Saturday, November 05, 2011

Negative comments about Forex Schools

Dear Mr. Tan,
There are many negative comments about various Forex schools in Singapore. Some could be fake, some could be real. Whatever it is, government won't do anything base on rumours I suppose, unless many students lodge complaints like Clement Chiang's case.

But I believe something can be done:

1. Stop all the schools who claim themselves to be number 1, especially in their official website. Example of such schools are JF Lennon and Powerup Capital. How do they even gauge themselves to be number 1? It is dangerous for the public.

2. Warn Powerup Capital to remove their 100% accuracy claim in their website as there is no such thing as 100% in financial market isn't it?


3. Forex trainers to undergo exams and certify to teach. A person who prescribe medicine without being a certified doctor could be dangerous.


4. Forex trainers to produce their own live trading results for a period of time before getting the certificate as well.


5. Probably all the students who sign up for any course, are needed to send feedback to the MAS or whoever just after the course, being reminded by the trainers. 
One of the questionnaires could be "Did the trainer state all the possible risk". Probably the second feedback is needed after some time as well because students need to try out the things taught for a period of time.

6. If the trainer tells the audience that his student make $10,000 from $2000 after 3 months for example, then he should get a print screen of the real live statement. 
The name of the student should be there. The account number can be blackened. So as not to have empty talk and cheat the people. They must also claim that not all students could get this result.

I am sharing these because you may have the influence or power to help eliminate any possible bad practices.



Please read the comments posted here:
http://www.forexdna.com/education_revInfo.php?id=44

8 comments:

Tan Kin Lian said...

Someone wants me to help him to lodge a complaint against Powerup Capital for their advertisements, which are alleged in breach of the Consumer Protection and Fair Trading Act. We need to have the statements of people who have attended the course based on these statements, and who felt that they were over-promised and under-delivered.
If you wish to make this statement, please write to kinlian@gmail.com.

Anonymous said...

If the trainers are so that good as they claimed they would not be teaching/training other students how to trade. Instead they would be busying trading in the market which would definitely be very much more lucrative.

Anonymous said...

I would like to believe most of the positive comments here
"http://www.forexdna.com/education_revInfo.php?id=44" are written by the marketer of the school. Likes JFlennon, their managements and marketing guru are EX co founder of FX1 Academy. Nowadays, this school is operated in a much smarter way, they don't promise you anything in words from the lesson they had learned from the previous school.Instead they paint a very nice picture to lead you think how successful you will be one day. It is also hard to complain, it is a willing buyer and willing seller basis.

MAS is very kind to this industry, unlike Australia or HK, trainer needs to acquire a related finance service license in order to run this type of business.

Anonymous said...

I have tried to invest in fx, gold, structured products, unit trusts, stocks and bond over the years but only stocks and bonds give me real returns.

Timing to invest and quality of stocks and bonds are very important. Generally invest in stocks during recession, pick only blue chips. Those stocks will pay you dividends and have the potential to aprreciate over time.

During good time, interest of bond is higher but pick only bonds from good instituitions,GLCs and Government. These bond yields would look good during bad time, For example Maybank's bond pay you 6.1% 4 years ago.

Fx, gold and structured products will only give you sleepless nights.

Anonymous said...

Below is an article from financial times uk, it highlights a typical profile of a reputable trader in the finance industry, where the trader get educated, which industry /company he has worker for, track record if any. You hardly see any of them choose to run a forex school to teach you how to trade as long as you are willing to pay few thousand titution fee, they will launch a regulated hedge fund to manage money for institution investor. Now we have to ask yourself what makes you difference from those talented traders while they still have to study very hard to earn a good academic qualification, went for many interviews to flight for a chance to work for a large financial institution, started from a junior role for few years to french off the challenge from other colleagues to earn a front office trading role. But the coach is telling you that he can train you to master the trading skill in 2 days? The price was $5,XXX, now is $4,XXX for early bird pomo. What makes the coach so special?

We cannot rule out that there is always a minority in each industry, but you may need to pay a very heavy price to realise you are not the one actually.



October 31, 2011 7:54 pm http://www.ft.com/

Stephen Jen, one of the world’s best-known foreign exchange strategists, is to launch his own hedge fund on Tuesday.

Mr Jen’s SLJ Macro Partners, based in London, will begin trading with just over $220m under management, people familiar with the launch say.



The fund will be one of the higher-profile hedge fund start-ups in London this year, not least because of Mr Jen’s stature in the city. Most hedge fund start-ups are still launching with $50m or less, say brokers.

Investor demand for successful so-called global macro traders like Mr Jen, who aim to profit from macroeconomic dislocations, is once again rising amid volatile and unpredictable markets.

Mr Jen’s new hedge fund business will focus on trading currencies, but with other bets in commodities, equities and fixed income in order to reduce portfolio volatility.

As a currency specialist, he is known for his “dollar smile” theory, which says that the US currency has a convex relationship to US economic growth, with the dollar benefiting if the economy does badly or very well.

His new flagship SLJ Macro fund will be bullishly positioned to benefit from a rally in the dollar.

A second fund, which will follow the same strategy as the first but will be available to retail investors through a Ucits format, is scheduled to be launched early next year.

The company was recently granted approval by the FSA and is now looking to attract more clients to add to its existing seed investors.

Mr Jen resigned from his senior position at the $2bn London commodities hedge fund BlueGold this spring in order to set up the venture.

He was previously the head of global currency research at \"Morgan Stanley\" – a position which earned him particular prominence during the financial crisis thanks to his prescient, often contrarian views.

As well as running a hedge fund, SLJ Macro Partners will provide currency overlay services to large institutional investors.

Taiwan-born Mr Jen is understood to be keen to capitalise on growing demand for greater FX hedging from large fund managers amid an increasingly volatile macroeconomic environment.

Only a handful of groups – including the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates – provide such overlay services at the present time.

Before joining Morgan Stanley in 1996, Mr Jen worked for the International Monetary Fund. He has PhD from MIT where he studied under Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman and Ben Bernanke, now chairman of the US Federal Reserve.

While at BlueGold, Mr Jen ran a macro trading portfolio as director of macroeconomics and currencies. BlueGold, founded by Dennis Crema and Pierre Andurand in February 2008, has made a name for itself as one of the world’s most successful commodity specialists, with a particular focus on oil.

Anonymous said...

Long ago, I called Powerup office to ask about broker stuff. The person told me to go their office to understand better during the preview. He persistently don't wish to tell me over the phone over simple stuff. I assumed he is hoping more people could attend the preview and possible signing up for their course.

Anonymous said...

This forex school indeed a very profitable business if you know how to market it. Few rules to follow to keep the business running and leave the audience guessing how good he is

1. market the winning trade but hide the lost trade
2. get marketer to publish testimonial everywhere
3. use social network(facebook etc) to do free ad.
4. never take on any trading contest to prove whether he is real.
5. Try to sell different strategy for different currency pair, give himself a higher chance to grab student
6. never post the live trading result of the same account for the past few years, you will never know how consistent he is, selectively show you some good trading results.
7. The strategy that he uses to trade his live account might not be the same one he offers in the course. You also cannot verify.


Potential revenue for this business

$3000 - $5000 per pax of a 2 days course

We take an average of $4000. 30 students per batch.

Revenue of 1 month= $4000*30= 120,000.
Revenue of 1 year= $120,000 *12 = 1,440,000
Revenue of 3 year =$ 1,440,000*3 = $4,320,000.

So you won't be surprised seeing a coach buying new condo, driving ferrari after 2 to 3 years.

The truth is whatever you learn in a 2 days course can be found it free on the web/library if you are willing to search it.

Unknown said...

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