If you’re looking to improve your knowledge of financial spread betting through spread betting seminars, please avoid the scam artists. One concern I had when starting out was that although I had read some great books, watched many great live webinars and been to some excellent seminars I didn’t really have a mentor or a network of like minded people whom I could call on. Now, I realise day trading can be a lonely old road but if you’re considering attending paid classes, I suggest avoiding any paid seminars ‘till you’ve been to the free seminars provided by almost every major spread betting provider.
Do you feel training is important?: We all realise that everyone has to start somewhere with regard to learning about the markets etc. Training is great, there are various forms, of course there’s my website which offers incredible support (*blush*), of course there are books, CDROMs, Videos and DVD’s abound. Plus, of course the traditional seminars free and otherwise.
There is absolutely no need to resort to paid seminars from any self proclaimed spread betting gurus. Practically every single spread betting company provides free and quality paid seminars for existing and non-clients. At least try these before you go looking for independent instruction. I can assure you that if there are any good spread betting seminars out there they would most likely be working for a spread betting company, not trying to flog you the ‘How I made my first million pounds spread betting’ course.
Take CityIndex. City Index’s seminars cover a wide range of topics, including for instance:
- Introduction to Spread Betting
- Technical Analysis for Beginners
- Upcoming Trading Opportunities (Monthly)
- Using Candlestick Patterns for Short Term Trading Strategies
- Seminar: Technical Analysis for Beginners
Let’s take the Technical Analysis for Beginners seminar one hosted by Sandy Jadeja for example. This seminar is a good introduction to technical analysis and attendants will learn how to setup charts and identify which technical indicators and settings to use to match their trading style.
But apart from the theory, there are two principal benefits from attending these free seminars. Firstly you’re getting the information right from the source, the spread betting providers. Although some people are very sceptical about spread betting providers and are convinced that they take an adversarial approach to their clients, the big spread betting companies have invested a lot of time and effort producing educational programs to help their clients.
Another main benefit of these spread betting seminars is that you get to meet some of your peers, exchange ideas, experiences and learn together. This is probably one of the most valuable aspects of these sessions. It’s great to figure things out by yourself and you need to develop your experience on your own, but meeting and sharing with others always helps.
A Look into So-Called Investment Seminars
Investment seminars per se’ are much more widespread in the States than in the United Kingdom. Research shows that about 80% of Americans over 60 years of age had received solicitations to attent investment seminars with 60% having received 6 or more in just a 3-year period. About a quarter of those solicited ended attending with about 1 in 10 proceeding to buy whatever was on offer. However, the number of companies offering free investment seminars is also on the rise in the United Kingdom and I’ve seen several cases where investors have ended up being tricked out of considerable sums of money.
Some seminars may appear educational in nature but most revolve around aggressive selling of courses, trading systems or books/CDs. Some may claim to be revealing investing secrets that most people aren’t aware of, promising high returns with little effort. Others try to add a sense of urgency by suggesting that the opportunity is limited with presenters using such catch-phrases as ‘I can offer a special discount to the first 10 persons who sign up’ and ‘if you don’t act now, too many people will get in and the price will shoot up’ (think about it: the last thing these sales people want is for people to discuss and think about what is being sold).
Initially, the introductory sessions may consist of a free introductory course (where you learn very little) usually targeted at convincing attendees to sign up on an extra ‘advanced course’ often costing several thousand pounds that should permit attendees to trade successfully.
The pattern is usually similar – first the presenter tells a little about his background and personal story, where he reveals a couple of trading secrets, exciting the audience and attempting to push the final sale by getting a few attendees to sign up immediately while they’re still receptive at the idea of all the quick, easy money they could make. Most of the presenters will say that they had a successful career in some big organisation but felt unhappy about working for a salary and making money for the company rather than for themselves. Usually, the presenters will claim that they don’t work for the organisation offering the training, but that they’ve been ‘invited’ to host the presentation and tell us how they went on the course and learnt how to successfully trade the financial markets and having made so much money that they quit their day jobs and now spend most of their time travelling around the world or with family. The presenters will then provide a rough picture of the trading techniques or systems we would learn if we proceeded to attend the advanced courses offered by the entities the presenters claimed they didn’t work for. In most of these cases the information is freely available on the internet – if you care to do the research of course.
The message is usually the same – most people lose money because they follow the herd. But we can be the select few who make money at the expense of the suckers who keep on losing money. The presenters will urge attendees to stop procrastinating and to act to make the changes in our lives now. In most cases the presenter will even show testimonials of people just like us who had attended the advanced courses and were now successful traders. The price for the courses is usually from £1,997 plus VAT and needless to say in most such cases attending such courses is equivalent to dumping money down the drains.
