Academyft Ultimate Traders Progragramm

olewy

I just completed the Academy of Financial Trading's Foundation Trading Programme (purchased as a LivingSocial voucher) for €35 or so (full price €495). Pretty interesting & informative as a complete newb to tradingso for me a good deal . Their trading phylosophy is CRT (Counter Retail Trading).

Academyft have a limited time offer (but of course) of 72% off of their UTP (Ultimate Traders Programme) course for those who completed the Foundation course;
http://www.academyft.com/learn-how-to-be-a-trader-ultimate.php

€695 instead of €2,500. They provide 2 CRT strategies as part of the course.
I'm just wondering if anyone here has attended the UTP course or have any opinions on either Academyft as regards scam or not and on the course content as regards to whether the discounted fee is worth it.

Limited reviews online. 1 opinion says the same content can be learned for free from books, another says the same content (in the context of FX trading at least) can be found online for free also.
Sources:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/30/business-finance-investing/2014-trading-thread-1403121/index11.html
and
http://forums.babypips.com/newbie-island/48344-academy-financial-trading.html
and
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/educational-resources/143672-london-academy-trading-7.html

Any (constructive) opinions appreciated.

Busyness1

TBH it's likely a failed practitioner trying to make a buck. These trading programs are massive money earners to some by taking advantage of vulnerable people. To get in the door of an investment bank, hedge-fund etc you need to have a 2.1 undergrad in economics, finance, mathematics something closely related and nowadays a masters in finance/mathematics is becoming an increasingly more common prerequisite, this is to get in the door. Once in, you then can start to be trained as a trader but it will be a continuous learning curve as the markets are always changing in terms of their short, medium, long term cycles, correlations once historical and commonly used for hedging reasons become obsolete. I think you should stick with reading the free content, the guys conducting such courses often will use data which is in the past conveniently perfectly supporting their arguments and thus further inducing you to believe their methods are correct. How long was the course for? Seems to be very much a technical analysis course, which many believe to be a voodoo science often contradicting prudent fundamentals and vice versa. Be wary...!

Shanesc14

Anymore updates on this, did anyone sign up for there utp, they offered it to me for 695euro, did anyone get it cheaper.

olewy

Shanesc14 wrote: »

Anymore updates on this, did anyone sign up for there utp, they offered it to me for 695euro, did anyone get it cheaper.

I didn't sign up for it. After sitting the Foundation course with them they frequently contacted me with incentives to sign up for the UTP (minimal deposit to hold a place for a future UTP course date until I fully decide etc). I didn't mind at the time (everyone likes a trier & in fairness the Foundation course was good) until I got an email from them saying they had one place left on the course & were offering me this place for a discount (forget what the price was). But they made the obvious mistake of CC-ing the email addresses of about 20 or more of their prospective customers that they were offering this 1 place to. No big deal, human error, but it smacked of being disingenuous in how it was done.

I was told by them that they wouldn't be offering any other discounts on the program in the future. Since then various offers of lower & lower prices have come through. I think the latest was something like €395. Nothing against them, I'm sure the UTP is of value & could save time in the learning curve but I think investing the same money & more time in self-education may prove a better investment (excuse the pun).

On a side-note I did look into the course offerings from the Irish Institute of Financial Trading http://www.iift.ie/ but they focus on spread-betting indices rather than trading assets. Academyft's opinion is that spread-betting is far too risky & costly to keep trades open compared to trading & that the better always loses in the long-run. Even though they have a vested interest they may be right re spread-betting i can see the logic of both sides/models. Anybody else here have any opinions on spread-betting indices vs trading individual assets or ETFs?

Busyness1

Well if your short of a large account spread-betting makes sense, I use a CMC spreadbetting account. I don't trade indices though normally commodities or currencies. I did the institute of trading and portfolio management course by Anton Kreil an ex-goldman trader. Found it very good, strong focus on fundamentals small section on technicals. Regardless of the course you do, your going to have to start approaching and trying things yourself at some stage. I don't like putting my money where someone else's mouth is.

olewy

Busyness1 wrote: »

Well if your short of a large account spread-betting makes sense, I use a CMC spreadbetting account. I don't trade indices though normally commodities or currencies. I did the institute of trading and portfolio management course by Anton Kreil an ex-goldman trader. Found it very good, strong focus on fundamentals small section on technicals. Regardless of the course you do, your going to have to start approaching and trying things yourself at some stage. I don't like putting my money where someone else's mouth is.

Thanks. Do you mean this course; http://www.instutrade.com/education/ ? Seems pricey at $1,899 for a month's access. Did you think it was worth it & have you made enough money using the course material to cover those costs?

syntheticjunk

You guys are crazy to pay for something that is free.
I cant post links, so check "Is anyone here an institutional trader?" thread in Trading discussion section on ForexFactory. Pay most attention to information from skenobi and JacobFordFX. Guys with years of institutional trading experience sharing their knowledge. For free
Then start reading james16 thread.
Thats it
It will take few months to read and years to master. Almost the same as poker
Then open cent account with any no name broker. Just to get feeling how it works. Spent rest of the money on booze, drugs and girls. At least you'll get something in return

Busyness1

olewy wrote: »

Thanks. Do you mean this course; ? Seems pricey at $1,899 for a month's access. Did you think it was worth it & have you made enough money using the course material to cover those costs?

Yes that's the course. I did the unlimited one. I am making money in my trading but had been before taking it. I took it purely out of curiosity. I'm a finance and economics graduate. What I can say is that it is a good course that focuses on fundamentals rather than technicals. I take these courses on occasion to see if there's anything I can incorporate into my approach. I found Anton's thinking to be brilliant and made sense from a economic perspective rather than staring at charts with a plethora of indicators. Like the poster below says, most information you need is free, in fact everything Anton used came from information that is publicly available, it was how he used it was the usp of the course.

olewy

syntheticjunk wrote: »

You guys are crazy to pay for something that is free.
I cant post links, so check "Is anyone here an institutional trader?" thread in Trading discussion section on ForexFactory. Pay most attention to information from skenobi and JacobFordFX. Guys with years of institutional trading experience sharing their knowledge. For free
Then start reading james16 thread.
Thats it
It will take few months to read and years to master. Almost the same as poker
Then open cent account with any no name broker. Just to get feeling how it works. Spent rest of the money on booze, drugs and girls. At least you'll get something in return

Thanks, I'll check those threads out. If you have any other useful trading resources feel free to share & I'll do the same.

olewy

Busyness1 wrote: »

Yes that's the course. I did the unlimited one. I am making money in my trading but had been before taking it. I took it purely out of curiosity. I'm a finance and economics graduate. What I can say is that it is a good course that focuses on fundamentals rather than technicals. I take these courses on occasion to see if there's anything I can incorporate into my approach. I found Anton's thinking to be brilliant and made sense from a economic perspective rather than staring at charts with a plethora of indicators. Like the poster below says, most information you need is free, in fact everything Anton used came from information that is publicly available, it was how he used it was the usp of the course.

Thanks. It sounds like a good course from your feedback. If I had the money & time to invest in something like that I would but right now I couldn't justify it. Maybe in the future after I've self-upskilled as much as possible. Sometimes I do better with a structured course rather than random reading of various materials which was why I was considering the UTP at the lower offer price. But I'll stick with the DIY route for now as my time is limited anyway.

Re the course's primary focus on fundamental analysis over technical analysis, I assume this suited both your educational background & learning-style preference. I've heard conflicting opinions though (albeit from competing trading course providers with vested interests) of the merits of focusing more on one rather than the other. E.g. IIFT focus a lot more on fundamentals rather than technicals but Academyft focus more heavily on technicals rather than fundamentals. Both of them still acknowledge the importance of including the other style in making better trading decisions obviously. For example Academyft's ethos for counter retail trading would be that it is simply impossible for an individual to carry out enough fundamental analysis and that the market has already built in that analysis into the current asset price, therefore making fundamental analysis less relevant for making trading decisions than technical analysis (i.e. mainly trade the price).

What would people's opinion here be on the above & Fundamental analysis vs Technical Analysis as a primary focus for a newbie trader.

jackofalltrades

olewy wrote: »

Anybody else here have any opinions on spread-betting indices vs trading individual assets or ETFs?

I'm currently spread betting with CMC using a virtual account.
I don't think spreadbetting is inherently more risky than buying and selling the actual assets.
I mainly trade currencies and oil at the moment.

I trade using technical analysis.
It's fairly easy to setup a trial account.
Just be aware that it's a long road to making money.
And losing money day after day, for months on end can get you down.

syntheticjunk

Spread betting its just betting. You can't profit with bets over time. Better concentrate on real products and real brokers.
This is quote is from CMC agreement:
2.6.3
We enter into all Bets with you on a principal-to-principal and non-advised basis
using Prices quoted by us through our Platform. Our Prices are not identical to
prices for similar financial instruments or their underlyings quoted on an
exchange or other regulated market, and we and/or our Associates may profit
from these Bets. You agree that neither we nor ourAssociates are liable to
account to you for such profits. By entering into Bets via our Platform you
consent to your Orders being executed in accordance with our Order Execution
Policy Summary for Financial Betting.

That's why it's tax free - you not going to have any profit

Busyness1

syntheticjunk wrote: »

Spread betting its just betting. You can't profit with bets over time. Better concentrate on real products and real brokers.
This is quote is from CMC agreement:
2.6.3
We enter into all Bets with you on a principal-to-principal and non-advised basis
using Prices quoted by us through our Platform. Our Prices are not identical to
prices for similar financial instruments or their underlyings quoted on an
exchange or other regulated market, and we and/or our Associates may profit
from these Bets. You agree that neither we nor ourAssociates are liable to
account to you for such profits. By entering into Bets via our Platform you
consent to your Orders being executed in accordance with our Order Execution
Policy Summary for Financial Betting.

That's why it's tax free - you not going to have any profit

I am going to have to correct you on that point. The reason it is tax free is because there's no underlying asset against it thus nothing to tax. Spreadbetting is very much a viable alternative provided that you set stop-losses accordingly... here is my current 3 trade position with p/l which was a 2 euro spreadbet currently over 108 profit https /drive.google.com/file/d/0ByO1u_uKpjWrZk16dEdtRVh0VHM/edit?usp=sharing

As I am a **new user** I can't pose links... delete the spaces between the https and the: and you'll get the image... right now the trades are over 190.00

yop

Got the foundation course free, found it grand, learned some, they are still offering this next level but doubting should go for it!
Did anyone do it?

arrowloopboy

[QUOTE=syntheticjunk;91554055]Spread betting its just betting. You can't profit with bets over time. Better concentrate on real products and real brokers.
This is quote is from CMC agreement:
2.6.3
We enter into all Bets with you on a principal-to-principal and non-advised basis
using Prices quoted by us through our Platform. Our Prices are not identical to
prices for similar financial instruments or their underlyings quoted on an
exchange or other regulated market, and we and/or our Associates may profit
from these Bets. You agree that neither we nor ourAssociates are liable to
account to you for such profits. By entering into Bets via our Platform you
consent to your Orders being executed in accordance with our Order Execution
Policy Summary for Financial Betting.

That's why it's tax free - you not going to have any profit [/QUOTE]

Did ya get burnt ?:p:p

Tugboats

arrowloopboy wrote: »

[QUOTE=syntheticjunk;91554055]Spread betting its just betting. You can't profit with bets over time. Better concentrate on real products and real brokers.
This is quote is from CMC agreement:
2.6.3
We enter into all Bets with you on a principal-to-principal and non-advised basis
using Prices quoted by us through our Platform. Our Prices are not identical to
prices for similar financial instruments or their underlyings quoted on an
exchange or other regulated market, and we and/or our Associates may profit
from these Bets. You agree that neither we nor ourAssociates are liable to
account to you for such profits. By entering into Bets via our Platform you
consent to your Orders being executed in accordance with our Order Execution
Policy Summary for Financial Betting.

That's why it's tax free - you not going to have any profit

Did ya get burnt ?:p:p:p[/quote]

It's the usual blame the evil broker for hitting my stop. Trading is full of those types who have an always the victim mentality.

guy2010

hi

Thegeneral1066

Hi, I have completed the UTP course which was very good, but I am struggling to tie it all together and put it all into practice.
I was hoping there might be someone in the Munster area who might be willing to help me apply program in real time..
I am based in Kerry and happy to travel to anyone who could help.

Thanks