limasierra88
Recruit
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Options Mastery
In my opinion there are a lot of half truths and out-dated opinions still floating around in the earlier posts of this thread. Let me try to update and/or clarify some things.
I was a student in the Forex Mastery program until a few weeks ago, when I decided that I had learned what I came for, and did not need to continue in the program any longer. In my opinion, it is NOT any Scam. However, the Options University marketing hype that they put out is not above implying unrealistic results to sell the product, like many other such programs that are out there.
Here are some facts, and some more opinions ...
1) As of the end of January, 2010, Gary Albrecht was back, and is the full time instructor of the program as of the end of May. I think generally people agree that you can learn some useful things about trading from him.
2) Carly Sanders previous post is still correct about the costs for the various pieces of the program, although there was talk of raising the monthly subscription fee as of several weeks ago when I was last there. That may have happened by now.
I have not found any of the non-disclosure of limitations that Carly mentions. Just read the hype carefully, and listen to what the sales spiel is saying carefully. I have not seen lies from the speakers, but I have seen a lot of confusion among prospective students when too many options and facts have been given to them too quickly and not very clearly. When you get to the signup web page that is about 10 pages long with all of the "benefits" that you will receive, print the darn thing out for future reference.
I have found that Forex Mastery is truthful literally regarding the facts of tangible things that you will receive, but not always extremely clear the first time you read it. Pay no attention to the written "results" that you are supposedly going to receive, which may or may not actually happen for you in particular. For example, you will not "earn enough during the course to pay for the course." That is a result, not a deliverable, and that result is not promised if you read carefully. It will be a "some students have even reported ..." or something like that. Maybe someone who was already trading on a sizable scale before entering the course did report that once, but that person is not you (probably). Similarly for some of the testimonial claims about earning 60,000 Euros a week. Oh yeah, on what amount of capital, and with what amount of risk? But the marketing department will not want to visit those details, and you understand why. It's not that the facts are untrue, it's that you can not realistically expect similar results for yourself.
3) To the observant eye, it appears that the indicators used may be a Hull Moving Average, Triple Stochastics, and a Stochastics Momentum Index. I can't know for sure, but they look that way to me. However, their value lies not in the indicators, which are publicly available, and (as far as I can tell) do NOT work well as any mechanical oracle for making trade decisions. Instead, the indicators give you information that can be used together with price action as a basis for successfully entering and exiting trades. That is what Gary teaches in the Forex Mastery class. So ... having the indicators that Forex Mastery uses will NOT make you into any professional trader. Personally, I think that the indicators are good and useful, but only if one knows when and how to use them. In and of themselves, they are NOT the Holy Grail, at least in my opinion.
By the way, the "4 majors" Forex Mastery software package now supports the 4 major currency pairs, as well as now the Dow Industrials and the US Dollar Index.
Beyond the indicators, the Forex Mastery software includes a scanner for continuous evaluation of the status of the indicators across the available currency pairs and multiple time frames. At times the scanner can alert you to approaching trade opportunities, which can be useful if you are doing other things but are still near your trading station. Or with the help of some other web sites, it can deliver a message to your cell phone via email. These are NOT trade entries or setups, rather they are triggers to manually evaluate a possible trade that might be setting up.
Personally, I would not recommend purchasing the Forex Mastery software package as a software package, unless the scanner program is worth that much to you. It will only work on your "subscribed" pairs (plus the Dow and the USD Index). However, practically speaking, the software is currently bundled so as to be the "price of admission" to the Forex Mastery program, and comes with 2 or 3 months of training (depending on how you pay for it and the current incentives offered). That may not be the best deal conceivable, but it's not the worst deal out there either ... if you benefit from the training. And that depends on what kind of training you will benefit from having. Probably you don't know that in advance.
4) The "Bias and Key" levels of support and resistance that are included in the Forex Mastery software actually are proprietary and come from "Forex Joe" Atkins, who teaches the Options University Forex Trader program (Forex Trader is completely separate and different from the Forex Mastery program; they only share the Bias and Key level values). In my experience, they are better than pivots or fibonacci levels at predicting support and resistance levels. Just like pivots or fibonacci levels, price can blow right through any particular level, depending on what is happening in the market. However, when you look at the end of the price movement, it is nearly always at or near one of Forex Joe's levels, and they are not so close together that the above becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So they need to be traded like any other support or resistance level ... see how price is treating the level before entering any trade there, and be aware of the typical support/resistance fakeout patterns. However, I submit that having some expectations concerning possible support and resistance levels beats no expectations hands down. Sometimes you can get you expectations from other predictors, like pivots or fibonacci levels that may happen to line up with a bias or key level. I suspect that the bias and key levels results from a comprehensive analysis of support and resistance levels over something like a 10 year minimum period of time in each pair or commodity (since now they are also available for the Dow Industrials and the USD Index).
5) I disagree completely with fethu earlier about the system not being useful in a trending market. Of course you do use the indicator information a bit differently in a trending market. Perhaps that lesson was missed, when and if he attended.
In summary, as I see it, Forex Mastery is not any scam. However, it certainly does have its limits, and the marketing department is not always completely clear in describing its limits. After all they want to push it, and describing limits is a necessary evil. But, if you read carefully, you will find that they do deliver what they FACTUALLY promise to deliver. That is, not the intangible hype, but you will get all the tangible things promised to you, or else they will eventually get it straightened out for you. Are they perfect, far from it. Are those tangibles everything you need to trade successfully? In my personal opinion, No. How well those tanglibles work for you depends on where you are coming from. While they give you a reasonable quality product, it may not be what you need. It is pretty hard to know that without investing some time and effort, and even dollars. So use the refund if one is offered and if you feel that it is appropriate. I've tried to explain what the program is, but can not cover every detail here, and I don't know who you are that is reading this.
In the end, I wish you success and hope that you shop for training carefully, and trade safely and successfully.
In my opinion there are a lot of half truths and out-dated opinions still floating around in the earlier posts of this thread. Let me try to update and/or clarify some things.
I was a student in the Forex Mastery program until a few weeks ago, when I decided that I had learned what I came for, and did not need to continue in the program any longer. In my opinion, it is NOT any Scam. However, the Options University marketing hype that they put out is not above implying unrealistic results to sell the product, like many other such programs that are out there.
Here are some facts, and some more opinions ...
1) As of the end of January, 2010, Gary Albrecht was back, and is the full time instructor of the program as of the end of May. I think generally people agree that you can learn some useful things about trading from him.
2) Carly Sanders previous post is still correct about the costs for the various pieces of the program, although there was talk of raising the monthly subscription fee as of several weeks ago when I was last there. That may have happened by now.
I have not found any of the non-disclosure of limitations that Carly mentions. Just read the hype carefully, and listen to what the sales spiel is saying carefully. I have not seen lies from the speakers, but I have seen a lot of confusion among prospective students when too many options and facts have been given to them too quickly and not very clearly. When you get to the signup web page that is about 10 pages long with all of the "benefits" that you will receive, print the darn thing out for future reference.
I have found that Forex Mastery is truthful literally regarding the facts of tangible things that you will receive, but not always extremely clear the first time you read it. Pay no attention to the written "results" that you are supposedly going to receive, which may or may not actually happen for you in particular. For example, you will not "earn enough during the course to pay for the course." That is a result, not a deliverable, and that result is not promised if you read carefully. It will be a "some students have even reported ..." or something like that. Maybe someone who was already trading on a sizable scale before entering the course did report that once, but that person is not you (probably). Similarly for some of the testimonial claims about earning 60,000 Euros a week. Oh yeah, on what amount of capital, and with what amount of risk? But the marketing department will not want to visit those details, and you understand why. It's not that the facts are untrue, it's that you can not realistically expect similar results for yourself.
3) To the observant eye, it appears that the indicators used may be a Hull Moving Average, Triple Stochastics, and a Stochastics Momentum Index. I can't know for sure, but they look that way to me. However, their value lies not in the indicators, which are publicly available, and (as far as I can tell) do NOT work well as any mechanical oracle for making trade decisions. Instead, the indicators give you information that can be used together with price action as a basis for successfully entering and exiting trades. That is what Gary teaches in the Forex Mastery class. So ... having the indicators that Forex Mastery uses will NOT make you into any professional trader. Personally, I think that the indicators are good and useful, but only if one knows when and how to use them. In and of themselves, they are NOT the Holy Grail, at least in my opinion.
By the way, the "4 majors" Forex Mastery software package now supports the 4 major currency pairs, as well as now the Dow Industrials and the US Dollar Index.
Beyond the indicators, the Forex Mastery software includes a scanner for continuous evaluation of the status of the indicators across the available currency pairs and multiple time frames. At times the scanner can alert you to approaching trade opportunities, which can be useful if you are doing other things but are still near your trading station. Or with the help of some other web sites, it can deliver a message to your cell phone via email. These are NOT trade entries or setups, rather they are triggers to manually evaluate a possible trade that might be setting up.
Personally, I would not recommend purchasing the Forex Mastery software package as a software package, unless the scanner program is worth that much to you. It will only work on your "subscribed" pairs (plus the Dow and the USD Index). However, practically speaking, the software is currently bundled so as to be the "price of admission" to the Forex Mastery program, and comes with 2 or 3 months of training (depending on how you pay for it and the current incentives offered). That may not be the best deal conceivable, but it's not the worst deal out there either ... if you benefit from the training. And that depends on what kind of training you will benefit from having. Probably you don't know that in advance.
4) The "Bias and Key" levels of support and resistance that are included in the Forex Mastery software actually are proprietary and come from "Forex Joe" Atkins, who teaches the Options University Forex Trader program (Forex Trader is completely separate and different from the Forex Mastery program; they only share the Bias and Key level values). In my experience, they are better than pivots or fibonacci levels at predicting support and resistance levels. Just like pivots or fibonacci levels, price can blow right through any particular level, depending on what is happening in the market. However, when you look at the end of the price movement, it is nearly always at or near one of Forex Joe's levels, and they are not so close together that the above becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So they need to be traded like any other support or resistance level ... see how price is treating the level before entering any trade there, and be aware of the typical support/resistance fakeout patterns. However, I submit that having some expectations concerning possible support and resistance levels beats no expectations hands down. Sometimes you can get you expectations from other predictors, like pivots or fibonacci levels that may happen to line up with a bias or key level. I suspect that the bias and key levels results from a comprehensive analysis of support and resistance levels over something like a 10 year minimum period of time in each pair or commodity (since now they are also available for the Dow Industrials and the USD Index).
5) I disagree completely with fethu earlier about the system not being useful in a trending market. Of course you do use the indicator information a bit differently in a trending market. Perhaps that lesson was missed, when and if he attended.
In summary, as I see it, Forex Mastery is not any scam. However, it certainly does have its limits, and the marketing department is not always completely clear in describing its limits. After all they want to push it, and describing limits is a necessary evil. But, if you read carefully, you will find that they do deliver what they FACTUALLY promise to deliver. That is, not the intangible hype, but you will get all the tangible things promised to you, or else they will eventually get it straightened out for you. Are they perfect, far from it. Are those tangibles everything you need to trade successfully? In my personal opinion, No. How well those tanglibles work for you depends on where you are coming from. While they give you a reasonable quality product, it may not be what you need. It is pretty hard to know that without investing some time and effort, and even dollars. So use the refund if one is offered and if you feel that it is appropriate. I've tried to explain what the program is, but can not cover every detail here, and I don't know who you are that is reading this.
In the end, I wish you success and hope that you shop for training carefully, and trade safely and successfully.
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