Darren Winters alumni

I'm sure his name has come up here before, provoking strong views.
I note that according to the blurb a free seminar "Maximising Profits In The Current Market Conditions (Attended by over 30,000 people)" is being offered at the moment by Ample and ADVFN.

Have we any of those previous 30,000 on this BB?
Did you learn:
· How your investment money can generate you a regular monthly income.
· How to maximize your profits in up, down and sideways markets.
· How to minimize your risk and safe guard your investments.
· The 4 golden rules that every successful investor should know.
· How to evaluate which companies have the highest growth potential.
· 3 Essential skills to knowing what to buy, when to buy, and when to sell.
· Exact steps of how to trade one of the most profitable power strategies known?

or was this a tease for a course or a book?

I'de be interested to know if, in your opinion, its worth investing three hours of time in.
Regards


Nildes

Enough said

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/showthread.php?t=5834

dc2000 said:

Enough said

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/showthread.php?t=5834

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Well, not really, I was hoping to learn if any of those who had responded or attended a DW seminar had ever actually gone on to trade the markets despite the DW introduction.
Many people seem to see the whole thing as a rip-off, which perhaps it is, but most other routes to entry involve some hard lessons too.

Nildes, can't help on the DW side as I have no knowledge or experience of his activities.

But what caught my eye was your comment

Nildes said:

most other routes to entry involve some hard lessons too

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which is very true. But these are normally 'self inflicted' lessons - ones that you learn a great deal from because you've actually felt the real thing - 'pain' or 'pleasure' while trading.

When you pay money out for a course/seminar you start off immediately down. You've laid out trading capital on something which may or may not increase your trading ability and/or capital.

I believe courses and training are a good thing.

If we take the principle that trading is a business, then the course is analogous to buying machinery or investing in a computer.
As a business, you arent "down", anymore than an airline is "down" when spending several tens of millions of pounds on a new aircraft.
It is an investment - and we have to utilise that investment, to generate returns.

I have said elsewhere that courses will NOT give you all the answers.
But, I have found that each course I have been on, has given me an extra insight, which I have been able to use.

If, after going on a course, you only learn to make slightly more profit, say £1 extra per trade.
And, learn to cut your losses by just £1 per trade, over a lifetime of trading, that course will pay for itself.
It is not obvious, but in the long-term, there is a benefit.

trendie said:

If we take the principle that trading is a business, then the course is analogous to buying machinery or investing in a computer.

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Absolutely. And before you commit to any purchase you carry out due diligence on the suitability of the product or service for your purposes.

trendie said:

If, after going on a course, you only learn to make slightly more profit, say £1 extra per trade.
And, learn to cut your losses by just £1 per trade, over a lifetime of trading, that course will pay for itself.
It is not obvious, but in the long-term, there is a benefit.

Click to expand...

With infinite trading capital and immortality guaranteed, yes, you could afford to make an investment of that nature. For the rest of us, NO. You need immediate and demonstrable profit on any expenditure in your trading business or you're just playing with figures.

You may not last long enough to recoup your investment.

Completely disagree with you on the second part !!

One of the requirements of the game is to stay in the game. ( capital preservation ).
Thats why we are all told to never risk more than, say, 2% of our total bank.
That way, a losing run doesnt bankrupt you.

To say you need an "immediate profit", is taking the short-term view, which results in people doubling up on each loss, "hoping" the next trade will get back their losses.
This is the very mistake all amateurs make.
An "immediate profit" implies lack of patience, and is a short-cut to ruin.
( their are old traders, and bold traders, but there are no old, bold traders)

I perhaps shouldnt have used the £1 example. Perhaps I should have used a percentage example.
If any course helps to add 2-5% extra to your account year on year, the long-term benefits are there.

I concede the point regarding capital.
No point spending £2,000 on a course, unless you have sufficient capital to make the investment worthwhile, and the returns sufficient to repay the course.

Very well said, trendie,
I have to agree with you completely.
High quality education in whatever field costs.
Low quality education is cheap.
Education is a pre-requisite to success and achievement.
How it is used is up to the individual.
Pay off can sometimes come quickly, other times gradually and steadily.
The business analogy, like all analogies is useful but breaks down at some point since different fields with some similarities remain different and nothing, but nothing is akin to trading.
Education is not so much capital equipment investment which you don't expend without the probability of demand necessitating capacity expansion, as much as intellectual capital investment.
Educated, trained, but flexible and adaptable intellect is itself the pre-requisite of generating reward from more tangible assets.
Richard

trendie said:

To say you need an "immediate profit", is taking the short-term view, which results in people doubling up on each loss, "hoping" the next trade will get back their losses.
This is the very mistake all amateurs make.
An "immediate profit" implies lack of patience, and is a short-cut to ruin.

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Trendie, I don't know how you got from 'immediate profit' to 'doubling up on losses...'. Nor is it a short-term view. It's a mind-set of making sure you're making a wise investment. There's no lack of patience implied - quite the opposite. It takes real patience and control to take the time to tune your trading to your own personality.

You have to know the value of everything you do - and don't do - BEFORE you do it.

Too many will go for seminars or coaching or courses without establishing what it is they want from them in the hope that the seminar/coaching/course will overlay a veneer of success on their efforts whatever their level of skill or experience. It doesn't work that way.

You need to know what you need to know before you find the optimum way to address the shortfall.

Bear in mind I'm only taking issue with the point you made that anything which saves you a £1 per trade is worthwhile. It isn't. There is the opportunity cost of what else that money (the fee) could have been spent on with a better result and of course, your time!

Mr. Charts said:

Very well said, trendie,
I have to agree with you completely.
High quality education in whatever field costs.
Low quality education is cheap.
Education is a pre-requisite to success and achievement.
How it is used is up to the individual.
Pay off can sometimes come quickly, other times gradually and steadily.
The business analogy, like all analogies is useful but breaks down at some point since different fields with some similarities remain different and nothing, but nothing is akin to trading.
Education is not so much capital equipment investment which you don't expend without the probability of demand necessitating capacity expansion, as much as intellectual capital investment.
Educated, trained, but flexible and adaptable intellect is itself the pre-requisite of generating reward from more tangible assets.
Richard

Click to expand...

Richard I know you have to tread carefully or the guns will be out for you, but you're not really addressing the core issue.

Not all coaches/seminars/courses are equal. Wouldn't you agree?

Bramble,

This is one of the problems of communicating without understanding each others points of reference !
Actually, when I read the phrase "immediate profit", the first image that came to my mind was betting on horses !!
My terms of reference are: 1-10 days are short-term. ( generally swing )
1-3 weeks intermediate. ( donchian / 20 SMA )
4 weeks - 3 months - long-term. ( dow theory and 50 & 200 SMA )

I am looking to master intra-day trading, at which point my terms of reference will change again.

My idea of meaningful capital is around £10K - MINIMUM !!!

Thats why I felt that if you have a run of losses, and your sense was to get immediate profits, you might put yourself in a situation where you felt you had to recover those losses quickly.

I obviously do not know your terms of reference - I answered using mine.

Again, I shouldnt have used the £1 example. Of course, you have to make a judgment to decide how the new knowledge should pay for itself.
If you spend £400 on a course, tje £1 example is valid I feel.
But if you spend £2000, you need to get a better return in order to justify the cost.

Its not the cost itself, but how you expect to get a return in relation to the cost.
And, as you have mentioned, its the starting capital.
If you have only £1,000 to start with - you will get frustrated quckly, and take risks - effectively gambling.
And each course is too big a proportional cost - and thus putting undue pressure on the contents of the course to deliver results. ( and consequently, abdicating responsblity to the course provider )

PS: I have been on Richards 1-day 1-2-1. late last-May.
Paper-trading, I would have recovered 2/3 of the course fee so far !!
If it was real money, I would have recovered perhaps 1/2 of the course fee.
Either way, it was a good day.
( I do not yet have the courage to trade the vital first 90-minutes real-time. I only play the evening slot after getting home. )

Aha,trendie, now I realise who you are! ;-)
Don't forget,anything I can help you with, questions, clarification, whatever, just email me - I'm always happy to help you, no charge, of course ! ;-)
Richard

Tony,
Agree - there are only three courses,(three coaches), worth doing across the entire spectrum, from all the feedback I get. The rest are not in the same league. Some are diabolical. But then that's just my opinion and those people have expressed to me personally ;-)

TheBramble said:

Nildes, can't help on the DW side as I have no knowledge or experience of his activities.

But what caught my eye was your comment which is very true. But these are normally 'self inflicted' lessons - ones that you learn a great deal from because you've actually felt the real thing - 'pain' or 'pleasure' while trading.

When you pay money out for a course/seminar you start off immediately down. You've laid out trading capital on something which may or may not increase your trading ability and/or capital.

Click to expand...

What immediately strike me about DW's offer is that it contains too much.
I know that in other fields, I can't expect to learn the whole thing in three hours. I'd be daft to expect to learn so much from him in that timescale.
With computers for instance, Its taken me thirty years of near daily use just to keep pace with the bits I need to use.
With the markets and TA, there are whole swathes I'm aware of but never use.
I'd find his offer more credible if he were to offer me only a much smaller part of life, the universe and everything !
I'd also find it more credible if he reduced his charges to something more appropriate to the return.
As I said earlier, I accept that there are many hard and expensive lessons to be learned out there.