get to sit by the computer all day and keep an eye on my stock and option positions - yes!).
I see after all the courses you paid big money for that you have a great grasp on how to read an income statement (or not). You might want to check your numbers again and add some zeros. I don't know this buy my guess is that the Thinkorswim part of the business is what has pushed them into the black, that they are still losing money on their seminar part of the business. If you look at who the two biggest shareholders are you will find the names of Thinkorswim founders. I would say Thinkorswim took over Investools rather then the other way around. Thinkorswim can use the seminars where people pay money to get more brokerage accounts where they mint money. Thinkorswim has many free seminars for options trading throughout the year all over the country, but they own Investools where people pay to learn how to trade stocks, it is kind of conflicting. I think in the end it is all about adding brokerage accounts for active traders (i.e. more commissions).
these virgin posters who come to the defense of a company makes it look way suspicious, especially when both of them post within 10 min of each other.
The only reason I said anything at all is because I found that people were giving a bad name to investools because of their lack of knowledge. I found the post and wanted to state my opinion, that's all.
Wow, As I read through this thread it would appear that investools does not have a lot of fans. Makes sense they fall into the category of overpriced education. I am a seminar junkie I have been to them all and they are basically the same. From what I can tell the seminar business is the quickest way to "educate" a large group of people on the basics. I have yet to go to a seminar where they didn't spend most of their time selling something. My guess is that if you know you are going to a sales seminar upfront you could do two things. 1. listen to the presenter - maybe you can learn some sales skills you can use on your wife. 2. If you have any knowledge of the markets you can probably pick up a trick or to (if you ask questions, seminar speakers don't want to look like idiots in front of the room so ask questions and often times they will tell you "how" to do instead of just what to do. who knows if you go to enough of these things you might be able to put together some kind of system and then you can be like that dude I saw on youtube the dartthrow trader. He claims to throw darts, pick stocks and make money ha ha.