I would have to second your post regarding Ross Canfield, or TraderZones, or whomever the multiple-personality disorder chooses to be. I have received many PMs with a great deal of specifics supporting your observation.
Most likely those telling you the info about TraderZones (formerly known as rcanfiel) you've been recieving from others was via information I posted about the guy over the past few years. I have saved quotes and images of his old spam here at ET as rcanfiel (he promoted his system design website in his journal via posting direct links to his fee-base website and to his info at collective 2) and as TraderZones (twice he promoted his $250k system for sale and refuse to provide audited records). All that info can be verified with ET management (Baron or Joe) and I have images of my complaints to ET management about rcanfiel/TraderZones when the spam messages were posted by him. ET management has deleted many of his links or spam after member complaints but I did saved much of it prior to deletion. Regardless, I posted all that information awhile back and that's when he put me on ignore along with going on his anti-spam campaign to prevent others from spamming when he realized many of us veteran ET members wouldn't allow him to spam ET. By the way, he doesn't denied posting the spam. Instead, he stated it wasn't spam because he was just trying to be helpful and that he would have shared the revenue with Baron had baron requested such. I then slowed it with the anti-TraderZones posts because he was doing an excellent job in going after other spammers. However, recently he tried cleverly to bring recognition to he trading system (see one of his spam messages below and the recent internship he offered). Just remember this, he's left a paper trail here at ET via stating trendlines, s/r levels, price action only trading is not TA. He's also stated those things have value. In addition, he's stated here at ET and at his former fee-base website that he's studied 1,500 trading systems and only 1% had an edge. He's also well known for demanding access to codes of traders that say they are profitable but will then challenge them to post verifiable proof if they don't cough up the codes. Why would a trader that uses codes give a system designing hypocritical vendor access to their codes...a question he refuses to answer. He's also on record here many years ago in stating that things like money management, trade management, market experience et cetera does not improve a traders chances and that it was just voodoo (see his old debates with me when he was known as rcanfiel and his old debates with me as TraderZones when he first changed aliases). Yet, if you've been reading his messages recently...he seems to have a change of heart (without explanation) about many of the things he argued against in the past (e.g. money management, trade management and market experience). He will spam again...just give him some time after he thinks he's scared away all the competition along with seeing more anti-vendors giving him support via refusing to point the finger at him too. He's run off many that have posted similar like messages as his own shown below for promotion/advertising their services even if it was free. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=180128 http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=92918&perpage=40&pagenumber=2 http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=136220
He's a wolf in sheep's clothing, nothing less or nothing more. He will try it again, 100%, with this or another alias.
Thanks L2 and Nihaba... you're certainly correct that there are many, many issues there. Trading Education has a deserved reputation as 'buyer beware'. Any person considering a service should approach the vendor with a great deal of skepticism and perform exceptional due diligence. The most important asset I have in terms of trading education is my reputation amongst my clients.
What's residing between your ears is worthless. Smart or dumb, you can learn to trade. If you think you're smart enough to figure out the markets, then you're one of the dumbest people I've ever met. That's a very newbie thought. I would rather have a monkey who understood the trading plan, than a genius who could figure out the markets managing my money. This is not a smart man's game. Smart people get slaughtered. Buffett is the most famous investor in the world, but he coudln't calculate the time value of money for you. He understand the common sense of the market, he has a plan and discipline, and he trades it. I just feel like everything I read in the post above is absolute bullshit.
So Joe, I take it you're not a smart person based upon the resentment issues and an off-topic meaningless rant.
My clients have made some good progress reducing monthly charting and execution expenses - many of us use TT and CQG, but eSignal and a number of other charting packages can be made to work with my charting package. Some clients are also using their broker's complimentary execution package in lieu of TT as well. The clients who want to efficiently trade spreads at a higher intraday frequency generally spend more on execution platforms than the day or swing spread traders. $18K per month for Apama or the free IB stuff. 75% use the TT. It is crazy that I have clients spending $500 per month to trade and I have some that spend $20K per month. And no, the earnings are not linear and in some cases surprising.
There is definitely some useful information in this thread about spending a ton of money on education without knowing who is teaching you. I just signed up for a 4 week course on technical analysis (FREE) and I did some research on them even before signing up for the free class. Luckily the guys are full time traders and actually do make their living from trading. I started a journal to track my progress from a noob to hopefully being somewhat knowledgable. But, I would agree, stock training courses are mostly Buyer Beware!