Mike Baghdady - should I take a course or not?

In unrelated news...

Cairo Evening Standard

In a shock decision, hot new act Mike and the Turtles were crowned World Music Champions after winning the popular show Egypt's Got Talent 2009.

Although the group is new, the leader will be familiar to readers, because he is none other than Mike Slaploopies, renowned as the World's Foremost Expert on Soul music.

Mike and the Turtles wowed the judges (and the crowd) with their cover of the 1971 Marvin Gaye classic "What The F uck's Going On". (is this right? ed.)

Earlier in the show there was a Motown flavour as the group performed versions of "Baby, I Need Your Money" (originally by The Four Turtle Soup Bowls) and This Old Million Dollars of Mine (Is Not For You) by the Tuckey Brothers.

However, some fans criticised the show, claiming the performance wasn't live. An enquiry has been launched into the allegations, with the judge expected to rule in favour of the rival act, Robins and the Futures.

Guy Cohen is 89.
 
The Leopard said:
However, some fans criticised the show, claiming the performance wasn't live. An enquiry has been launched into the allegations, with the judge expected to rule in favour of the rival act, Robins and the Futures.
Click to expand...

:LOL::LOL::LOL:

May the lulz never end.

Peter
 
The Leopard said:
Can't seem to find it on their website.
Click to expand...

A couple of phone calls provides the answer.

It seems that as Bloomberg pulled the commercial immediately and that Training Traders had agreed to not use it again - the ASA let the matter drop. That is why there is no record of the findings.

Baghdady agreed not to have it aired again - says it all really.

World Trading Champion - he never was !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
wow, what can i say !!!!

what an epic thread, longest ive ever gone through. i was just trying to get to sleep by browsing the net, yes i know not the best way to get to sleep, and i came across this thread and got hooked. took me SIX HOURS, 3 cups of coffee. started at 5am, just finished reading pretty much all of it, now its 11am and i havent slept yet

sorry if this is a long post, but hey, i just read for 6 hours lol so you guys can have some payback

i have a pretty unique take on this i think, as i attended one of the courses when it was transitioning from spyglass trading, to TT in 2009. and i then worked for mike baghdady for 2 or 3 months, until i was kinda fired ;d so i had somewhere around 6 months experience at the firm as student and employee

im sure this will disappoint some of you, but id like to stick up for mike baghdady a little bit here

after looking around for a few years trying to find the best way to get into trading, and trying a few different courses, i came across MB and his products/courses, and although high in price, decided he had something different to offer and attended the course

the 5 day course was designed to take absolute beginners, start with the basics, like “whats a candle” and work up to placing demo trades by the end of the 5 days. so things like how to use tradestation were taught, setting up your accounts etc. really a lot of content and a very full 5 days. after the course some were eager to go live, and some werent. i wasnt, i felt 5 days was way too fast, and i felt from my research that unless you can do it on a demo, you cant do it with real cash, so i wanted to demo first

the course included 6 months of mentoring with it, which was basically, emailing screenshots of trades taken daily, or whenever you wanted, and you would be told where you were wrong and where you were right. there was also a weekly club for people to attend who had taken the course, which was always fun, youd go along for the afternoon and get some lunch laid on. and there was also a webinar on sunday to plan the upcoming week. this was one of the reason i chose to go with this company, as you would get ongoing help, which was really useful to me in understanding various things. you could also trade along with the other traders there in a live room, which was helpful to know if you were heading in the right direction or not. so it was expensive, but you got a fair chunk of stuff for your cash. and perhaps thats what some people were looking for, some education, followed by mentoring

so anyways, after a month or two i think it was, i asked/got offered the chance of a trial to work there, which i really wanted to do as i wanted to be in the daily environment to gain more knowledge. so i did do, doing various things really, website copy, sales ideas, doing the office up, sorting out a problem with part of the software as i could do a little coding, helping with the open days etc etc. just show what i could offer. we even went over to dubai to do one of the trade shows there, it was all good stuff. but yes, i did get fired/didnt get kept on, for pretty silly circumstances really, but i dont hold grudges about it, and i always try to see the upside of things, as there are almost always upsides to everything

so after i got kinda fired, i decided to start demoing full time, which i did for 3 months, just trying to implement what i had learned at the MB’s company and through my own reading online and in books. long story short, i made some profit, lost it, made some, lost it, i didnt quite have it down. after 3 months i was a little bit down, and due to a change in personal circs, i decided to head back to uni to finish my degree, and stopped trading for the time being. i havent decided whether or not i will go back to trading or not yet, i still have another year to study, but if i do, i will certainly be using what i learned there as my starting point

you see, any of you guys reading this who have a clue, i would hope would agree that getting profitable can take time. i think it would be silly of someone to expect to take a 5 day course and come out in profit on day 6. i think trading takes time to learn, so it doesnt surprise me that i wasnt profitable, it just means i cant do it, yet. some of the people at the company where using the methods and were profitable with real money, so it can be done, but that doesnt necessarily mean it can be done by everyone. i dont think all people are suited to trading, and frankly, im not sure if i am able to do it yet, im not sure if i have the right brain for it. but, if i do chose to go back into trading again, i hope that i can learn

of course the marketing of MB and companies like this are going to be very positive, and make claims of making a person a profitable trader. a company who is advertising “we might make you profitable, we might not” is not going to get a lot of business. so i think some of your criticisms of the marketing of MB is a bit silly really. look at any advert for almost any product and you will see it painted in the rosiest light possible, that is what marketing is all about, to drive business. but it is really the product that needs to be assessed, and imo the product is OK

im not sure why some of you seem so obsessed with the “world trading champion” claim. its just a marketing tagline. he won the contest at an expo, and used it to promote his business. perhaps it should have been worded differently, but there you go. to my memory, this wasnt thought up by MB, but by one of the sales guys to promote the business, which is of course what it is all about

do adverts for cocacola tell 100% truth ? do shampoo adverts ? do adverts for joining the army ? perhaps not. and its very easy to pick any of them apart and make them look ridiculous. so as for your criticism of the webinars on fxstreet, or the offices being untidy, or his youtube videos, is in my eyes, all a little silly. they are just a means to drive business, to make people buy the product. all companies do this, and all are liberal with the truth at times. just take it with a pinch of salt and assess the pros and cons of the product independently. do you really need to be told to take advertising with a pinch of salt ? i doubt it, and thats why i doubt the authenticity of some of the disparaging remarks on this thread

when i was working there, i had what i think is a really unique privilege, which was seeing newbies coming to the offices for the open days, signing up for the course, doing the course, and then begin to trade. i got to see them from start to finish, if you know what i mean. and boy oh boy was it ever interesting

ill give you an example i can remember clearly, this guy came in once and seemed like he had little or no experience, but he was eager to learn to trade so he signed up, did the course and was live trading within 2 weeks, no demo ….. stupid if you ask me. and yes he started losing money, and he was calling the offices complaining it wasnt working and he had lost his money etc etc.

but what had he done ?

he broke basic rules, and wasnt following what he had been taught. he made a loss, doubled up his next trade to recoup that loss, lost again, and then doubled again, and lost again. he was just making stupid mistakes and breaking the most basic rules that could most likely be found on page 1 of trading for dummies. i think the attitude was “well i have spent lots of money on a course so therefore i MUST know what i am doing”. i found this attitude among others too, it was as if they felt like they had gotten a good education so were full of false confidence. very dangerous if you ask me. and i think the company should have made more of a point of keeping them grounded, and to not forget about the very basics …..

you can lead a horse to water …... so yeah not everyone that does the course will definitely make a profit, and this guy is a perfect example, he simply didnt do what he was taught. it wasnt the product, just terrible implementation

on the flip side, some people did do what they were taught, put the effort in, and began to make it work. so it can work, but trading isnt necessarily for everyone imo. there is no trading method that is going to work for everyone, and some people just dont have the head for it, simple as that

i find the vast majority of this thread to be a bit crazy. much of it speculating on the personalities of people you have never met, and the internal workings of a company you know nothing about. and id be surprised if some of you werent doing it intentionally as negative publicity. when i worked there, we held open days 2 times a week ish, and we would often have people from rival companies come along trying to get information about the system etc, and im sure that some companies do go around the web and post negative publicity about competitors. and just judging from some of the relentless vilification i have read here, i think some of this thread is just that

for example, at one point on of you said something along the lines of malcom steel being a made up name as it sounded like a nigerian scammer’s name ….. i dont get why anybody would say something like that ? other than to stir up trouble …. malcolm steel is a real person, i met him the day he came in for his interview when he started there, and he seemed like a nice man to me

i think MB is a shrewd businessman pretty headstrong guy, and yeah there were sometimes disagreements between him and staff. he has a strong personality, and other employees who had strong personalities clashed sometimes and did get fired or quit, like at plenty of other companies. i even personally heard from one that they intended to stir up trouble for MB after they had been quit/been fired after an argument. so be aware that these people may also be involved in online negative publicity for revenge purposes. i cant say definitely of course but i think that some of the people here are just intentionally causing trouble, its just how it appears to me. if you are doing so, then shame on you, you should treat others as you would wish to be treated. and im sure that you also use the internet to research products you may wish to buy, so how would you feel if you were mislead by rubbish put out there by malcontents? to repeat, im not sure, this thread just just looks that way to me

this is just a guess, as i wasnt there for the turtles thing, but i think it was a very clever marketing scheme. i think it was genuinely intended for them to be successful and to create a successful trading desk and to manage a fund and make profits. and at the same time use the publicity to drive interest and business in the other part of the company that sells training and software. i dont know why it didnt work out, but im sorry that it didnt, as i think it was a brilliant idea on many levels

to sum up, i like the product i bought and i intend to make more use of it in the future. i enjoyed my time working there and even though i got fired, i like MB and the other people i met

i think thats about all i can say. there is a lot of stuff in this thread i am unable to comment on as i have no idea about it, the turtles and their fate etc, i just dont know. these are just my personal thoughts and experiences. im not necessarily correct in all of them, and they may differ from the experiences of others, but i stand by what i have written

i would encourage people to not be so hasty in judging a person before you meet them, or a product before you have tried it
 
Longest slapoopy post

have you witnessed cocroachpoopy do a live trade? If so; how much did he make in percentage pointz?
 
The Leopard said:
Interestingly, the FX Street Webinar list of authors has been updated recently. Mike Baghdady has been removed for some reason.

Are the BIG BOYS in the CITY worried that he's giving away too many secrets?
Click to expand...

Indeed his profile is deleted

maybe he didnt pay his ad bills again

billpoopy
 
bushybushy said:
the 5 day course was designed to take absolute beginners, start with the basics, like “whats a candle” and work up to placing demo trades by the end of the 5 days. so things like how to use tradestation were taught, setting up your accounts etc. really a lot of content and a very full 5 days.


seriously, anyone who cant work out what a candle is, or how to place a demo trade probably isnt cut out for this game. This is the sort of crap you can buy in an e-book / video for $49.99, or get from you tube for free. No trader would waste their time teaching this stuff.

the course included 6 months of mentoring with it, which was basically, emailing screenshots of trades taken daily, or whenever you wanted, and you would be told where you were wrong and where you were right.

let me guess, if the trade worked out, you where right, and if it didnt, you where wrong ? its the easiest thing in the world retropectively pointing out what you should have done. As the turtles found out to their cost, doing this stuff at the right hand edge of the chart without a method is harder.

so anyways, after a month or two i think it was, i asked/got offered the chance of a trial to work there, which i really wanted to do as i wanted to be in the daily environment to gain more knowledge. so i did do, doing various things really, website copy, sales ideas, doing the office up, sorting out a problem with part of the software as i could do a little coding, helping with the open days etc etc. just show what i could offer. we even went over to dubai to do one of the trade shows there, it was all good stuff. but yes, i did get fired/didnt get kept on, for pretty silly circumstances really, but i dont hold grudges about it, and i always try to see the upside of things, as there are almost always upsides to everything

this says a huge deal about the operation. You arent the first member of staff who ended up painting the office. IIRC MB hired some guy from the USA as sales director, and he ended up painting the office too !

FFS there are firms who paint stuff for a living, the only time you'd waste your time doing that kind of hit is to save money. I can recall painting my first office, and cleaning the staff bogs on a sunday afternoon. I did it cos I was skint and owed relatively large sums of money to a lot of people. By the time the business was turning over 200M a year, we'd hired a cleaner.

Its clear from your description that MB's operation was being run as cheaply as possible, cutting corners left right and centre. We are also told the company had debts, visit from bailifs etc, and publically available records confirm this (his bankrupy for example which I see you failed to mention)

there's nothing wrong with making the best use of the resources available, but its not the actions of a successful businessman, or a millionaire trader, these are the actions of a small tart up who are strapped for cash



i think it would be silly of someone to expect to take a 5 day course and come out in profit on day 6.

Agreed

i think some of your criticisms of the marketing of MB is a bit silly really. look at any advert for almost any product and you will see it painted in the rosiest light possible, that is what marketing is all about, to drive business.

IIRC the advertsing standards authority states that in summary, adverts should be legal, decent, honest and truthful. When an advert is in breach of those guidelines it'll attract critisism, complaints, and possible investigation

im not sure why some of you seem so obsessed with the “world trading champion” claim.

Well because it was an example of a blatent lie

do adverts for cocacola tell 100% truth ? do shampoo adverts ? do adverts for joining the army ?

No, and if you take a look at the ASA website you'll see complaints against many legitimate companies for breach of guidelines. just because others break the law does not give MB an excuse to do so

when i worked there, we held open days 2 times a week ish, and we would often have people from rival companies come along trying to get information about the system etc, and im sure that some companies do go around the web and post negative publicity about competitors. and just judging from some of the relentless vilification i have read here, i think some of this thread is just that


I doubt that this is the case. I see this attack as being led by ex employees, and backed up by decent experienced traders who dont like to see innocent inexperienced people being taken advantage of.

this is just a guess, as i wasnt there for the turtles thing, but i think it was a very clever marketing scheme. i think it was genuinely intended for them to be successful and to create a successful trading desk and to manage a fund and make profits. and at the same time use the publicity to drive interest and business in the other part of the company that sells training and software. i dont know why it didnt work out, but im sorry that it didnt, as i think it was a brilliant idea on many levels


I agree entirely. the thing that you should be questioning is why did they fail. I dont know, but it seams quite clear to me that they where not adequately capitalised, and as a result of the negative publicity from what must rate as one of the worlds worst marketing campaign, the training side of the business failed to generate sufficient sales to keep the thing afloat. They failed because of the deliberate lies told by MB which simply do not hold up to scrutiny. At the heart of this there are a bunch of people who perhaps foolishly gave up jobs, and where expolited by MB


i think thats about all i can say. there is a lot of stuff in this thread i am unable to comment on as i have no idea about it, the turtles and their fate etc, i just dont know. these are just my personal thoughts and experiences. im not necessarily correct in all of them, and they may differ from the experiences of others, but i stand by what i have written

here's some homework for you. find MB's webinar where he points out a forex trade that makes 300% return, and tell me how many pips the market moved. Then tell me what percentage risk he would have needed to take to make 300%

Then look at last weeks webinar where there are 2 setups that would have resulted in 2 losses of around 60 pips each (and MB is gracious enough to accept that, and correctly state that losses are just the cost of doing business)

Then tell me what % of the account would those 2 losses represent assuming MB was trading at the same risk applied to the trade that made 300%

that exercise might go some way to explaining the margin call with robbins futures

i would encourage people to not be so hasty in judging a person before you meet them, or a product before you have tried it

even if its blatently obvious that whats beeing claimed is not true, if so, whats your true motive ?
Click to expand...

:LOL::LOL:
 
well there is a lot i could say really, but i think i can sum it up as follows :

there are two sides to every story

you shouldnt judge people or things you have no knowledge of
 
bushybushy said:
there are two sides to every story

you shouldnt judge people or things you have no knowledge of
Click to expand...

I agree entirely. But we are not without knowledge really. There are documents that are a matter of public record, those documents provide the knowledge required to make reasonable estimated guesses.

We know that certain claims where made, and we know those claims where fraudulant. We know that TV ads where pulled etc. That is a matter of fact.

We also know that MB made rather successful attempts to supress critical posts. Thats OK, he paid T2W to promote his business, not to provide a platform for cockroachs to slag him off. I'm very critical of t2w, but even I would concede that they have a duty of care to advertisers, and they should remove anything thats unduly critical, and that cannot be substantiated. They should do that to cover their own legal position, and as I say, they have a duty of care to the people who pay for this platform.

Where t2w over stepped the mark was deleting legitimate documents that where available elsewhere in the public domain. They also either did not do any due dilligence into MB, or they chose to ignore what they found. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they where incompetant rather than corrupt. The bankrupcy proceedings that clearly indicated that MB derived no income from trading, and only a small income from training. t2w have publically stated that they took that action as a result of legal threats made by MB.

Again, that is "knowledge" that allows us to evalaluate the situation.

For everal months people have been claiming that the turtle experiment was not going to plan. A number of people posting on this thread came to that conclusion, some claimed to have direct contact with turtles, some claimed to be ex students, ex members of staff etc, some came to that conclusion based on common sense, some saw resignations by the tutles at companies house etc. Despite having no knowledge, MB has now publically acknowledged that the turtle experiment is over, and that we where right all along.

Lets get this very clear. You worked for MB you helped decieve inexperienced traders into paying for information that they could have obtained for a fraction of the cost, or even for free. Its people like you who turn a blind eye just to pocket a few quid who allow the likes of MB to operate. You even go as far as to try to legitimise what you did by claiming that all advertising should be taken with a pinch of salt. MB blatently lied in those ad's, the claims that he made in TV interviews are at varience with the claims he made in his declaration to the new york courts at the time of his bankrupy. Simple logic tells us that he must therefore have lied to one party or the other. So, did he lie to the court, or did he lie on TV ?
 
bushybushy said:
well there is a lot i could say really...
Click to expand...

I think The Hare has just demonstrated that there is in fact not a lot you could say, and that much what you have already said is foolish at best and at worst dishonest.

I would leave it there if I were you.
 
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