[caption id="attachment_1777" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Photo by tj scenes"][/caption] Flip through any of the major dailies and you will see advertisements on various trading courses. The Sunday Times article on 19th September 2010 titled – Beware of easy money had on discussion on these courses.

According to the article, an investor lost more than US$3,000 in trading after attending a forex course a year ago. He also knew of others who have lost US$20,000 to $30,000 in one year. A trader who declined to be named was quoted as saying “… Anybody who claims that he can teach somebody how to make money trading forex after attending a course is ignorant of how the markets work“. There were 18 cases of complaints and inquires made to the Consumer Association of Singapore (Case) regarding theses programmes in 2008. There were 16 in 2009 and 10 cases so far in 2010. 9 cases in 2009 and 5 cases in 2010 were against Powerup Capital. Other firms involved include FX1 Academy and Momentum Asia.

The newspaper report suggested looking up Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) and MAS alert list for information.  I would suggest also looking up the MAS Enforcement Actions page to check if any enforcement action has been taken against the trainer or company.

Personally, I do not believe that trading skills can be taught over a 3 day course. There are a few questions that people should ask themselves.

Trading Secret

If you hold a secret formula to a successful business, would you share with others? Even if the trainer is so altruistic and willing to share, the formula would then become so widespread and prevalent that it loses its edge. Image being able to buy that famous black pepper crab in every coffeshop. Would it be still be special and command a high premium? There are successful traders and hedge fund managers out there. But they don’t tell you what they are going to do and how they spot the opportunity. Read more...