PowerUp Capital Preview Seminar (3 out of 5 smiles)

This is the first ever Forex preview seminar I’ve attended. Content is about 60% on life goals, direction and dreams of financial freedom with the remainder on actual Forex stuff. The speaker attempts to elicit an emotional response from the audience by interspersing the Forex stuff with his personal experience about being poor and his eventual success. The objective of which seems to be: to inspire you, to move you, to make you hungry enough to do anything to achieve your dreams especially your financial dreams. Very experienced speaker (varies the volume of his voice a lot – he uses a louder voice to emphasize certain ideas / phrases). Over-all, this seminar is an appeal to the heart – but this can rub some people the wrong way. More experienced traders will not appreciate the lack of detailed Forex trading strategies or Forex material in general. Jargon-wise, this seminar is for truly green apples.

Techniques:
There were a few techniques discussed but they weren’t explained in detail (understandably because of confidentiality). The speaker also seemed to rush through this portion of the seminar. This is the best I caught:
1. Instant Profit Technique
- buy low, sell high
2. PIP Maximizer Technique
- buy strong currency, sell weak currency
3. Explosive Profit Technique
- learn when a pair will go up or down
4. 100% Accuracy Technique
- buy only one currency pair per month

This was basically all the explanation given for each technique. Very, very sketchy on how to determine when to buy or when to sell. The speaker only mentioned he would tell his students the exact timings of when to buy / sell, when to enter / exit.

What I liked / learned:
a. The concept of conserving your energy for night trading (7pm onwards). This is especially applicable to those who have day jobs whose only time to trade is after work but who are usually tired and spent by then. The idea is, by not working so hard during the day, you can channel your energy towards more “productive” i.e. money-producing work.
b. The idea of using the shorter way to reach your goal rather than taking the long way. Quite powerful / easy to remember image to remind yourself of this idea by – an upside down horseshoe as the long way and a line drawn from one end of the horseshoe to the other as the shorter way. I know this idea is as old as the hills but the picture / image is a good memory jog.

Course Details:
jmot has already started a Course Comparison chart. I will probably send him what I’ve gathered…

——————————

Next: T3B Preview Seminar

- 6mtf

Read above paragraph again but this time, skip the words in parentheses “( )”.
Some speakers romanticize Forex trading by making it look quick and easy to learn and do profitably, albeit within a 3 day course. Caveat emptor or let the buyer beware.

Tom Yuen (a former SGX floor trader) gave me a rude but necessary awakening – successful trading (like a successful relationship to continue the analogy) takes a lot of serious work. In his seminar (my third one in 10 days) at the SGX auditorium entitled “Insight to a Professional Trading Career”, he separated fact from the hype being peddled around. He also touched on technical analysis, money management and individual trading psychology – all important skills of successful traders. Now with my feet planted on the ground (after being on Cloud 9), I’m still in love i.e., I still want to explore Forex trading and what I can get out of it towards the fulfillment of my dream of financial independence.

It always pays to get a 2nd, unbiased, informed opinion. Thanks to jmot for pointing the way to SGX Academy seminars, SIAS, etc.

tradeartist (YouTube), based on personal experience, also warns of free or inexpensive content being repurposed / repackaged as “expert courses” priced in the thousands of dollars. Watch his video for a list of websites with free articles and his list of recommended books.

I attended my 4th seminar today and will have my 5th one next Wednesday. I am now more cautious but I keep an open mind. There is always something you can learn from everyone – with a pinch of salt. “Listen to others.. they too have their story” – from Desiderata

Forexplorations’ Dig This:
Be cautious with Forex courses in the market. Some companies make it look easy to learn Forex trading and even promise high and immediate profits. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. There is a reason this is a widely used statistic – that only 5% of Forex traders are successful. Learn the basics the less expensive way – borrow books, read free articles, attend free / low-cost, high-quality seminars first. Get a free demo account and practice without putting out cash. Join a group of or associate with like-minded individuals you can learn or get tips from. Test the waters if Forex trading is for you. Then and only when you have done the ground work and believe you can be successful at Forex trading with all the work it takes, you may consider taking up an expert course. Make sure it is an expert course and not a beginner’s course (there are a lot of free beginner’s courses – babypips, Global View, etc). Check that the fees include after-course support and their reply turn around time is reasonable if not fast. Useful after-course guides such as daily trading plans, market analysis and market outlook are a plus and are offered by some but not all companies. Several companies publish the winnings of their top-performing students but I have yet to see them publish the actual percentage of their students who are successful. Anyway, trading is not for everyone so it’s unlikely they have a 100% or even 99% success rate.
If you have to spend serious money – try to spend it to make more. Good luck!

- 6mtf