Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
The orientation is 3 hours long. I think it's geared towards newbies. In the orientation you don't really learn anything except it seems more like a infomercial about the company.
I ask them what type of methodology do they use for trading but they don't really go into that and you learn more about that in the actual classes which you can take. They have stage 1 class which is a 3 days class for only $199.00 which sounds like a bargain to me but also a stage 2 class which is 7 days which is about $1000 per day which sounds outrageous to me.
In the stage 2 class is where they really learn chart patterns. And in the final 4 days of the 7 days stage 2 class you trade live using the companies money.
During break a sales person spoke to me since I was the only one in the class that did not sign up for the stage 1 class. I ask them when do they learn chart patterns . The sales person said stage 2 . I ask them what do you learn in stage 1. In stage 1 for $199.00 they learn some general stuff that I'm guessing you can learn on your own.
Anyway...wondering if others actually took classes with them.
I've been thru 5 weeks of classes, Stocks, Futures, Options, and Forex with OTA. Each are 5 to 7 days long. My first set of courses cost me $13K which was special deal for people taking classes in Texas 4 years ago. One nice thing about about OTA is that they allow you a free lifetime retake option for any class. I retaken each class twice.
BELIEVE ME, OTA doesn't sell anything for $199. They are primo expensive and now have 8 to 9 different courses where you can easily spend 30K. You generally can, space available, have your spouse also take the course with you in a listen only mode. Each paying student has their own trading terminal and manual. The spouse sits along side of the paying student.
The OTA office is Houston is a very nice facility as it should be for the price one pays. They do also offer a 2 - 3 days per week online mentoring and trading webinar that costs extras(Named XLT's). They also have a pretty fancy website with stock and options picks of the day.
Most of the instructors, I guess over 75ish, are generally exceptional.
From my experience, having NEVER bought or sold a stock, KNOWING NOTHING about trading, it was worth the money. However, the price sticker IS NOT CHEAP. I would estimate that getting 5 to 6 different classes with XLTs will be a 25-30K expenditure.
I believe OTA's offers excellent market training but NOT NECESSARILY specific trading techniques. I.E. - they do not sell proprietary indicators, strategies, but they do offer mentoring. They are BIG into Support / Resistance. They also like Tradestation which will be the platform you will use in class. With the class comes a CD with LOTS of tradestation setups and workspaces. You should upon finishing a class have a pretty good understanding of the tradestation trading platform.
OTA's best foot forward is giving a complete newbie a fairly rapid understanding of the various trading markets and how to avoid many of the pitfalls of the market.
You will pay the price one way or the other. You can pay for education or get education through REAL losses in trading foolishly.
I know most of the companies that sell some sort of indicator generally assume you have a good working knowledge of trading and are there to take you a the second level.
For example, I use a company called EOTPro, EOTPRO - Advanced Trading Software, which offers 50ish proprietary indicators, has 4 or 5 strategies, and a 4 days per week, 5 hours per day training webinare for ONLY $233 per month. Indicators are leased and expire when you terminate your monthly fee. For $300 per month, I lease my own dedicated Xeon class server in Chicago in the CME Equiox datacenter building. My trading round trip times to the CME are in the 3 to 5 ms range. For HFT trading, they offer a shared server in the Aurora building (the newest of the CME datacenters) with round trip times of 50 to 100 microseconds instead of the 3 to 5 milliseconds round trip times in the Equinox. Compare that to my local times in Houston of 50 to 75 milliseconds.
However, EOTPro, assumes you know how to trade and you will use Ninjatrader as your trading platform most likely.
BTW, I am NOT advocating either of the two companies, DO NOT get any kickbacks, etc. Just my trading education experience. It really doesn't matter which way you pay the Piper, educational training or the world of hard knocks, the FACT is that YOU WILL PAY THE PIPER. The question is after spending your initial 20 to 30K, what do you have left to show for it. Is real trading experience better than formal education. I'm not sure but depending on your personality, your mileage will vary as they say.
THIS I DO KNOW! TRADING TAKES MONEY and LOTS OF IT. It doesn't typically happen for $100 or $1000 or even $10000. The market is VERY EFFICIENT at removing money from your bank account into theirs!
I wish the best of success. If you have specific questions about OTA, feel free to private message me and we can talk offline. You too Randy.
I attended one of their seminars at a hotel. As you are presented their methodology through power point, each attendee is taken away for a private conference and asked if you would like to join. I told the person I was not financially able because this was in the 9000. range for only part of their program. If you wanted everything they offered, it was around 15,000. They start applying the pressure. Sign today and we will give you this much off. We will even throw in a scholarship. They got my price down to 6000. Unfortunately, I buckled under the pressure. I don't blame them for that. That was my stupidity. They are good sales people. The methodology is buying at support and vice versa. If you are new to trading and you spend (invest) 6000. and actually come away with a methodology that has been PROVEN to make money, you did ok. Do your home work before signing up with these people or anybody else. If there is hype and excitement from the trading mentor/vendor you are condidering, walk away. Consider this post as part of your research into Online Trading Academy.
I have a 2 DVD set from these guys (amazon or ebay $200-$250) I'm on #6 I didn't know anything about their courses not sure if the information is outdated or not (or if it matters that much), the graphic screens say copyright 2001, but I think they are a bit later than this. It does show it's age when they use the internet, seems a little dated. I haven't learned any strategies at all, but more or less a basic understanding of how the market all works, and terms etc. I can't imagine paying thousands of dollars. I'm very new so it's all new to me, at this point I guess any information is good information.
edit: I'm about to start DVD 8 right now, but I've gotten way more out of an elite membership sofar than anything on the dvd set.
McMahon has a lot of insights that are useful for the beginner. For instance, in segment 13, on short selling, he states that he made more money short selling during the dotcom bull market than from being long. Well, that is sort of counter intuitive to the beginner.
I completed the Pro Trader and Futures classes at Online Trading Academy. For the most part, I have nothing bad to say about any of it; I learned quite a bit and found the instructor that I had for both classes quite entertaining and educational. I had been trading stocks for about a year before making my decision to give them a try and quickly realized I had been doing it all wrong before.
As one previous poster mentioned, it can get expensive...the sky is the limit on classes you can take and money you can spend.
I do find value in the Pro Picks, though; these are daily/swing/longterm trades that their worldwide instructors post in an open forum type setting - VERY high success rate.
I actually watched all 20+ hours of that. Really gives you a foundation of how trading, and the markets work. I would recommend watching the videos. But I wouldnt give them a dime.
Yep. It really is good stuff. I learned so much from watching it. Need to go back and watch it again. Mike draws the curtain back and reveals how veteran traders think.