Article Advise

submitted: Aug 3rd 2008 | by: JamesJ.Dehoiver | Total views: 7 | Word Count: 804 | |

Anyone who has watched any late night TV recently cannot have failed to have noticed the absolute deluge of infomercials trying to sell you on a series of trading seminars which will undoubtedly make you very rich.

Before embarking on a course of trading seminars there are a few very important points that you need to be aware of before making your choice of educational company. In this article we will try and point out some of the things to be aware of.

There are quite a few companies that got into the trading seminar business recently, at least in the last 5 years. This has been fuelled by the meltdown of the market during 2000-2003 which has led many investors and traders want to self direct and manage their own money. The less attractive option is leaving it in the hands of an often less than competent fund manger, who may not have your best interests at heart.

There are a lot of companies that advertize on late night TV but the ones that come to mind the most are Optionetics, Investools, Better Trades and Star Trader. I live in a city where these companies visit on a regular basis so I've attended all of their free warm up seminars. I've also bought a number of seminars from these companies.

The usual sales cycle is as follows, the infomercial is designed to get you to attend what I call the FREE warm up selling seminar. This seminar is usually in a local hotel and can last anything from 30 minutes to 3 hours. From my experience the free Investools seminar lasted about 3 hours and was actually very informative and educational. The others were much shorter and really nothing more than sales pitch's to get you to sign up for a starter seminar which could cost anything from $199 to $4K!.

Usually an attractive discount incentive is offered at these free seminars to encourage you to sign up on the spot, which is not normally available, so be prepared to be tempted, if you are weak willed by all means attend but leave your credit cards and check book at home. More often you will be given a set of DVD's, manuals and website login immediately allowing yourself time to study before attending the live seminar.

If you do sign up at one of these free seminars here are a few points to consider:

1. Don't be shy about asking what the refund policy is up front. Understand how long you have to evaluate the training materials because this can very a lot between different companies. It could be only until noon on the 1st day or you may be allowed to stay the whole 1st day before having to ask for a refund.

2. Ask what the policy is regarding bringing another family member or business partner to the seminar. Usually you are allowed to bring 1 person, take this opportunity as it is better to have the opinion of another trusted person when trying to evalute if the seminar is good value and right for you.

3. Ask if the price that you are paying for the seminar is the lowest price that is being offered, just like airlines tickets you don't want to sit next to someone at the seminar and find out they paid $500 less than you for exactly the same seminar!

4. If you are new to trading you may not be exactly sure what you need to learn, and it can be quite confusing. Make sure that the seminar that you are taking is on the right subject matter. A basic stocks course will not cover anything on options and visa versa, and a forex course will not cover either etc.

Here is the bottom line about these beginner trading seminars. They are not going to teach you everything you need to know to be a successful trader in 2-3 days, there's simply too much you need to learn. They all have follow on intermediate and advanced courses like Options, Advanced Options, Technical Analysis, Advanced Strategies, and so the list goes on. Expect the selling process for these follow on seminars to begin during the expensive seminar that you just paid for!.

Some of these companies do a really hard sell for their follow up seminars, they are professionals and have practiced their sales pitch many times until it works, so be prepared for this and act accordingly.

I would only recommend buying additional seminars or material from a company if you are very satisfied with what you have seen so far, and only buy in small increments. The reason is that usually you don't get any refund period guarantee's on additional buys other than the usual state 3 day cooling off period, which is not much use if you are just signed up for 2 years of seminars!.

About the Author

James J. Dehoiver is an master stock trader and writes about stock trading gurus on his web site and about the biggest stock and option seminar educational companies.

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