Hi Everyone,
I've been trading for the last few years and invested a lot of time in reading books and trying out various methods. Overall, I'm still pretty flat, which is not too bad, but neither is it great! I've decided to bite the bullet and take a course. I know that you guys are rather vitriolic about most trainers, but trawling through all the online offerings, I'm more confused than ever. I discounted a load of people but did attend a workshop with Mike Baghdady at Training Traders. What a bizarre set up! His office is a shabby unkempt flea-pit down a side alley. The office was a shambles inside - very dirty, very soul-less and definitely not somewhere I felt comfortable spending my money. My student flat was nicer than Mike Baghdady's office so the prospect of paying him £5,000 is a joke! So, after all the time procrastinating about spending the money to do a course, I was wondering if anyone can help me out with recommendations and save me wasting my time with people like Mike Baghdady. I tried to do a search for him on this website but I found lots of references to the fact that he likes litigation. Also, on the New Turtle Traders Facebook page, someone requested an update at the beginning of the year but the silence from Training Traders was rather telling. Does this mean that his system doesn't work and Mr Baghdady is running scared of telling people? I'm sure we would be bombarded with daily updates if the turtles were making money using his system. Anyway, I 'd appreciate your thoughts and any guidance on Mike Baghdady please
First let me introduce myself, I am Malcolm Steel a director of Training Traders.
Official Response on behalf of Training Traders
Unfortunately there have been a number of misleading posts on this site containing misrepresentations of truths and unsubstantiated claims. We respect the right of people to discuss and criticize in an open and objective manor, however in this case there have been a number of misrepresentations and false allegations.
As a company we provide training courses for people new to trading and experienced traders in the Forex, Stock and Futures markets. In addition to the courses we also provide mentoring, live trading rooms, a graduates club and a weekly planning session to help support our clients. We also allow clients to re-take the course for free at a later date. We are not an anonymous web based training company, we perform our training in our offices and invite graduates back to our offices for continued support in our graduates club.
We have the confidence in our training to take a group of people and fund their trading based on the methodology we teach. This does attract criticism as no other training company has the confidence or backing to be able to do this.
We have nothing to hide and are happy to arrange a special workshop to invite Forum members to visit us and see for themselves who we are and what we are about and ask questions.
In response to particular comments:
Mr Baghdady’s chapter 11
Prior to Trading Traders existence Mr Baghdady entered into court action in the USA against a broker following mistakes resulting in wrongful liquidation in his account. After 12 years of litigation and despite the broker admitting to the mistakes in court, the court found for the broker as there was no malice. In mid 2010 Mr Baghdady was ordered to pay the brokers legal fees. Mr Baghdady then filed for the Chapter 11 in order to protect his assets during the financial settlement with the broker (standard practice in the US). Less than 90 days later once the settlement was agreed Mr Baghdady withdrew the Chapter 11. This case is closed (see attached word doc).
Misleading publicity, late payment of bills and staff turnover
It would not be right for us to comment on this in detail, mistakes have been made and we have taken action to try to ensure that the right people are in the right roles to improve this situation.
Turtles
They are still here, a few of them are gainfully making money, most of the rest are even and couple are in negative territory. This is the normal life of a trader, keep in mind they started trading in the tough market conditions of the USA crash and the Euro problems. It is nice to know that people are following the Turtles progress, we will try to improve the postings to help you follow their progress.
Office environment
We believe than an office based training environment allows us to provide a high level of help and support to our clients. However we do not believe in inflating our prices just so we can lavish in luxury surroundings, so we provide facilities equal or better than most standard business offices. As stated above we are happy for people to come and visit to judge for themselves.