Why do they do it?

SanMiguel said:
The difference is that Hougaard actually looks like a conman! :LOL:
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Hmmm, I've met him, my initial impressions weren't that negative.

Besides, appearances can be deceptive. Madoff looked just like Washington off the dollar bill, and look what happened there.
 
meanreversion said:
Hmmm, I've met him, my initial impressions weren't that negative.

Besides, appearances can be deceptive. Madoff looked just like Washington off the dollar bill, and look what happened there.
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He's a great character with bags of charisma and Scandinavian charm (but a lot more extrovert than most). I've been to a couple of free presentations, enjoyed them, and felt I got a little bit of insight out of them. On the other hand, I have always resisted any temptation to pay for any of his stuff. Conman would be too strong a word. "Lovable rogue" is the way I think of him, and perhaps even that is unjustified. If you get a chance to hear him speak in person, and it's not costing you a lot of money or time you could use better, then I would say go and listen to him, at least once.
 
montmorencyt2w said:
He's a great character with bags of charisma and Scandinavian charm (but a lot more extrovert than most). I've been to a couple of free presentations, enjoyed them, and felt I got a little bit of insight out of them. On the other hand, I have always resisted any temptation to pay for any of his stuff. Conman would be too strong a word. "Lovable rogue" is the way I think of him, and perhaps even that is unjustified. If you get a chance to hear him speak in person, and it's not costing you a lot of money or time you could use better, then I would say go and listen to him, at least once.
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But why does he do free talks?
To promote his site that he's charging for so he can either cut down his commissions or to increase his fund amount to trade with himself?
 
To get more clients. If they then open a brokerage account with Saxo, he'll get up to a quarter of all subsequent bid/ask they cross .... this will add up (oh and don't forget his subscription fee).

But hey, anyone could do this, but most don't. I think it's fairly enterprising.
 
meanreversion said:
Good, so there are some decent mentors out there who charge. There had to be, in the same way that SOME systems you can purchase might be good.

DT, can I ask, did he help you with the trading aspect only or was it more psychology?
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The second guy was all on trading. I wanted to really get into order flow very deeply and so sought out someone that really knew it and really used it.
 
meanreversion said:
To get more clients. If they then open a brokerage account with Saxo, he'll get up to a quarter of all subsequent bid/ask they cross .... this will add up (oh and don't forget his subscription fee).

But hey, anyone could do this, but most don't. I think it's fairly enterprising.
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So basically he's a glorified salesman that can't make enough money trading their own account.
Would you give a salesman the time of day at the door or on the phone?!
 
SanMiguel said:
But why does he do free talks?
To promote his site that he's charging for so he can either cut down his commissions or to increase his fund amount to trade with himself?
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Well in those particular cases, he was still working for City Index and I went along as a customer of Finspreads, so I guess it was in his contract with them to do this kind of thing.
Indirectly drumming up trade for them, but his talk was almost all about trading and the markets, and couldn't really be called a sales pitch for CI.

I don't know if he still gives free talks, but I wouldn't see any reason to question his motives if he did. There's no such thing as bad publicity is there?
 
(to SanMiguel) No, I'm not sure that's fair.

He's a trader who augments his income with a trading room. It's just diversification, or if you like, additional "trading" income with no money down. I really don't see the problem.
 
meanreversion said:
(to SanMiguel) No, I'm not sure that's fair.

He's a trader who augments his income with a trading room. It's just diversification, or if you like, additional "trading" income with no money down. I really don't see the problem.
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Well, if they really make their subscribers money then fine - I have my doubts. Perhaps I'm just a cynical person but I can't see any altruistic behaviour on their behalf.
On the other hand I don't think these guys start out with the aim of conning people (some do) but along the way it just sort of happens that they take money from a lot of people who don't derive any real benefit from it - the finance world is kind of littered with these games in various forms. Having said that, it's probably no different to most of the capitalist world taking money from people who are willing to pay for something. It just seems to me that in the trading world, there are a lot of fresh fish who don't last long before they get eaten up.
 
There's definitely NO altruism.. humans are not really altruistic anyway.

It's no different from anyone else offering a service (and potentially taking advantage of susceptible people along the way). Supermarkets are masters at exploiting humans, what Tom does is tame by comparison..!

Remember, no-one is forcing anyone to do anything here. If people hand their money over to someone who promises a get-rich-quick scheme, well that's their fault. In the overall scheme of things, I just don't think Tom's that bad. He clearly has huge enthusiasm for trading.
 
meanreversion said:
There's definitely NO altruism.. humans are not really altruistic anyway.

It's no different from anyone else offering a service (and potentially taking advantage of susceptible people along the way). Supermarkets are masters at exploiting humans, what Tom does is tame by comparison..!

Remember, no-one is forcing anyone to do anything here. If people hand their money over to someone who promises a get-rich-quick scheme, well that's their fault. In the overall scheme of things, I just don't think Tom's that bad. He clearly has huge enthusiasm for trading.
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The problem is that the nature of trading especially for newbies almost makes them so desperate that "IT", "the man", whatever you want to call it, forces them into paying up for courses and such - that is the beauty of a conman operating in the financial world, perfect cover, continual sea of fish paying up.

However, I agree that that is the same in many parts of the capitalist world. Supermarkets are a good example in the UK especially with the loyalty card tracking systems that they use.
 
I dont see why vendors/trainers/coaches always seem to get alot of haters.

i mean it is what it is. you pay them and they explain to you a bit about there trading and you either understand it or you dont or sometimes people just want to hate on vendors because they have an agenda agaisnt them. or they just confuse you and make nonsesnse eplanations of everything leftways of the graph. there is enought in the internet and for free for you to build up a good BS barometer yourself. but no need to hate on anyone that gets money not from trading they are looking after themselves.

i basically am a b@stard lovechild of Siddhārtha Gautama and Ayn Rand :)
 
What's worse, a trading website which promises to turn you into a good trader, or a diet plan that promises to help you shed 20 lbs.

For some reason I'm always looking for parallels in situations. I think the common stumbling block for the trader and the dieter is the mind. Psychology is far more important than people allow for, so instead they focus on the system/counting calories. I'm convinced the answer to weight loss is hypnosis. In fact I have a friend who lost a good amount of weight after reading the Paul McKenna book "I can make you thin".

[Please note I have no affiliation to either T. Hougaard or P. McKenna]
 
This isn't just any service.

Customers stand to lose a lot more than their course fees if given a lot of crap info.
 
meanreversion said:
What's worse, a trading website which promises to turn you into a good trader, or a diet plan that promises to help you shed 20 lbs.
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The trading website.

Pay for the fat loss thing, you lose your website fees & stay fat. You were fat to begin with.

Pay for the trading thing, you lose your life savings.

No-one deserves that, yet this is what can happen with an unscrupulous vendor and 'green' wannabe trader.

There's a huge difference.
 
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