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Quoting an old post here, but my comment relates to disclosure by educators.
Dan Zanger and Mark Minervini both show their performance records and are both educating. Both of them show the best period of their careers and both of them show it in a way to highlight the best aspects of their performance. Dan's track record was verified by an auditor while I have never seen a proper record for Mark - his numbers are only mentioned in Stock Market Wizards.
If it was illegal to disclose performance in this way, they would have been shut down long ago. Considering the higher profile of both of these gentlemen, it is also very unlikely that the regulatory authorities are not aware of them.
Based on what? Obviously no proof of any of his claims.
I guess by this logic Bernie Madoff is the most honest person running a Pyramid Scheme.
When will people stopping supporting these con artist that provide no proof of their claims. Until members stand up and demand proof they will be scammed again and again.
Anything else besides proof of ones claims is meaningless.
The vast majority of my career has been spent trading at the institutional level with a reasonable amount of success. Which is to say no one ever asked me to resign, so my employers must have been ok with my trading performance. I have no opinion on Al Brooks, though I suspect he probably falls somewhere in the continuum of retail trading educators.
Toward the latter part of my career, I experienced a brain fart and decided that retail trading education would be an excellent avenue to explore and hung my shingle out as a trading educator. The fact that I have returned to institutional trading should indicate my feelings on retail trading education. I have been a serial lurker on this site for several years and thought I would finally post my ideas on the premise of most retail trading. Here is my thesis: The notion that you are going to take any single trading course and succeed is false. To expound on that notion, the idea that the average new trader is going to learn to trade, then take a small retail account and consistently make money trading reasonably tight stops (as is the normal retail methodology) is pure fiction. Note: There have been several exceptions in my career to that generalization, but these traders are far and few between.
Why?
It is my opinion that trading encompasses a wide variety of skills and knowledge, most of which is learned through experience and a "style of thinking." You can't teach experience and the "thinking" of successful traders is counter-intuitive to the average individual. As a trader, you have to look forward in time. Our entire formal education experience focuses on historical thinking and present day thinking. Whether it's math, science or any other educational discipline, we rely on past theories, data, and analysis to form present day opinions. Trading often gives the illusion of data adherence, but eventually, the "historical trading" grinds your account into "blown" status. The success record speaks for itself, a 90%+ failure rate for new traders. I suspect the same failure rate exists among traders who have taken a course in trading, or read a book about trading and been personally mentored by a trader.
Traders are fooled by randomness into seeing discernable trading signals.
My advice? Learn as much as you can about a wide variety of trading styles and don't put too much stock in any of them. You should also spend 5 years watching the market studiously and trading. Learn as much as you can about random markets and probability because in the final analysis, that is what trading is about. Journal each trade and classify the entry and exit, then note results. You can get a crude idea of the probability of your own personal entries success/failure rate. Note the type of market each signal occurred. Keep refining that method. Sheesh, it sounds overwhelming. It is. I suspect that Al Brooks's course would be a valuable aid in learning price action trading. Unfortunately, if you focus solely on price action trading you will eventually miss the boat. Does that make the course bad? Nope, not hardly. Price action trading is a piece of the puzzle and you would be wise to learn this style of trading. There may be days when this is the only trading knowledge/experience that will produce results. Is it going to be the way to go every day? Probably not.
Ultimately, my attempt at trading education failed. I couldn't teach experience. I could not trade tight stops consistently (see randomness). I was unable to teach a trader's state of mind. My success rate in trading training was about 25% of the people enrolled. Not very impressive. The failed traders were often pissed off, and I had no answers for them.
New traders want to see results fast. They want to copy trades. They want to make money. No one has a solution for those unrealistic variables. Not me, not Al Brooks, no one; but that is the formula the retail trading business is trying to market. There are no quick results, copying trades is difficult, and the failure rate is abysmal.
Are trading educators scammers? A lot of them are, but I know some that are pretty good intentioned.
For me, returning to trading in the style I learned has produced the results I have come to expect. I can let trades run against me for a bit and not bail. I only need to get the mid-term trend right, and that takes patience and institutional sized trading accounts. Of course, when the market moves with you from the onset, it sure is a lot easier. Be well.
"average new trader is going to learn to trade, then take a small retail account and consistently make money trading reasonably tight stops (as is the normal retail methodology) is pure fiction"
What these trading rooms teach is just that pure fiction and it is why they can show no proof of their claims of profitability.
You mention no one can learn trading from someone else, but the subject here is whether Al himself can trade his own method profitable. Or if he even trades live at all.
If Al cannot trade his own trading method profitable then I can guaranty you no one else is going to mysterious figure out how to. And that is the point as far as I am concerned. And the 2nd point is he should not be given a venue to push his non sense teachings unless he can show actual proof of his claims where is makes multi profitable ES scalps on a 5 minute chart and seldom a losing day. I love to see where you are doing that on your institutional account.
Well, rwbill, since I stated that trading tight stops and a small account results in a high level of losses. I believe it is safe to assume that if Mr. Brooks trades in either of those two misguided methodologies his results might well be delusional. Best of luck in your trading.
Not wanting to pick fights with people I agree with. Too few of them in this industry. I am with you. But not delusional. Purposely brilliant to scam people. Anything that will separate a sucker from his money is what they will tell you.
Actually Brooks does not advocate trading tight stops and small accounts. He specifically calls using tight stops "death by a thousand cuts" in his books and videos (and probably in his room). What he does recommend consistently is that the stop must be placed beyond the previous swing extreme, if that is too far away for proper risk management then he recommends trading smaller size or passing on the trading
Maybe if you put the same effort in at least trying to learn price action from what Brooks says as you do in trying to extract "proof" you would be further along in your trading.
Now now. You have no idea about @rwbil and his/her trading.
You have made your point more then once. If there are traders that are asking for verification from an educator actively promoted by FIO then sobeit. @Big Mike has stated Al will be asked and I am sure this will set a precedence moving forward depending on his answer. Transparency and honesty can only be a positive thing for FIO. I truly don't know what will happen if Al point blank refuses to verify anything.
This obviously doesn't align with your views, sure, that is your opinion. But don't bring assumptions about another traders effort or make suggestions otherwise.
We can agree to disagree, but at the end of the day we are all in this together and if some folk require that additional layer of transparency, don't knock them for that.
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- Trade what you see. Invest in what you believe -
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