ProTrader, I agree with you and by no means was I trying to bash Mr.Chua's trading abilities since obviously I have no way of knowing. I guess my main reason for posting (even though it may not be of any value to anyone) was to try and understand why someone would go through the hassles of doing seminars ect when he can supposedly make 270k every six months. And you are right his motives might be genuine and he just enjoys spreading his talent, maybe if someday I can pull in that kind of coin I will want to do the same. For example TonyOz's post are helpful and obviously he enjoys both trading and helping train and motivate other traders. Anyway, no response necessary lets get back to the original reasons for this post. Good trading..
The answer is simple, especially if one IS a profitable trader. There is no guarantee that one's techniques will work in the future. Knowing that, why not cash in your profitable techniques now? Imagine showing audited account statements of a profitable technique over the past several years as proof that you are a master trader. Most seminars/courses cost $1500-5000. Let's say the average cost is $2000 per seminar. If you have 30 seminar attendees that's $60k per seminar. Say you do 2 seminars a month, that's $120k per month. Now throw in add-on services such as monthly fax/newsletter for $200/month. Say only half the people subscribe to the service. That's another $6000/month residual income. 15 new subscribers every seminar minus any cancellations. This numbers are not at all unreasonable, as many "gurus" hold more than 2 seminars per month plus mail-order based courses which many choose as a surrogate for the seminar. In short, many seminar pushers make easily in excess of 7 figures in the name of education. The more successful ones are the ones who have a methodology that is currently working and profitable and can prove it. That is why the legend of Kent Calhoun was so large, because for a brief period of time his techniques DID work and people thought he was a super guru. Calhoun was running 5-8 sold-out seminars a month at $5k a pop, not to mention the # of courses he sold via mail-order. Do the math...
I've met him and know him personally. Not very closely, but we've spent time lunching, etc.... Here's his claim: He states he's made $16 million in the past 3 years, and has the statements to prove it, although I've never seen them, even though I asked to see them. He invited me to do a workshop at an expo he's trying to put together in Hong Kong next summer. I have yet to accept. He is in the process of writing a book, which is going to be self-published I believe. In our discussions, he stated that the book is a lead-in for cross selling his other products. I received a free trial to his chat room, and there were 22 members in there. Let's see........not that this matters other than to make one wonder where the $16,000,000 went, he drives a rather "low profile" car. He states that he has contacts with Michael Eisner, Paul Allen, and other "power brokers", which have offered him $20 million to run a hedge fund for them exclusively. When asked why he does the chat room and video, seminars, etc.... he replied "because it's fun. I get bored from just trading. I need to interact with people, and it's also good add'l income" ????
Have just purchased the educational video tape series. They initially appear to be quite expensive. My wife and I are half way through, and they appear to be an invaluable one source of infomation not available elsewhere. Hoping the rest is as good as the first. If the tapes improve trade execution, I will be satisfied with the course.
Maybe this isn't the case here, but why is it that practically every time someone is touting an educational service, is seems that it is their first post on the board? Is this just a coincidence?
Ain't that the truth Sarasota. With the exception of making markets i.e. trading against costumer flow, there is NO non proprietary "black box" method of making money. Markets change, conditions change, and if you need to pay someone to teach you how to trade, you'd be better off just finding a good fund to invest in. In this game trying to teach a man to fish is worse then just giving him fish at 6% a year.
Just a note to let you know the story. I have been visiting Elite Trader for over a year, off and on, and have been trading for two and a half years. I first read about Sammy Chua in an article in IBD on Feb 23 2001, written by Peter Mckenna. There was another article in IBD in June 2001. I wanted to learn more about Mr. Chua's personal story, and recently gave him a call to chat, having no advance knowledge that he was also in the training business. However, being somewhat of a showme type of a person, I did take the trouble of tracking down Mr. Mckenna who was kind enough to talk to me at length by phone. Based on his personal knowledge and the fact that he did personally see the trade tickets, I went ahead and purchased the training tapes. Even though I have been visiting this site for over a year, I never felt compelled to sign up and send a post in before this. Hope this explains the situation and if you need to contact me directly, my email is on file at this site. Thank You, Mike
Dunno...something smell fishy. Anyone care to share some of his so called secret strategies. Or is this one of those bloussant / longitude-capsule type hoaxes?