Superb post.
I've never paid for a course, although I did shell out for a couple of systems right at the start. At under a couple of hundred quid they weren't expensive (except relative to their value of course), and I won't tell you the vendor in question, because you will literally sh1t your trousers laughing if I do.
In terms of strike rate, we've discussed this before and think alike. Although I would never buy a course, I do very occasionally buy or acquire books. I got one fairly recently, and the author's take was remarkably refreshing. He was saying that a 70% strike rate is incredibly difficult (using reasonable parameters, and not vendor tricks), and that "even" 60% is likely to be beyond most people. Even is in inverted commas because of course it represents a superb strike rate that can easily make on very rich indeed.
He also pointed out that this really doesn't matter, for reasons that you fully understand (but few people at the zoo do, unfortunately). My best months tend to be those with a 50% strike rate or lower - again for reasons that you'll understand.
For example, there's ample liquidity in ES to allow for an income of many millions of dollars a year from an average net win of 1 pt per day - say 200 to 250 points for a whole year. Some of these vendors claim dozens per month.
Getting back to the vendors, if they were anything like as good as they claimed they would be wealthy beyond imagining, with their near flawless hit-rates and monthly mountains of pips and points. The victims of Crappa Smurf I seem to remember (the excellent TEC thread) said he claimed no losing days for over 6 months and an average of high hundreds of pips a month. Trading the major pairs that should by any reasonable assessment mean a return of millions of dollars a month. And yet people thought he would sell them these signals for a hundred quid or whatever it was.
In the end, people are idiots. I treat system vendors and educators the way I treat politicians - tar them all with the same brush, because they all deserve it. Have no respect for any of them, they are all the same. Judge these books by their covers - judge them hastily, and harshly, and your judgement will be correct.
How does one know this assessment is correct? Simply this - it is inherent in what they are ( I can explain why this is the case with politicians if anyone is interested; in the case of vendors, well if it's not obvious to you, you're probably beyond help).
I'm interested.
