TradingAcademy (was onlinetradingacademy.com) (Mike McMahon)

Run; don't go to Online Trading Academy

Run; don't go to Online Trading Academy

I have signed an agreement on training by personal circumstances I could not do and your agency charges of this training has continued to harass me and finally led me to collection and my credit report today shows that debt. A debt that does not support loss of any kind of Online Trading Academy, they never gave me training, I did not make use of their professional services, and even more so they have a little more than 500 $ delivered by me. They have been unfair, has been used a bad business practice and I am in search of punishment by the Prosecutor of the State of Florida.

 

I have read the reviews on this company on this site and have to say what a pile of nonsense some of them are. How the hell are you going learn to trade in a half day workshop? One of the criticisms is that apparrently during a presentation one of the presenters did not appear to know the "difference" between a "point" and a "pip". I will leave the less dimwitted ones on here to work out how ludicrous this sounds. Sadly there are some people who will never make traders so long as they have a hole in their arse. This is entirely their own fault because when faced with a problem they always "know better" and fail to see their own weaknesses. I even saw someone get stroppy with a presenter 3 weeks ago at a trade expo. All he had been told was that in order to be a successful trader he/she would have to have a plan, have to follow that plan and then have to devise a strategy to overcome personal faults when they arise. Only a real trader can see the merits of this thought process, a wannabe can NOT. A year ago I met a fellow student whith whom I had attended a course 4 years ago. His trading was inconsistent wheras mine is not, I am consistently profitable and my losses are low. On investigation (he showed me some of his trades) he was still trading Dojis, pennant breakouts, and fibonacci numbers over multiple timeframes then taking a 1:1 profit. A quick pointer to a tool called renkos which we are all taught but seldom use gave him a whole new beginning.
To Summarise OTA will give you the tools you need to be a successful trader and the support afterwards when you come up against difficulties. What it cannot do is learn for you or take trades on your behalf. As we are all GREEDY and LAZY

 

I have to say that the Dallas branch has bent over backwards to be fair with me in every way. They never promised anything they didn't deliver and I can't imagine a better value being offered. Pay for a class once and retake it as many times as you want, for life? That's an exceptional deal. Noone is going to take you by the hand and make the trades for you and do it for free.

 

Inasmuch as most candidates for training are not cognizant of the nuances of the trading world, they expect to become masters of the game in a short order by paying thousands of dollars for trading curriculum and begin their trading career, immediately becoming profitable. It, in a word, it does not "work" that way, by any stretch of the imagination. If one is to be a proficient trader it will require hundreds if not thousands of hours in front of screens and incessant research into the fundamentals of the equities in question (stock trading). All markets are linked, to be sure, and any specific asset market class does has an effect in most instances on the one in which one is engaged in trading. OTA, in my opinion, does provide information, but to expect to become a master trader as a result of attending those classes is absolutely unrealistic. My wife and I have taken courses in Equities, Options, Futures, etc., spending thousands of dollars and the initial classes are cleverly designed to upgrade one or entice one to purchase a secondary series of courses. This, of course, is good business from a cash flow standpoint, but does little to ensure that the student become sufficiently proficient to recoup the investment of $5,000 for a class or $30K for the higher package, which gives one admittance to the "ultra" group! They must take care of the franchisee and that can only be acomplished by a steady flow of revenue generating students.

In the final analysis, knowledge applied to the price action of the markets 'can' work if one wishes to spend the time honing the skills and temperment required to become a successful trader and has the time to allocate to observe the market on a day to day basis. After realizing that the market has changed significantly from those of yesteryear, primarily due to "quant" trading tactics employed by the institutional trading community, strategy must be modified on a protracted basis. There appears to be a 'timing' factor whereby the HFT (high frequency traders) change the algorithms utilized via computers to confront the changes by the competition or other institutions. Also, the stops placed by the retail trader (the individual trader) has exposure to the broad market participants, which allow them to "sweep" those stops....ever wonder why it often appears that someone is looking over your shoulder and the market direction turns at the precise point where you have placed stops? It's akin to showing all your cards to other players in a poker game! The commodities market is rife with this activity.....as are all the others. Think about this......regardless of what you've been told by brokers or other traders. The professional traders know all the strategies that you know....and much, much more.

I believe Goldman Sachs made a statement not long ago that they had no losing trades for a fiscal period! Why do you suppose that was probably a true statement? There is money to be made in the markets, no question there. Well, someone figured out just how this was accomplished and formatted an application for the little guy. I'm checking that out now

 

I bought the diamond package based upon assertions that the education received would be at a graduate level. It was not even close with much of the same material being rehashed between various asset classes.

I have taken every single class with them and will not be taking retakes. While some of the instructors are very good traders in and of themselves, it is the material they teach that is not in the official curriculum that is of value.

Outside of the Options and Proactive Investor course (which have different methodologies and some benefits), the primary strategy is one of identifying support and resistance areas with an examination of correlated assets or market indices. In my opinion, the approach is just a step above "naked" trading.

If almost every instructor I had hadn't gone outside the curriculum to teach some of their own strategies, I would have received almost no value for what I paid.

I should point out that I was an experienced trader prior to attending their classes. They knew that and yet sold me what amounted to a bunch of introductory courses. What they call advanced courses would barely get to intermediate in most programs. In my opinion, there is no way the courses would qualify as a graduate level education in any accredited program.

In the Forex arena, unless you receive training from the instructor that is outside the course material, you are almost guaranteed to lose money on shorter time frames. Their "ProPicks" performance is overstated, they have a delayed feed of 10 minutes or more and do not separate short term performance from long term performance.

If you are interested in Forex, you are better off taking the free training at FPA and babypips. You will learn more.

 

Tayto, the half day workshop is OTA's marketing vehicle. Typically, students take 5 to 6 days of training for an asset class. Other than the "Pro Trader's" course, hands-on exercises and training is pretty limited. They also have extended learning tracks which last for weeks. The issue I have is that the primary approach is one note and courses do not build on each other.

 

very good program. I would love to hear about those who did not like the course