The funny thing is thinkorswim, actually has other educators as guest speakers on a regular basis. Apparently, they are not confident in Investools own instructors!
Investools recently released their 10Q report and in it, it states that CEO Lee Barba made $10.5 million last year, CFO Ida Kane received a 50% pay increase to $682,000, Instructor and VP Andrew Scott made $1.4 million, VP Scott Sheridan made $1.2 million and two other instructors, Michael Drew and Scott Martin made $1 million last year. You can find all this at http://finance.google.com/finance?q=swim The average pay for a not for profit CEO is only $145,270 per year (www.charitynavigator.org) but for the for profit Investools it is $10.5 million. And you wonder why they are selling you a $24,000 training program and why the SEC is doing an informal investigation on the company.
I have accounts at ThinkOrSwiim and at ETrade. I've attended two free all-day options classes offered by ThinkOrSwim and they were EXCELLENT. No, you don't get a free lunch or a book or even a pen, but you don't get a sales pitch either. If you get a chance, attend. I also like ThinkOrSwim's low commission rates. I attended a free Etrade all-day stocks class and it was good, and provided a free lunch some other freebies, plus almost no sales pitch. If they offer you this class, attend. I've attended two free options classes offered by the Options Industry Council (web site is 888Options.com) and did NOT like either of them. Both classes were too dry because they try to cover way too many topics in 3 hours. It would be better to do a good job on fewer topics. Even though these classes are free and you get a free book, I would NOT go again. I've attended two paid two-day Investools classes and the basic stocks class was good but had a LOT of sales pitch. Their advanced technical analysis class that I attended Aug 2008 as a guest of a PhD student was GREAT and had almost no sales pitch. Maybe they figured the PhD students were already sold? Both classes provided a free lunch and books. If you can split the cost with someone, I'd go. Now I have a question that I hope someone can answer. A student in the August 2008 class told me that he'd heard that Investools has reduced the price of its PhD a LOT - like 50% or something, and allow you to split it with a friend. My friends in the PhD level bought theirs over a year ago, so they don't know. I'd like to know before I engage in any dialogue with Investools about it. Does anyone know what the *current* cost of their PhD level is and whether it is still restricted to sharing with a family member? (I mean the real program with live classes and trading rooms and web site tools, not ebay cds and books). Thanks.
Investools is where I got my start with learning general investing, about ten years ago. A few ask me what my training for trading was, and I have to mention Investools as my introduction into stocks and options, which paved the way toward futures. I don't care what people earn while training traders, they taught me well and gave me excellent tools to refer to over the years. It was worth the money, but it was not free.
Thanks for the insight. I know it is not free. If their PhD level has dropped almost 50% and if I can have a friend share it (no family member is interested), I might buy in. But they are such SALESpeople that I don't want to talk with them before I know what deals they are offering. (I waited for the basic stocks class to drop from $2K to $1K last year before I bought it). Does anyone know what deals they are offering on the PhD level these days?
if your'e resourceful enough you can learn more about stocks plus the economy that governs them by buying books... why not try the dummy's guide for stocks or books by ken fisher and other stuff watch mad money or go to websites such as http://www.investopedia.com http://stocks.about.com or http://www.econtrader.com or even yahoo finance. youll save a lot more and probably use that 3 grand trading 100 shares of something and make a profit. =)
Like lovemyststems, I also got my general start via Investools training. I would recommend them for newbies, but not for folks already proficient. I liked their screeners, but I don't do stocks anymore so they are of no use to me.
Hi everyone, I'm completely new to this. I went to day 1 of the Investools 2-day workshop today, will do tomorrow as well. I've read this entire chain and really do appreciate all of your input. Optimistic, you're asking for current rates - I'm in the 2 day workshop for $99.00. They still have the three levels: Associate - official price = $5796, discount (if sign up during workshop) = $4999 Masters - $15,376 and $11,999 PhD - $30,286 and $23,999 So it looks like it's the same as what you've already heard. Hope this helps.