A lot of people ask me, “who has the best trading room, is the best educator, or mentor?”. This is a tough question to answer. All I can do is give you the answer that works best for me. Which requires that I take a step back in time. Need to give you a little history.
About My Trading
I started off trading the mini Dow back in 1997. At that time, the contracts were traded in the open outcry format, within the trading pit at the Chicago Board Of Trade. Of course, I got into this business like many others, I got something in the mail that promised huge profits with little effort. I immediately grabbed onto the idea of fast and easy money. This then lead to a copy of Stocks and Commodities magazine, where I caroused through the classifieds section looking for someone to teach me how to trade. I could do this trading thing, I just needed someone to teach me.
Finding A Mentor
I had no idea how futures contracts worked. The idea of going short was a foreign idea. I was hungry for knowledge, starving for it. I wanted to learn so bad. Finally, after calling every single ad in the back of Stocks and Commodities, I decided to purchase the day trading course, RS Of Houston. These guys were professional traders operating out of Houston, Texas and specialized in trading the big SP500 pit traded contract. For a fee of $3,000, I would travel to Houston and learn all I needed to know to become a professional trader. And so I paid my fee and jumped on a plane to Houston.
Three Days With RS Of Houston
I spent three days in Houston with Ron and Valdi, both mormons, and really nice guys. The first day, we went over how the markets worked and the specialized indicators that they had developed. Day two, we went over hundreds of charts and trade sets ups. And day three we did live trading. Day 4, I went home to San Diego, armed with all the knowledge I needed to make a living day trading. I was so excited.
My First Day Trading The Mini Dow
On my first day, my very first trade, I did exactly what I was taught in the workshop. I waited for the set up and called my broker to place my order in the pits. My account was funded with $25,000 at Mann Futures. I called and told the broker to sell one mini Dow at the market. After about 5 minutes, called me back with the fill price. Yes, you are reading this correctly, he called me back 5 minutes later.
A little while later, my trade was going in my favor and I called back to the broker and told him to sell my emini at the market for a profit. He called me five minutes later and informed me of my fill price. I was ecstatic, my first trade for a profit of $50. Unfortunately, if read this message closer, you would of read that I sold one contract, and immediately sold another, which gave me a new position of short 2 contracts. Instead of flat.
During the course of the day, I bought and sold about a dozen times and had spent spent nearly $200 in commissions. At the end of day one, I asked my broker to confirm that I was flat for the day. He informed me that I was long June and short September in multiple contracts. Of course I had no idea what he meant. Apparently, the day I was trading was the final trading day of the June contract, and the volume had been now been moving to the September contract.
Long story short, I thought that I had made money. It turned out that I had actually lost $1200 and spent $200 in commissions. I remember walking to 711 for a slurpee, I was literally in an emotional stupor. Day one was a disaster.
Day One Lesson Learned
I learned on my first day of trading that my $3000 dollar education, and my traveling to Houston Texas to learn to trade was not enough. I needed an education on the basics, like contact months, and confirming with the broker, and how to properly place an order.
The Next Six Months Of Trading
For the next 6 months, I followed the trading plan to perfection. I did exactly as I was instructed. Everyday, I would take the trades and maintain a trading journal of my trading. I would even mark my trades up on paper, then fax them to Ron and Valdi in Houston, they would reply and give me advice on what I did right and wrong. At the end of the six months, My trading account had ground down to $10k. I had lost $15k. The biggest winner was the broker. I dont remember how much in commissions, but it was more than the trading losses. What I learned during this 6 months of trading was the something was wrong. I was told by Ron and Valdi that my technique would improve and that I needed to execute better.
Back For More Education
After 6 months of losing, I contacted Ron and Valdi and told them how poorly I had performed. They told me that I need more education and that they would like to invite me to their newest trading course for a reduced fee of $1500. They assured me that I was close to turning the corner and that a little more education would get me over the hump. And so back to the RS Of Houston trading workshop.
The Next Six Months Of Trading
After receiving my refresher course, and replenishing my account, I went back to the markets and promptly lost another $15k. After a complete year of trading, I had spent $4500 with a trading educator, spent several thousand in trading commissions, spent $2400 for the year in a live data feed, and spent $2000 on Trade Station trading software. Oh, and blown my trading account down to parking meter type money. At that point, I threw in the towel on the RS Of Houston method of day trading method. I felt like a complete and total loser.
The Truth Revealed
In the year 2000, I finally found out the truth. The CFTC has filed a fraud allegation against RS Of Houston. They had subpoenaed the trading records of Ron and Valdi. After reviewing the records, the CFTC discovered that both Ron and Valdi had always been losing traders. And not just one or two years of losing, but every single year for year upon. The entire RS Of Houston trading education was based upon fraud and deception. Their entire trading methodology was based upon their own losing experiences, and they taught me how to lose.
They had created this entire scheme to dupe rubes like myself out of $3,000 for a trading education. I had spent an entire year attempting to execute successfully, what was flawed from the beginning. I had lost everything. The $3,000 was not much, what I really lost was an entire year of my time and nearly $50,000 in savings and this was the real damage.
How To Pick A Trading Room
This leads us back to our original question, how to pick a trading room. What you should be really considering is not the cost of the trading room, what you really need to consider is the time opportunity, and the money you could possibly lose if you pick a fraudulent trading room. You could spend months of trading room fee’s, commissions, and lose thousands upon thousands of dollars on a trading method that simply cannot work.
So What Should You Do?
The first thing you need to find out is whether the person running the trading room actually trades. This might seem like a ridiculous question, but you would be shocked at how many trading rooms that I have reviewed where the person touting the product does not even trade. Of course, they never admit it, but I press and press until I get the truth. Its not easy, but I always get to the core truth.
Once you discover that the trading room is being sold by an actual trader, you then want to interview the trader and ask a lot of questions about personal experience. About previous trading success and failure. I have found that the best trading products are presented by educators that have tasted failure. And they love to talk about their trading failures. Anyone that talks about the pain of this business, is someone probably worth paying money. Another thing I ask for is an annual profit and loss, I don’t ask to see every single trade, just a monthly break down of performance. The honest educators have absolutely no problem showing these numbers, if they balk and make excuses, its because they are likely a fraud.
After you discover that they are 1) Are Currently Trading, 2) Disclosed Actual Annual Results, you then need to do the most important thing…determine if your personality and resources match the trading product. For instance, if a trading room is operating 16 hours a day, and they have a great track record, then you better be willing to devote 16 hours each day to taking each signal. Or, if you purchase a trading room package from a mentor and the mentor regularly experiences an annual draw down of $15k, then you better have a trading account larger than $15k because the next big draw down is always in front of you.
How To Pick A Trading Mentor
I have found that the best trading mentors are not day traders, but are active position or swing traders. Probably one of the best I have found is Matt Davio of market profile trading academy. Matt actively trades. He is quite honest about his successes and failures, and he possesses a long history of trading success that has been proven in many different markets and environments. What make a mentor like Matt really special is that he has a proven track record of mentoring people that have also made the jump to full time professional trading. Once again, the most important thing is that the mentor is actually trading, has been around different trading environments, is open about his failures, and most importantly has a few offspring to prove that his methods can be taught.
Wrapping Things Up
There is nothing wrong with purchasing a trading room, or hiring an educator to teach about the markets. Of course, the problem is that in our quest to achieve immidiate success at trading, we forget to properly verify and substantiate the persons running these trading educational companies. Like myself, you can put all of your hopes and faith into an educator, spend thousands of dollars on educational materials and then lose thousands of dollars because the product or person was a fraud from day one. So make sure that you verify, verify, verify. Ask questions and demand proof.
And if you are on the fence about a product, please send me an email and simply ask my opinion. Sometimes the extra voice of friend in trading can make all the difference between success and failure.
Well thats it for now. Please leave comments below. I really appreciate your opinion, good or bad. And please let me know how I can improve.
Hi Emmett I am looking into a company called TradersPro they apparently have a new algo that indicates stocks about to break out. Would you have any knowledge of these people or opinions would be appreciated
Thanks
Les
Do you know anything about Bradley Gilbert, founder of CEO & Founder Traders4Traders. I’m trying to research this guy and his institutional career, but the web is full of another person, some celebrity Bradley Gilbert country music singer. I’m wondering if this is a coincidence of this guy is hiding something…
What about a review on some of the popular YouTube guys like:
Connor Pollifrone of Boiler Room Trading
Alessio Rastani
The Chart Guys
I have not been able to find a review or any comments regarding The Van Tharp Institute. Please advise.
Van Tharpe passed away, I believe, about a year or two ago.
Hi hope your doing well. I was just wondering if I should sign up with http://www.asktradementor.com/#2632. It was a third party resource with Interactive Brokers. He has over 200+ reviews which are encouraging. He has different plans but I’m just finding it difficult to fork out 250 for and hour and 700 for 3 hours and 2000 for 10 hours. And I do not think learning is achieved in such a condensed manner, I need something ongoing. He is offering and initial consultation and then the options are mine if I want to accept. Your thoughts will be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Brad
Hi Emmett: I recently discovered your site and have enjoyed reviewing it over the last couple days and appreciate and thank you for your candid insights and helpful evaluations of the trading businesses. I live in San Diego as well. I have been an options seller for past 15 years and have been able to hone my strategy over the years and became quite successful at it until the recent Feb. 5 crash which was the most shocking and extreme sudden correction in history. That event caused me for the first time to explore alternative trading strategies. During this search my eyes have been opened to how much garbage/scam there is out there (which is why I enjoy and am thankful for your site) and as a result am highly skeptical to trust and sign up for any of them. I will be following up on some of your recommendations and perhaps that will lead to something fruitful….
Sorry for the long winded comment but I do have a few questions:
1. have you heard of Online Trading Academy and if so what do you think of them?
2. have you heard of Goldenzone Trading (Sean Kozak) and what do you think of them?
3. would you be available to talk briefly over the phone ? if so, is there a number you can be reached at?
Can you please evaluate this hot shot in Biotech who has converted $15,000 to 3 million in a couple of years. I have already joined , but having second thoughts on continuing. Looks like he is providing proof of his gains, but I am not so sure because he has partnered with Jason Bond whom you have marked as scam. His name is kyle Dennis and his website is Biotechbreakouts.com
You should check out Dan Sheridan Mentoring. He specializes in option trading and is an active trader. He puts on live trades in his classes.
Dan Sheridan is as legit as they come. He is a master options trader and a very nice & personable fellow. He’s the real deal.
Does anyone have experience with the “Online Trading Academy”. They are very expensive and have been seriously thinking about signing up for one of their education programs. Any feedback helpful.
Geoff
So Depressing!!
All these reviews here on these Day TR Vendor con artist and you cannot wait to send them money. Did you ask them for any proof of they can trade profitable, backed up by brokerage statements?????
Let us know how that investment goes. I have seen this movie played over and over again.
Are they not the ones that Emmettt says he has actual hidden video about?
@ Geoff
Before you part with your hard earned; do this. Set up a dummy email account to deal with all the spam you’ll get. Next go to these sites and look at their education that is free. Not claiming that it’s great but it’s probably as good as “Online Trading Academy” and it won’t cost you a bean.
www DOT swing-trade-stocks DOT com
forextradingstrategies4u DOT com/price-action-trading-course
www DOT investoo DOT com/advanced-technical-analysis
swing-trading-strategies DOT com
www DOT marketlifetrading DOT com/course/index
or Google “learn to trade stocks free course”
I am not sure if you ever received a response to your question, but if not…. Stay away! They charge an arm and a leg convincing you they can teach you how to find the footprints of Institutional orders. Bolderdash and Poppycock. What they teach you is how to find patterns that often times end up often being nothing more than price imbalances. My husband paid them over 35 grand and has yet to make a dime. He hardly goes into the classes anymore because other students rail on him for his being negative. He paid extra for what are called Pro-Picks. (signals) But because they are for “academic” purposes only, nobody says a word when they fail. Well, he tries to complain because he put out extra money for lifetime “Pro-Picks”. His futures account was blown up by simply referring to these “gems” in trading. Long story short, they have a cultlike following and from what I have seen while watching over his shoulder, is most of them are not advancing as a typical student would. If someone is learning then you would think they would be slowly disappearing. After all, nobody continues to go to College for years and years and years if they are absorbing the material, right? He has learned more from the University of YouTube for free then this so-called “Academic” Institution. Yes, I am upset. I believe my husband was conned out of his money for a product that cannot produce.
Hi
I wanted to thank you for all the hard work you have done which is so evedient base S in your site content , the service you have provided to people and the quality and usefulness of what you have published. Your work sarisfies a large and growing need in the marketplace to help protect people from the outright fraud that is going on every day in this sector.
Quick question. You mention Matt Davio in your personal summary–I cannot find any review of his actual service on your site though–and I cannot find a whole lot about people who have mentored with him either. Do you have any suggestions on how I might evaluated him and Josh Schuster? Also–if you are aware of any other credible market profile mentoring options–would greatly appreciate any advice—thanks very much–David
You are genuine, Like you I lost about 50K two years ago using Vector Vest, to my surprise I see the advertisement of their product everywhere include your Blog. I would like to get your opinion about “TradeIdeas”, they claim their product is the best out there. I am looking for a Trading Room/Educator/ Mentor, any advise ?? Thanks Jay M.
Sorry you lost to vector vest. I hope it wasn’t the majority of your trading account. Yeah, I’d seen “vectorvest” advertised for so many years even on tv maybe even on PBS before. What a disservice. You can add vector vest to the add-listing or request for a review or through email to Emmett. If enough people request a review, usually it’ll be put on a to-review list as Emmett has described.
For “Tradeideas” you may also want to read the warrior trading review, because Ross Cameron uses it primarily as his scanner tool, and he also has an affiliate deal with Tradeideas. Unfortunately Ross and the entirety of WarriorTrading is a big scam and has only grown bigger. What you could try to do is just join up for their free chat with no intention to purchase anything to see it in action or if Tradeideas has a demo or trial themselves. Maybe tradingschools will also a review of Tradeideas eventually.
Don’t go into the chat if you want an idea of what they do look through this book http://www.financegirltoronto.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/HowToDayTrade-RossCameron.pdf
Many many of my friends who traded and tried ross’ room says he can’t trade or doesn’t trade in a way which can be followed he needs to provide a proper review to this site.Sometimes the stocks he trades is highly illiquid .I also found a hack into his website and downloaded a great deal of his content .If you can find my email on here I will give you jay but I don’t want to put it up again because to many time wasters are emailing me.
James,
Ross Scameron has reached the pinnacle of fleecing people out of their hard earned money. He has made it into an art form. Rob B actually thinks Ross is the gold standard for con men, pond scum, subhumans or whatever you call someone that attaches to a host in order to survive. He wakes up everyday with his granola bs talking about pre market stocks like he is ready to help the newbie make it like he did with just $583 to start and turn it into 6 figures in a matter of months without a hiccup. The guy is that good….excuse me as i throw up in my mouth.
You know I would like to know if he tells his parents that he creates financial misery to people in distress, retired folks, recent graduates and all around blue collar workers. Do his parents say good job son, that’s what you were put on this earth for, to steal from the unsuspecting? Does he look in the mirror and say you are the man Ross for being lower than the drug dealer on the corner? At least that guy is providing a product that someone is looking for. I think Ross Cameron and his fellow traders, lol, are are as low as a human being can go. If they can’t make money in the market, then get a job like the rest of the country. However, I believe in Karma, Ross and his financial clown show will be brought down one day hopefully by the authorities in handcuffs. I would imagine that long hair would do well in Federal prison. His hubris will be his downfall. It usually is for men that live their life by deception.
Just to set the record straight. I think Ross is a Brilliant Marketer and IMHO the best of the con men when it comes to marketing and that is some stiff competition with Sykes and the like.
I am going over to the dark side. I am starting a trading room, as I posted in another post. In fact, I am so serious about it that I am going to go over and pay Ross to teach me how to run the scam.
If one must do it, one might as well learn from the best, and Emmett is no longer in the business of boiler room scamming.
And before some shill comes talking rubbish, those who are intelligent, know what kind of post this is. It is called sar….
Honestly, you guys. I’m trying to see why you say Ross is a scam. I don’t even see why Emmett says it. I’ve studied with many gurus both paid and unpaid. Watched countless hours of training from him, Fous, Michaud, Bond, John Howell, Nison, Bigelow, Sykes, Rayner Teo, Steven Dux, Mark Douglas, Chris Capri, Tim Grittani and others. And while I will not pay for Jason Bond or his mentor Bishop, I might pay something for Kyle Dennis because he strikes me as more honest. I also will not spend money on Sasha Evdakov because while I find him informative, the rumor is he doesn’t himself trade. SO how could he really effectively teach.
I have learned quite a bit of good strategies from Ross (and others), although I don’t quite trade his because I’ve tweaked it to suit my own tastes. I started with Sykes but found his strategies too aggressive starting out. That’s why I went with Ross: because his methods weren’t as overwhelming and seemed more applicable to something I could apply to the broader markets aside from OTCs and penny stocks.
Now, I’m ready for Sykes because he has a proven track record of producing millionaire students, whereas Ross does not. I still like Ross for what he teaches and continues to offer in the way of free content by way of his trading recaps, workshops, etc.
The day-trading journey is such a personal one that the best one can do is take a little bit from each of these guys and make it your own. I have, and I am prospering.
I would imagine Emmett is swamped with work because the service he’s offering is rare, much needed, and all of us are so desperate to find any information we can before putting our hard-earned money on the line. There aren’t enough people doing what Emmett is doing. I applaud him. And while some of the things he says about day trading are depressing and sometimes downright discouraging, I do still believe that a great living can be made from the endeavor for those who really want it. I’m finally turning the corner myself as a profitable trader, But it took many years of studying different methods with different gurus. It took many hours of study (i.e., books, videos, classes, gurus) and sacrifice, sometimes at the expense of other things.
But back to my original reason for posting: Ross is not a scam. At least, I am stumped as to why you say so. He may be pricey, but so are the other gurus out there. He also offers a payment plan, which is helpful to those starting out. I believe he genuinely cares about whether his students succeed. His customer service is decent. In fact, he answered my questions even when I wasn’t a member. I can’t same the same for Jason Bond.
And let me just say this: I’m utterly shocked by Emmett’s review of Roger Scott. I almost paid for his Billionaire Breakouts service. Like Ross, he seems so soft-spoken and approachable. But then maybe that’s how he sucks people in. By the same token, I’m also shocked at the positive Steven Dux review. I found some of his teachings good but sometimes hard to understand, most often because of the language barrier. Plus, he’s just not as effective a teacher as, let’s say, Ross Cameron or Rayner Teo, for that matter. As someone already stated on the comments, I’m curious about Kyle Dennis, too, as well as a new guy from Australia named John Howell.
Looking forward to engaging in good, informative conversation with my fellow traders.
I’ve used trade-ideas and it’s worth the cost, there is also a free scanner currently called intelli.trade just sign up and it will scan the markets on that website, they may add a cost later on but it’s been free for a while.
Please feel free to ask any questions about stock trading .I’ll answer them for free no need to pay for anything again I will tell you what works just ask.
But trade-ideas has partnered with a lot of guys and is only a scanner program, they don’t scam traders as it is just used as a tool to find which stock/s are moving during the day. Also please read my mentor’s Reddit post it answers a lot of questions about stocks/day-trading https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/comments/49pi38/professional_stock_trader_ask_me_anything_ama/
Thank you very much for your input. I’m currently searching for a mentor that completely gives me a good and lasting strategy.
Also, can you recommend more metros that meet your expectations??
I have an offer to do mentoring program for $5,000 with Matt Davio. It’s one week program to improve my trading skills. Do you think its worth it?
Appreciate any input and feedback.
“Mentoring program for $5,000 with Matt Davio”, let us know how that goes. I know nothing about Matt Davio, but based on my past experience with every so call day trading guru out there this will be $5,00 down the tube, so before you shell out $5,000 has he provided you with Live Brokerage statements showing that he is trading profitable for an extended period of time. Or are you just taking his word on based on some fake Excel spreadsheet track record. If not can you get a month free trial to witness his trading and demand evidence he is trading live and showing his entries and exits clearly before he enters or exits. And that when you take his trades you get the same results. If after the trial he claims to made money while you lost money, I would run for the hills.
Trust but verify has never been as important as it is in this industry of nothing but con artist. Dont be the goat!!
Thank you for your feedback. I havent seen any of his paper/brokerage records, I am not sure if he would provide that even if I ask.
There are many gurus as you said but hard to find a legitimate one.
I would rethink about the offer and definetely do not want to flush $5000 into the drain.
Do you know any reliable chat room that would coach you and not just make entry/exit calls?
Thank you !
“Do you know any reliable chat room that would coach you and not just make entry/exit calls?” Plenty of them, but none that are going to teach you to trade profitable. There is a reason none of these Con Artist trading rooms can show they can make a dime trading. They teach complete nonsense and that is what people want to hear.
And here is just some of the nonsense they preach:
1) You can trade a highly leverage highly volatile instrument such as CL,
2) You can do this with some small account like $5,000,
3) You will have an 80% win rate,
4) You will have virtually no drawdown,
5) You can come in everyday rain or shine no matter what the market condition and take numerous scalps in CL every single day,
6) You will have a straight up Equity Curve and
7) And you can quit your day job as you make money every day trading like a salary. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.
This is what people want to hear. All the honest vendors were driven out of business along time ago. These TR operators teach pure fantasy nonsense. That is just not how trading works in the real world. I Skype with fellow traders that have spent years in every TR known to man and they just keep losing money and thinking they eventually will get it. But there is nothing to get, it is pure fantasy. The fact is the majority of the best and highest paid mutual fund managers, hedge funds managers, CTAs and etc. cannot even beat the S&P, more less do what the TR claim, but the TRs are going to teach you to make astronomical ROI. It aint going to happen no matter how hard you tap your toes and believe.
I trade profitable and I have spoken about it on many occasions, but I am properly funded, take minimum risk with good money management, have draw downs and have realistic ROI expectations.
But try and tell someone with a $5,000 account if they spend 50 hours a week trading they may make 20% ROI a year. That would be $1000 a year for 50 hours a week. They do not want to hear reality, so the Con Artist TR give them exactly what they want to hear; Fantasy World Trading. And the shill will come out. The one thing none of them will do is show any proof of their claims.
One final piece of advice is you already probably know everything you need to know. There is no magical new formula. The TR just make tweets to know indicators and re- package them. By the way you know the number of indicators I use to trade; Zero.
Thanks Rob for your feedback.
Did you read the post just above by James and his concerns about the vendor’s questionable practices (read: typical shamster tricks) ? Davio had been a shilled and promoted vendor on bmt and looks like fell into obscurity since prospective newbs were no longer buying into the bs.
https://futures.io/vendors-product-reviews/26332-market-profile-trading-academy-misstrade-s-matt-davio-ask-me-anything-ask-me-anything-9.html#post371462
Thanks for the link.
What confusing is, Emmet has rated Davio as one of the best mentor.
Has you seen his website marketprofiletradingacademy.com
Coo,
I have no experience with your request, but I know they teach market profile. I do know J Dalton trading teaches market profile and I believe it is cheaper. However, it is not one on one. The only experience I have with them are his books and his live webinars that help you break down the process of analyzing a market from top to bottom. In my opinion, he does trade and has been for years. I think it could be a great foundation for a new trader. That’s for you to decide, but I think it is an area you should look into they offer enough free content to find out if it is a fit for you. They teach to trade when there is a clear edge that you learn to discover for yourself. Anyway, just a thought that’s an extra option for you to look into. Good luck with your decision.
Thank you very much Mike for your input. I will look into it.
The reality is there is no short cut and everything Rob B stated is exactly correct. I learned all of that the hard way. So…be realistic in your endeavor. Just my opinion, try to learn as much as you can at your pace without shelling out your hard earned money. That is just my 2 cents and hopefully it will help you keep some $$$ in your pockets.
Your welcome. Not sure what you mean. Emmett said above James’ post he hadn’t reviewed Davio. I’ve never subscribed to Davio’s site as I tried out marketprofile by learning about it from Dalton’s book. I don’t think it’s any real better edge than anything else in my own opinion. I’d concur with Rob’s post above, “none that are going to teach you to trade profitable. There is a reason none of these Con Artist trading rooms can show they can make a dime trading. They teach complete nonsense and that is what people want to hear.” They are just shamshows to me now, every single one of them, even the breakeveners sites because they obviously can’t trade for a living without monthly churn and other fees.
if you scroll up on the article Emmett wrote “How To Pick A Trading Mentor” as follows:
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I have found that the best trading mentors are not day traders, but are active position or swing traders. Probably one of the best I have found is Matt Davio of market profile trading academy. Matt actively trades. He is quite honest about his successes and failures, and he possesses a long history of trading success that has been proven in many different markets and environments. What make a mentor like Matt really special is that he has a proven track record of mentoring people that have also made the jump to full time professional trading……
Uqte
I see, good catch Coo. I’d read the article a long time ago and probably forgot Emmett mentioned Davio, so it’s strange in his last comment 3 months ago that he hadn’t reviewed Davio’s site. I noticed this article was written in early 2015 and a possible explanation I think could be this was during a time when Emmett was far more lenient and took vendors’ word or even some bogus list of results claiming to be proof and even was lenient about supposed testimonials by shills or faked by the vendor himself. Emmett would later on revise a few reviews admitting he was too lenient earlier sometimes because the vendors were so nice and friendly and eager to “inform”. Considering what I’ve seen in comments here and posts on other forums about Davio and his site, I would still stay away. $5k is still way too much. I bet at the end of the mentorship or whatever for 5k he will still say you still “explain” trading is still 50/50 and the same mamby-pamby “cut your losers short and let your winners run” , “stick to your rules” bs. It would be the best to find out from someone with a truthful testimonial who took the course but they are hard to find since most stay quiet in embarassment after having wasted so much money and the so-called testimonials on the sites are always shilled imo. I think your best bet is to just read Dalton’s book used for $10 on market profile. Then mix an entry strategy with it and test it from there. I will say in my long years of the search, I have encountered a few others who spent 3k,5k, 10k several times on many vendors wasting 100k to 200k and never got an edge better than before they tried all these so called vendor expert traders. Some of the sites they tried were exposed here on TS years later such as NexGen and Felton.
Thanks for sharing. I checked out Dalton’s website and just purchased his book on Market Profile as you suggested. I will take my time to learn.
I totally agree with you and Rob on the comments. If they are doing well with their own trading, why would they bother with doing TR?
Matt Davio? Really?? That definitely was not the experience I had with him.
Matt Davio…oh tell me more! Have seen his website, but not reviewed.
I briefly subbed to Davio a few years ago. I was skeptical of vendors by that time, but he had been around a while and seemed like he might be legit. He also did a webinar on Big Mike’s that played a big part in convincing me to sign up. Yet another example of self-professed trading consumer advocate Big Mike promoting a questionable product.
Davio had a blog with an impressive track record, which was advertised as called live. At the time he offered no education, just trade alerts and short market commentaries that could be texted to you, or tweeted on his subscriber-only twitter feed.
First of all the track record was a little misleading. He would take all the trade results and divide them by the number of contracts traded, giving the result per contract. Then he would advertise that “a one-lot trader made XXX last month following my signals”. The problem was he often averaged into losing trades, sometimes several contracts deep, so a true one-lot trader would never be able to replicate those results. This wasn’t apparent until you signed up, so any 5k acct guys who were drooling over the prospect of making 5k a month following his trades would be sorely disappointed.
Next was the accuracy of the track record. During the month I was with him I double checked everything on the track record and almost all of it matched up, with some small mistakes here and there. So if it was listed then he probably called it in real time with an entry price and size. But not everything.
What turned out to be by far the biggest trade of the month was never actually called live! I remember it was a soybean trade. He made mention of it in an alert, something like “soybeans looking good here”, but never committed to a position. It was just another market commentary alert. But a few days later he announced in an alert that he was taking profits on the soybean trade. I didn’t remember him calling that trade so I went back through all his alerts twice and could not find him committing to a trade on soybeans. No entry price, nothing.
That was when I decided to cancel my sub. Other than that trade his results were around breakeven during my few weeks of subbing. Knowing what I already knew about the industry, it struck me that he may have credited that comment as a winning trade because he knew he needed a big win to boost performance numbers. It’s a clever trick, to after the fact credit a ‘commentary alert’ as a ‘trade alert’ and hope no one notices. I’m not saying that he did that, maybe it was just an oversight. But it had me spooked because it drastically changed the monthly P&L being advertised. It also called into question the veracity of the rest of his track record. Had this thing happened before with other big winners? I wasn’t about to pay any more to stick around and find out.
Thank you very much for your site. Very good.
100% agree whit your comments about Ace trade. I´m still a member and is like you say. un charlatan, y nada mas.
Also, Raul Duarte Maza, a big fraud. A clown.
And Trade whit Kavan, another fraud.
But as you say “the dream is still alive” Today I don´t believe in gurus to make money. I believe in good education and do a good work.
Thank you very much.
Trade With Kavan left the business. Went back into real estate. Unless there is something I am unaware of?
After saving up money the last 5 years of my life in pursuit of my professional day trader dream. I must admit, this is the most discouraging blog I have ever read.
I hear that a lot.
But the good news is that you can avoid a few hustlers.
The dream is still alive. But it’s going to take tremendous sacrifice.
Your best shot at making money as a professional day trader, would be to open up an education training room scamming people out of their money.
My recommendation, which you will not hear from any trading site is find another dream. Invest in real estate or anything. Day Trading is not investing. It is trying to trade white noise. And that is why you never see any of these TR showing any proof of their claims.
In order to live your dream you must first wake up. Do you want the blue pill or the red pill?
“In order to dream, you have still got to be asleep. When are you going to wake up.” I believe Bob Dylan said that.
Tradingschools is the only reporting blog that gets the reality of retail trading. You won’t find this page article on any of the other forums or vendor paid & shill “review” sites such as investiscamma. This place reaffirms the last stages of waking up from the kool-aid when the former newb-rube’s back in the mind suspicions are often shockingly confirmed. That 99.99% are all scammy sham shows and most all of them have stopped trading live, usually losing, with some formerly being newbs scammed from an “educator” themselves, since garnering part of the monthly churn of the latest generation of newbs from the dying middle class maxing out their last credit card rates. The “36steps” are actually the dozens of scam tricks , variations and even funded efforts from ill-gotten newb churning gains to hack and erase prior incriminating details before they were exposed by Emmett. The “personal note” section of the Nison review is probably the best advice on testing and finding your own edge, however hard and lottery odds the journey of sacrifice will be. Probably less than .002% achieve the “dream” even though the unfiltered retail vendor world will always say otherwise.
I too became a customer of RS Houston. Ron told me he was making six figures a year trading the markets. When I ´found the CFTC report and politely asked about it Ron no longer answered my phone calls.
Instead Valdi answered and told me I must have misunderstood, Ron hadn´t told me anything about making money trading stocks.
This was around 2 years ago, and I find it offensive that these people can continue to work their con AFTER they have been called out by the CFTC.
Business as usual.
I find it even more hilarious that they are supposedly mormons.
My advice would be to avoid doing any sort of business with either Ron or Valdi.
You should check daytradingacademy too. Interesting site.
Hello Emmett,
Hope all is well, came across your website while doing my research on which course I should invest in. Some good stuff, keep it up. I was wondering what your thought where on The Larry Williams University. I have played sports all my life and believe if you want to be the best you have to learn from the best. I think this is the program I will invest in, but would appreciate your thought on the program.
Best,
Manny C
Hi Emmett, what’s your view of The Day Trading Academy?
Thanks for your great advice on this site.
HI there, lots of ‘bad review’ as I was reading the website … so who are the people(s) that you would recommend as a day trading mentor?
Day trading mentor? With bonafide credentials? WatchHimTrade.com
He is very good. And cheap. And he cares about your success.
Have been writing these reviews for over a year, and the day trading unicorn is very hard to find. Sorry I dont have a bigger list.
Hi I’m Arthur from Australia..I was wondering what you thought of Al Brooks?Thanks reply appreciated.
Hi Emmett,
thank you for sharing , I am very interested to hear your thoughts on T3 Trading and their mentors , and also Pristine Trading education . I know that T3 has recently bought Pristine and , therefor trying push their educational products to their prospects. Do they do it just because they own them now , or is Pristine’s education really that good …? thank you in advance !
Have a look around the site … Emmett has already done a review of Pristine Trading, not all that long ago.
Really appreciate ur reviews. I just found ur website but felt ur honesty. Keep it up and cheers!
I had a pretty rough beginning a few years ago with a fraudulent trading system and trading room. I am really going to do my due diligence before getting involved in one again. But I do see the benefit of having a mentor or group to trade with if they are good traders themselves. I recently came across the Delta Trading Group developed by Dr. Vance Cast. I have read some good reviews about them but want to make sure they are legit. Have you had any experience with them that you can share? Would you be willing to do a review on them? Thanks.
Hi Pat,
Yes, I did a review of Delta Trading Group and Dr. Vance Cast. You should probably read it before spending the $7800 fee.
Geez, I remember getting cursed out by Ron in 1998 because I chose Todd Mitchell over RS of Houston. Todd Mitchell’s course was $795 at that time. I could never make money on the simulator trading Todd’s methodology. Then again, I believe Todd Mitchell never made money trading his methodology. Having retired in 2013, I wanted to get back in trading, and started visiting various trading rooms. One room I visited was called Alpha Wave Trading with Alla Peters . She claimed that GOD inspired her to create her methodology. I often challenged her supposed winning trades in the room, and suddenly a Dr. Dean Handley, who critiques trading rooms like yourself, emails me with a glowing recommendation of Alla Peters. Now two years later this same Dr. Dean Handley has trashed Alla Peters and her training room. Dr. Dean Handley now endorses CFRN and the Global Trading Room as his top trading rooms. Do you have any info on Dr. Dean Handley, and his claims of visiting and testing over 600 live trading rooms. Somehow I believe he gets paid for his endorsements.
Dean charges a “set up fee” of $600 and $200 or $300 per month.
I have no problem with the review of Alla Peters because this was early in Dean’s journey. I also made the same mistake with a few vendors.
The difference between Dean and my reviews is that I go into more details. Dean does not write many bad reviews, where as I am an equal opportunity asshole.
We also have a different income model. I generate my income from Google Adsense, which are those ugly little adds that I try and keep to a minimum. Currently not earning enough to support my infrastructure, but I have 400 more reviews in the pipe. And at some point soon, the brokers and software providers will need to start paying. I wont do paid reviews. Period.
I’d like to see a Todd Mitchell review. Probably almost 3 years ago now his free YouTube videos of winning trades suckered me in. I bought a $500 DVD course and did a brief stint in the trading room. The TR was run by a protégé, and I don’t recall Todd ever being on (I think I had a 2 week trial with my course purchase). It appeared 90% of their methods were taken from Mastering The Trade plus a little support and resistance thrown in. My impression of the protégé was he was barely past rookie status and suffered all the usual psychological challenges of trading. Unfortunately I couldn’t be there for every trade and didn’t think to verify anything but I didn’t renew via the paid subscription because it seemed like they were barely treading water in the room. Plus I realized Todd’s supposed big wins were using 10 contracts so were only 2 or point wins. I suspect I’m now a better trader than both his cherry picked videos and definitely better than his protégé was back then. Of course the #1 thing I now think traders need is a serious amount of screen time so maybe the protégé is killing it now?
Emmett, I thank you for your voice of reason here on the internet where anything is possible,…and the “good stuff” often takes a little time to find. After putting some time in I’m starting to get an idea of what a proper education may look like. Happy to have found trading schools.org, I already feel like this may be home, or at least a very good starting point.
I am looking for the right mentor and will now take a look at Matt, whom you’ve recommended. I think I will gravitate towards a slow cautious 1-5 day swing trade type of approach where analysis encompasses more than just one set of information (programs/charts/other analytical tools), any suggestions in the vein of mentors, monthly services, and/or other educational tools from you or other seasoned traders here on the site will be greatly appreciated. Cheers – Aaron D.
I LOVE YOUR SITE. thanks so much for all the info. i’am small potatoes and looking for all the help i can get. (trading options). if you have the time i was wondering your thoughts on: KEENE ON THE MARKET. OPTIONS ELITE PICKS, IN THE MONEY STOCKS, AND WINNING STOCK COACH. just reading you insight on live chatrooms. i already have my doubts about some of them. (options elite picks and winning stock coach)
i’ll have to still check to see if you have reviews for them but haven’t come across them yet. i know that’s a lot to ask and thanks for your time.
Thank for taking the time to comment. I have all of the mentioned on my list. Just slowly grinding away at each. Hope to see more of your comments in the future.