Are these sites and persons scams: http://www.tradethemarkets.com/ John Carter Hubert Senters Lots of people (not me) have paid their services and indicators. Now the web site is gone. Are they scams? If yes, where are they now? I heard they operation is under investigation. I think at least the http://www.forexrazor.com/ have been under Carter's businesses before..(?)
These two have been robbing traders for years with indicators that don't make money (most don't) and were developed by others who gave them away for free. I recall the goofball who runs PureTick telling me theat when he went toTexas to get trained by these two, Senters told him that all the students are going to lose money in the market, so they might as well take some of it before the students blow out their accounts.
The web site is up gain. However, there are still some interesting issues with them: 1) They seems to sell more than trade: extra services for memberships, indicators, books, seminars, DVDs, ... 2) They do not publish verifiable trading records. They are making lots of many by selling stuff and services. For example: John Carter charges 25K per person for a week personal tutoring sit next to him. There could me more than one person sitting with him at a time. And he is fully booked every time. He could easily 'train' 10 persons a year. Combined with other seminars, DVDs and stuff that could make a half a million dollars per year. He doesn't have to trade at all to make decent money. More info about these issues can be found e.g.: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=89352&highlight=tradethemarkets http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=143947&highlight=tradethemarkets http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=88954&highlight=tradethemarkets
Their website is back up. It turned out to be an upgrade problem on the service provider end, it had nothing to do with any legal problems or hacker attacks. I'm a subscriber, so take my comments knowing this. I'm very wary of stock scams and people selling "the holy grail' of trading, so I'm not just a sheep looking for the "quick" win. That being said, I honestly believe John Carter is legit and an excellent trader. I subscribe to John because I believe his insights and commentary on the markets are extremely useful, and gives me good ideas on how and what to trade. I won't speak about Hubert. I think he's honest, but he definitely has his "snakeoil salesman" moments. He's definitely more sales-oriented than John Carter so that's why I don't subscribe to him, just John Carter. But I do think he's honest, but sometimes his sales style may be a bit hard to swallow. I find John's style suits my own style more. I watch the nightly videos every night, and I think his commentary is honest and insightful, and more importantly useful. He called buying soy last week a high probability trade, and the next day it shot up 30 cents. He also called out wheat several weeks ago, and rode it something like 150 cents on that and got stopped out yesterday. He demonstrated an options spread on Friday on AAPL and lost money. He called out the drop in the indexes a few weeks ago at around 1300, and sold half his position but got stopped out after it rebounded the next trading day. A few months ago, he made a massive amount of money buying CTXS calls (I think it was $350k and I went through the options ticks and verified that every single trade he showed on the screen was an actual trade), but lost on GOOG, I believe. He's not 100% right, but no one is. But he's much more right than wrong and he makes a lot more money than he loses. He doesn't promise any type of holy grail except what any good trader would tell you: trading is really just finding good setups, and not screwing with them, ie. moving stops or targets. In terms of the indicators, they do sell indicators, but for many of them, John also tells his members exactly how to replicate them if they want. He has said many times over and over again that you don't need indicators, they are useful tools, but not necessary in the least. Yes, they have webinars and DVDs. They are a business, don't forget that. And just like during the gold rush, the people who made the most money are the ones who supplied the miners with tools and equipment. But they don't apologize for it, nor should they. I believe they provide an honest and useful service.
Okay, I think they are scammers. I was hustled in with their slick promotion and salesmanship too. I'm going to tell you why I think they are likely scammers: 1. They are the best sales men you will meet. These type of skills aren't built by chance but are crafted, practiced, developed. They work on selling. Traders work on trading. The market demands too much. Selling is important for any business. You'll find pikers like me who will sell stuff because we don't have any other way. These guys already have money. A serious trader who had money would not work on selling as much as they do. 2. They insinuate big claims without any proof. They make it sound like the regulators make it impossible for them to show any type of record. Yet, other CTA's and professionals do show hypothetical records. I really can't imagine that they can go around saying, "We can't tell you you will make a million dollars or we'd go to jail" and yet not produce a record. 3. They don't inspire greatness. 4. It has been done before. RJ of Houston, that big options teaching company, etc. I have no proof but I somewhat doubt they are consistently profitable. Perhaps they are making 8-12% per year. Again, I don't have any information or proof. They could be making a million but you'd think, just think as much as they WANT, desperately want to sell that they could produce a record given that doing such would boost their sales dramatically. As far as I can tell, Senters is professional salesman where Carter is rather intelligent. I believe Carter a bit more and based on his own book, he is probably a hit or miss trader. Big swings. Random up and down. That's my best guess and best case scenario. Worst case: consistent losers. This is not a bad hypothesis given they are always giving seminars and doing distracting things. I'll add that you are more likely to get scammed then go with a legit vendor because the scammers are going to be moer likable, they are going to be better at selling... They work at that more because they have more time for that. They aspire to be great at selling. People like me want to be competent at selling but we aspire to be traders. You'll know a scammer when people flock to them or like them. That's my biggest problem with a certain broker, too likable. that's a warning sign.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion but my question to you is, if they produced records, would you honestly believe it? I'd bet that you would think that they faked their records, or that they only showed partial records. Is it that no matter what proof they gave, you would think they were scammers? Also, just out of curiosity, what big claims have they insinuated?
If they had audited independent records, yes I would believe them if they were over a sufficient period of time. TimerTrac, C2, or from a reputable auditor. Of course records can be faked by hedging in a separate account. But, to do that requires a lot more work and would not be effective if they were swinging big money. Big claims 1. Consistently Profitable I'm one of the best in the world and I struggle with this everyday. Do I believe that these guys are so smart that they can work on selling 24/7 and still be great traders? 2. Impression one can start with a small account and day trade for a living. 3. Price of their goods. If a guy sells a course for 4k then it says he believes it is worth 4k or he believes you are a fool. You decide. A lot of beginners think, okay the hard part is getting to where I make a ton of money but surely it is easy to beat the market! Surely it is easy to be consistently profitable. Wrong. There was a report that Rj of Houston lost something like 11 out of 12 years. I'm not validating that but I read that. You think if it was even remotely not difficult to be consistently profitable trading that they wouldn't have did better?
I really don't want to come across as a TTM-defender, even though I like them. I don't want to get into a position where I'm defending them, because frankly they can defend themselves if they want. But with respect to what you wrote, it's clear you don't know anything about them. I think that's my point. There is no way anyone can be audited completely. They could hold accounts in different brokerages, with their wives, their children, etc. You would never know, so there's really no point. They don't give their services based on their winning record. I'm pretty sure the ttm web site has no references claiming any type of winning record. This is a nonsensical argument. "Because it's hard for me, how could they possibly do it?" Also, what do you mean by consistently profitable? On a daily basis? They never claim this. In fact, they will talk about their losses often in their videos. He even advocates in his trading plans that if he has 2 losing days in a row, he will stop for the week, etc. On a yearly basis? I have no doubt John is profitable on a consistent yearly basis. Again, no where do they claim this. In fact, he has stated the opposite. Whenever John Carter addresses people with small accounts, he says the best way is to find high probability swing trades and make large-ish bets. The ones he advocates are usually weekly or monthly squeezes that line up with trends on multiple timeframes. This is not something special, most traders would recommend the same thing. He has never advocated that daytrading with small accounts is something you can do for a living. I'm not even sure what your point is. Again, no where does John Carter say that trading is easy. He gives plenty of anecdotal evidence about how it took him years and years of ups and downs before he became a profitable trader.