Re: Peter Lowe Seminar - Get Motivated Seminar - Success Magazine - InvesTools, Russ Whitney
TellItStraight
I've seen posts all over the web asking for reviews of Investools, the
investor education service peddled by Phil Town at numerous Get
Motivated Seminars around the U.S.. Well I have some experience with
this.
I went to a Get Motivated seminar which is produced by Peter Lowe, and
yes I signed up for the $495 workshop nearly a year ago. I presently
subscribe to their Investor Toolbox website, but I am looking for a
different vendor, perhaps Meta Stock, Trade Station, or OptionVue.
I've learned quite a bit about Investools, their partner Success
Magazine, and how they operate. So, If you have a few minutes, I'll
tell it to you straight.
If you go to the Get Motivated seminar and pay for the $495 workshop,
you are going to attend a day-long workshop which is a production of
Success Magazine which has partnered with Investools. Success Magazine
wants to sell you lots of expensive training. The workshop is about
half educational and about half hype. They teach you quite a bit about
how to analyze stocks using the Investools website, but they spend half
the day telling you that if you want to make the real money, you need to
learn how to trade options, and that will cost you more, much more. It
had a very infomercial, get-rich-quick feel about it.
They have three educational programs, Basic Options, Advanced Options,
and Advanced Technicals for the tidy sum of $4,000, $10,000, and
$16,000. The way it works is, if you buy the upper tier packages, you
get the lower tiers thrown in for the price. (By the way, I'm going by
memory on the prices, I may be off a little in either direction, but I
think I'm fairly close)
I didn't purchase any of the programs. Rather, I bought books by noted
options experts and technical analysis experts, Lawrence McMillan, John
Murphy, Bernie Schaefer, etc. I read the books again and again, and then
I started trading. I would do it the same way again. I only spent a few
hundred dollars on the materials, and I suspect I got a more in-depth
education. If I had several thousand dollars laying around, and if I
was too lazy to do it on my own, perhaps their educational courses
would be the way to go. As for me, I've got more time and determination
than idle cash. By the way, I am profitable in my options trading.
Here is the real problem with Investools/Success Magazine. If you don't
pay for the education programs you don't get access to the "good stuff"
on the web site. That's right! When you sign up for the $495 workshop,
you get "Gold" level access the site which it turns out is the lowest
level of access. If you buy either of the 2 lower tier courses ($4,000
and 10,000 respectively) you get "Platinum Access", which is a little
better; But if you want access to all of the advanced technical
indicators you've got to ante up with the big bucks ($16,000 or so).
The selection of technical indicators that is included with the
platinum and gold eccess is very limited.
What's worse is that they don't tell you that you're not getting access
to the full set of technical indicators. It's kind of like buying a car
only to find out that you're getting it a piece at a time. First the
wheels, then the engine, but if you want a steering wheel, pay up. It
all has a very "used car salesman" feel about it.
I can tell you about their advanced technicals because, for awhile, I
had access to them. I didn't know I had access to something extra until
they took it away. Apparently they goofed and gave me something they
didn't intend to for awhile. Now I no longer have access to the
indicators that I came to rely on.
Also, the prices for education and subscriptions seem to be a moving
target. They call you every now and then with the latest great deal on
a course or website renewal, and the prices seem to vary quite a bit.
During one sales pitch I learned that I don't need to spend the full
$16,000 to get access to the advanced technicals, I just need to spend
$1,995 for a book and a few dvd's. I wouldn't get the one-on-one
coaching, but I would get access to the advanced technicals. No thank
you.
This is why I'm looking for a different vendor. I know MetaStock has
the technicals I'm looking for, and I suspect TradeStation does too.
In all fairness to Investools, they do have one indicator (which they
claim is proprietary) that is truly amazing. They call it their "Market
Forecast" tool. I have back tested it, and it accurately calls market
changes for the DOW-30 and NASDAQ almost every time. This is my only
hang-up about changing to a different vendor. I use the "Market
Forecast" regularly to trade .DIA options and .QQQQ options with much
success. Since this tool is available on their "Gold Access" I think
I'll probably drop my subscription level down to gold and look
elsewhere for the rest of what I need. If I ever find anything like
Investools' Market Forecast anywhere else, I'll drop Investools for
good.
One more thought, Success Magazine is the cheap back door into
Investools, but you get less. For example, you don't have access to the
tutorial on how to read the "Market Forecast" with the Success Magazine
version of the Investools site. This is another thing I was mistakenly
given access to. (They seem to make a lot of these mistakes). When
everyone signed up for the workshop and got their logins for the
particular workshop I went to, we were all mistakenly given access to
the full Investools site. It didn't take them long to realize they had
made a mistake, and then suddenly I found thay the look of the site had
changed from green to blue and from Investools to Success Magazine. They
tell you that both sites are the identical, but that is not entirely
true.
If you're stuck on the idea of Investools, be sure to contact them
directly and compare prices with the Success Magazine version and make
them get specific about what indicators you get. Which tutorials will
you have access to?, etc. (You have to pay extra for the tutorials,
something like $59.)
If I had it to do all over again, I'd probably still go to the $495
workshop, just because it got me started, but I'd still stick with the
books, and I'd go straight to MetaStock or TradeStation for my real
analysis software and data.
Good Luck
TellItStraight
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FdbckQueen
student of Success magazine/INVESTools. I went to the get motivated
seminar in Seattle, WA about 6 months ago, purchased the 1 day workshop
for the price of $995. The 1 day workshop was 1/2 content of the home
study materials and 1/2 sales pitch and frankly was a bit tiring. If
people had half a brain they would realize that they aren't going to
change their financial future with only investing $1,000 in education.
I did not feel the workshop was a get-rich-quick sales pitch. I was
educated enough to know it was all just marketing and based off of
current market conditions....options was the only way to make the kind
of returns I wanted. Obviously they are going to present the best of
the best examples/testimonials at the workshop. But being that they are
a publicly traded company, I know they would be shut down very quickly
by the FTC/SEC if they were to lie.
I was tenetive about plopping down so much more for additional
education, but I did. I do not know when you went to your 5-Stp work
shop, but the pricing is different from what you posted. Also the
education packages are not as you titled them. They have the Assoc
which includes (basic options) Masters (advanced options) PHD (many
other training aspects and advanced technical). I choose to do the PHD.
I also knew that leaving the WS if I had not bought any education, I
could have bought which ever home study I wanted al-a-carte.
I am not a lazy person. People whom choose to pay to learn the best way
to invest the first time rather than losing more $ than needs to be
lost should not be called lazy. I worked very hard for my $22,000 that
I paid investools. Yes someone can go buy one book or 2 or 10. For me
it was worth paying for a complete education in the market.
When I first started to trade I would only leverage 5k. I paid for my
PHD course within 2 months of trading some calls/puts.
I have since then referred many people into the investools education.
Some at the Assoc. level some at PHD. All of which have put alot of
time and work into having high successful trading ratio.
Anyway I've run out of time to finish this blog.....
In closing...the program works...it isn't for lazy people...it is for
serious investors that want expert guidance and want to be successful
right away.
FdbckQueen
My point was that I am a current user and student and that I feel it is
a good, valid education company.
It's not like Investools is a Russ Whitney owned company like Teach Me
To Trade or Star Trader....both of which "claim" to be publicly traded
which they are not. It's amazing how many law suits from State, Private
Party and Class Action they have had. I saw a list that was upwards of
20 judgements. They have SEC violations and many other things in the
works. I can't wait until the investigative tv program comes out.
JF wrote:
> X-No-Archive: yes
> In message <1129931176.7...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
> FdbckQueen <luvm...@yahoo.com> writes
>
> >In closing...the program works...it isn't for lazy people...it is for
> >serious investors that want expert guidance and want to be successful
> >right away.
>
> How considerate of the poster to send this to a newsgroup devoted to
> scams.
>
> --
> James Follett. Novelist. (G1LXP) http://www.jamesfollett.dswilliams.co.uk
Phil Town
Thought I'd tell you what I know about the Success/Investools course.
First, he pretty much does have his facts right with the only major
change being that Success does include all the tools in their class
now, although they didn't for a few months in a marketing test that I
hated and which went over about like New Coke. I am working with them
to stop the instructors who spend half the one day class selling the
options training. There is no justification for doing that and they've
told me they are fixing it. You guys can let me know if they are not
fixing and I will do everything I can to make sure the time is used to
teach basic investing. That said, the main reason I want people to
take the class and the main reason I think its worth it is that the
tools are excellent. I've been using them since 1997 and have yet to
see anything else out there that is better for my audiences. In
addition I really like it that Investools is willing to do a full day
of training (even if its really only half a day)and not charge for it
unless, at the end of the day, you want to pay. If you don't you can
go home and use MSN Money and Yahoo Finance and do it yourself and they
don't make you give back the breakfast and the lunch that they fed you.
But when it comes to paying for stuff just remember that investing is
like farming - you can do it free or you can do it fast but you can't
do it free and fast. You can farm with a stick and dig a hole and put
in a seed or you can buy a tractor. Same with investing - you can do
it with free tools or you can pay for stuff like Investools that speeds
up the process. But however you do it, do it. The biggest scam out
there is your 401K invested in mutual funds that you think are 1) safe
and 2) going to go up an average of 8% a year. Truth is that your
mutual fund is unlikely to beat the market and the market is unlikely
to go anywhere in the next 10 to 15 years. And it could go down like a
brick. Why do you think Warren Buffett is sitting on $45 billion in
cash? So what ever you do, whether its reading books or going to
classes, spend either time or money and get an education and manage
your own money. It will pay off handsomely in the long run.
And don't forget Rule #1: Don't Lose Money!
Phil Town
www.philtown.typepad.com