I saw on TV this afternoon that bettertrades are coming to our area. Does anyone have any experience with this company and can you tell me of it? I have not signed up to go to their seminar and would like to hear from someone who'd been there or even used their service (or products?) before I do. I need to make the decicson quick as they will be here day after tomorrow. Thanks in advance.
I was doing more searching to find out how to get my money back from Investools, and found this web site that has great advice on how to tell what is a scam: http://www.friendsinbusiness.com/scams/catalog.shtml This site is entertaining, while catching my Investools experience almost exactly - even though it's actually about other types of scams, namely work-at-home schemes. All I will say is leave your credit cards and checkbook at home. As they say, anything that has to be purchased today has to be paid for today so they can get your money NOW! And I can't believe Better Trades has less sophisticated salesmen (oops, instructors) than Investools does - they can sell you anything at any time! Also, if you do take your credit cards and/or checkbook, and you regret it immediately, try invoking your 3-day cancellation rights under the federal door-to-door sales law (16 CFR Ch 1 Part 429, Section 429.1). Dispute immediately with your credit card company, or stop payment on the check (believe me, a stop payment fee on the check will be much cheaper than losing your money via the so-called training).
My wife I& I took the intro Investools course and learned a lot. We were noobs at the time. We were just talking about it last night. I can't remember the indicators behind their 3 green arrows, though (I'm at work, my materials are at home). What were they? Stochastics cross (what settings?), RSI cross, MA cross (which)??? Anybody know? Thanks! Scott <><
g8novice - you're welcome. Anything I can do to keep someone from making the same mistake I made, I'm happy to do. DoxazoAdonai - I hope you're just trying to refresh your memory, and not considering taking advanced courses. There is a quite complex analysis here from Grob109: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60624&perpage=6&pagenumber=4 If you just took the course, and are reading this and regreting paying for it, I encourage you to file a dispute with your credit card company. Do it in writing, mail it return receipt requested, and include this posting with it: http://joecit.com/2007/03/13/response-to-investools-inc-post/#comments - the parts from Brad Moore, the former instructor. If everyone who feels defrauded by Investools does this, the credit card companies will see that there is a serious credibility/customer service/honesty problem with this company, and may cut off their ability to accept credit cards. The three "green" indicators to buy a stock are: The current price crossing above the moving average (I think the moving average is somewhere between 15 days and 30 days) Stochastics going up, but not above 75 or 80%; preferably starting from below 20 or 25% (I forget whether the band was 20%/80%, or 25%/75%); a "ghost green" is when the line has not gone below the lower limit of the band, but is now going up. MACD (Moving Average Convergence/Divergence) crossing above the zero line (and going up); compares a short term moving average (7 days?) to a longer term moving average (30 days?); the idea is that the price is going up when the shorter term moving average is higher than the longer term moving average. (Unfortunately, I think I figured out that it doesn't really mean anything - the price of the stock is not terribly predictable by this.) In addition, they like to have volume 1.5 times average. Oh, and the "news" should not be negative - they say they don't care about news unless it is negative (but sure didn't tell me what negative was - and then there was the hotline phone call where I was told I lost money on the paper trade because there was no POSITIVE news - go figure!). And theoretically, the stock should pass Fundamental analysis, but, like Grob109, the stock used to demonstrate the method in my Basic Stocks seminar, Google, did not show up on any of the fundamental searches I did in the "test" period between being sold the "test period" at a Get Motivated! seminar, and the Basic Stocks seminar. As a matter of fact, it NEVER showed up on a search for the required fundamentals. By the way, I am curious if anyone else can find this glitch in the system, if they still have Investools access. I noticed once that, on the Interactive chart, well after the market for the day had closed, the data on the line below the stock name (the closing price, high and low prices, and the volume for the day) was correct for the day (it matched other free sites, like MSN Money or Yahoo Finance), but the last point on the chart was actually the data from the day before. This was quite a while after the market had closed (3-4 hours, at least), and if they had the closing data for the line below the name, which includes high and low for the day, why wouldn't they have the correct data on the chart? This glitch is one of the reasons I decided I couldn't continue with the web site - since they teach short term chart trading, and you are waiting for that last data point, if you don't see that data point on the day you should, you're going to miss entering at the correct time. I put this on my letter disputing the charges, and their reply was basically "I hope you understand we get the best data feeds there are" - no mention of the fact that how their software interprets the feeds makes a difference. And the only reason I noticed this is that I had put together an Excel spreadsheet which included the day's volume (to determine if it was 1.5 times average), and was re-checking the volume I had entered for a stock, and it was different! I finally tracked it down to the difference between the data in the line below the stock's symbol and name, and the data shown when you hover the vertical red line over the last data point. Anyway, if anyone finds this anomaly, I'd appreciate it if they could take a screen shot of it (press Ctrl and then the PrtScn button, then paste the bitmap into a Word processing document, or into Microsoft Paint - under Accessories) and send it to me via e-mail or private message through this bulletin board. It needs to show the vertical red line that lets you see the detail of the stats - the price and the volume, I think, as well as that the data for the last point on the chart does not match the data under the stock's name. If anyone else can find this and document it, I'd be really grateful!
Thanks Naive! Yes, just refreshing my memory. A most comprehensive and appreciated response! Thank you!! Scott <><
Investools is garbage. It doesn't work. I found this out the hard way. If I had done reading before I bought this garbage, I would have learned that none of these systems work, or they wouldn't be selling it in the first place.
Actually, scam is the perfect word for these "trading systems". EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE THINGS ARE SCAMS. They know it doesn't work. These people are just preying on the hopes of newbie investors. I hope everyone who buys one of these things and is dissatisfied will complain, so they will be illegal to sell. I don't think even one of them could show that they work consistently. Like I said before, if they did, they wouldn't be selling them in the first place.
I went to the Bettertrades seminar this week because I wanted to comparison shop. IT WAS BAD - REALLY, REALLY BAD. It felt sleazy from the moment I registered at the door and received two sheets of folded typing paper to take notes. No literature. Nothing with their name on it. The speaker had exactly the same smarmy vocal inflections and methodology as a bad TV Evangelist (not all TV Evangelists are bad, but you know the kind I mean). He was selling mentorship, not even in-person mentorship but mentorship via the web. He also said that they would tell you exactly what stocks and options to buy. I couldn't stand more than an hour and a half and faked a cell call so I could leave. I honestly felt as if the big guys at the door would try to stop me from leaving if I didn't have an excuse! So I didn't find out how much they would have charged me to be mentored by an unseen, anonymous person who would tell me what stocks and options to buy. If you go, please tell me whether your Bettertrades seminar is a bad as the one I attended.