Last Updated on 10 February, 2024 by Trading System
Getting into trading indeed takes a lot of time and effort and can be a daunting task. In that regard, anything that could reduce the learning curve will result in you making money faster. So, are trading courses worth it?
Trading courses are worth it if you find somebody who trades for real, and isn’t just after your money. By spending money on a good trading course you reduce the learning curve dramatically and will begin to make money much earlier.
Here are some of the biggest benefits of taking a trading course:
- You avoid costly mistakes: If you start trading completely on your own, you are extremely likely to incur losses that could be avoided had only the right methods and strategies been used. You could rightfully say that losing money in the beginning is unavoidable, and many people choose to regard that money as a sort of tuition fee.
- You become more confident in the process: Profitable trading always involves following a process that somehow defines when and how to enter a trade. If you don’t know what you’re doing, as is the case if you’re a beginner, the chances are that you cannot stick to any set plan, since you simply don’t trust your methods enough. If you instead get a method with a good track record presented to you, it’s much more likely that you’ll stick to your set rules.
- You will get profitable much sooner: Learning to trade on your own involves a lot of trial and error, and in the process, any money you make won’t be as a result of proficiency, but pure luck. With the help of a good trading course, you’ll get up and going much quicker, which in the end will make up for the initial cost of the course.
As you see, there are many benefits involved in taking a trading course, provided that it teaches relevant information. However, some courses might not fit your needs if you just want to learn practical trading strategies and nothing else. Let’s look closer at this!
Make sure the Trading Course Fits Your Needs!
Many trading courses are not focused on teaching concrete rules that can be traded as is, but rather focus on common technical analysis and how it can be used to define the behavior of the market. These courses generally teach common indicator concepts, candlestick patterns, and chart patterns which can be great to know about, but need a lot of work to be turned into something tradable.
Therefore you should always make sure that the courses you buy contain tradable strategies that are defined by clear rules. Otherwise, you run the risk of getting something that’s too vague to be tradable.
When asking about the strategies, try to be as inquisitive as you can. Obviously, they won’t give you the rules of the strategy, but in our experience, it’s still important to pose the question, since many trading vendors use the word “trading strategy” even if they just refer to some loosely defined rules about how you should combine a couple of indicators. T
A trading strategy needs to have concrete rules that can be validated. Otherwise, you’ll have a very hard time trying to understand whether the strategy actually works, or if it just is a random set of rules that have been made up by the course creator.
How to Avoid Trading Scams
While trading courses can be great, it’s important to recognize that most trading vendors are fake, and only want your money. Unfortunately, many people don’t realize this, and fall for various scams that circulate online!
One of the arenas online where you’ll find a lot of false trading vendors is Youtube. Unfortunately, many of those who make trading related videos do end up on the top of search queries and attract the most people. We’ll cover one of the most common trading scams used by these kinds of trading vendors in just a bit!
With that said, here is some advice to avoid trading scams:
- Make sure that the educator trades him/herself!: It’s paramount that the educator you choose actually trades his or her own account. Trading can’t be taught by people who haven’t experienced the process of trading themselves. Therefore you need to ensure that there actually is some trading activity going on, and that it’s profitable long term!
- Never buy the holy grail: Holy grails don’t exist. Any course that offers you a way to earn money easily and without work, should be treated as a scam. Trading is a hard game that takes time and hard work!
- Too many winners should raise the alarm: Do remember that every trader does have periods when he loses money. If you stumble upon somebody who makes big returns day after day, without hiccups you should be careful. The chances are that it’s all made up, or a so-called pump and dump scam, which we’ll explain now!
Do not miss: What Is the Best Day Trading Course?
The Famous Pump and Dump Scam
If you scour the internet and particularly youtube, you are likely to have come across some of those trading vendors that focus on the smaller penny stocks, that are traded with very thin volume. Many of these, but of course not all of them, do this because it allows them to basically steal your money with the financial markets as an intermediary, without you noticing!
Here is how it works:
- The trade leader tells his followers that he’s entering a particular stock, which is selected for its low liquidity.
- Buying pressure increases rapidly as many people want to buy the security.
- Once the stock has gone up and the trade leader is able to make a profit, he’ll signal that he’s out of the market. As a result, more people sell the stock which causes the market to move down again.
In other words, the trade leader managed to get out with a profit, while the rest of his followers did have to accept lower prices, since the liquidity wasn’t high enough to support more transactions at the same price. In effect, we’ve witnessed how the trade leader steals the money of his followers without them noticing.
And perhaps worst of all. Those profits can be used to lure more people to invest their money in the scam!
Can Books Provide the Same Information?
Like with most trading information out there, you cannot trust everything that’s written in trading books. And although a book might seem like a more reliable source of information, that must not be the case.
Here at The Robust Trader we have gathered a list of some of the best trading books. Check it out!
As to if a trading book can replace a good trading course, we would say that it cannot. Reading an informative and good trading book indeed will provide some valuable insights and guide you in the right direction. However, most trading books don’t provide a clear path to profitable trading, which means that there still is a lot of work you must do just to get to a point where you know what you’re doing.
A trading course will provide a method and template for how to go about in trading, which means that you don’t have to spend your time developing the exact method to use. Instead, you can focus your effort on what truly brings results, which is the trading process itself. That’s a fundamental difference right there!
Ending Words
As you see, trading courses are worth it, if you just manage to find the right one. There simply is no better way to learn the craftmanship of trading than to get a proven methodology from somebody who has put in the hard work of coming up with it him or herself.
Here are the Robust trader we do offer some trading courses that we think could be of interest to you. Do have a look!
FAQ
How to ensure a trading course fits my needs?
Ensure that the trading course teaches concrete and tradable strategies with clear rules. Avoid courses that focus solely on common technical analysis without providing actionable trading methods. Ask questions about the strategies to ensure they are well-defined and applicable.
What is the pump and dump scam in trading?
The pump and dump scam involves a trade leader artificially inflating the price of a low-liquidity stock, encouraging followers to buy. Once the leader profits, they signal selling, causing followers to sell at lower prices due to low liquidity, effectively stealing their money.
Is there a better way to learn trading than through courses?
A proven trading course, taught by an experienced trader, is one of the most effective ways to learn trading. It provides a method and template, allowing you to focus on the trading process rather than spending time developing a strategy from scratch.