Commodity Courses

Selecting the best commodity course for you

Choosing a commodity course can be a harrowing experience. Since 1997 when every trader and his brother decided to educate the world on how to trade commodities, there has been a huge selection of commodity courses on the market.

So how do you pick the best one?

Not all commodity courses are created equal, even though most of them cover the same old stuff, the same old way - BORING.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since it evidently means that the information contained within said commodity courses is sound and and accepted within the industry...it's been around the block, so to speak.

On second thoughts, however, if one considers that 90% of traders are supposed to lose money, and if these same 90% form a large portion of  the commodity course authors, we're in a lot of trouble.

Most commodity courses are about as interesting or exciting as a stick of wilted celery without the mustard. This should tell you a lot about the sort of people who write these commodity courses.

Ken Roberts, may his cigar never cease burning and his hat never crease, wrote one of the first vaguely interesting commodity courses aimed at the masses. This is because the man was a drop dead brilliant marketer, he dumbed the whole concept down so even Darryl and his brother Darryl could understand it, and of course the masses he was dangling the hook to are basically a bunch of greedy desperate people. That's us.

The entire industry was in an instant uproar. The Charlatan! How dare he. I've never seen so much negative press about a commodity course as Ken's has got over the years. There are worse commodity courses out there, but none of them has made anywhere near as much money for their author, so they lack the Green Factor, and nobody cares.

Admit it! You KNOW that all us Greenies just wish it was us who wrote TWMPMM.

Anyway, so how do you select a suitable commodity course?

Well firstly, see if the author has the required disclaimers and valid contact information on his website. Try not to purchase a commodity course from someone known only as "Pit Viper" on Usenet. It's helpful if he has a real name and isn't afraid of disclosing it.

Make sure the author actually exists and is within reach if you need to get your money back or beat the snot out of him. That means, it's best if he isn't a drop box someplace like the Ukraine or Patagonia. Florida or California would be good, because you could do the working holiday thing and deduct expenses if you needed to pay him a visit.

Secondly, make sure he doesn't have a rap sheet. That's what the CFTC and NFA websites are for, you can run a background check.

It's best to deal with commodity course vendors who have a return policy, although if you pay by Credit Card online which is mail order, the law states that they have to give 30 days automatically. No doubt I will get hate mail for disclosing this.

Find out if you can talk to other traders who have purchased his commodity course. He should be willing to send your email address to his customers and give them the option of replying to you. You must make sure that he isn't just faking glowing replies by emailing you from Hotmail or Yahoo. On the other hand, you also don't want him to just hand you his customer list and say sure, contact 'em. So much for the Privacy Policy.

Ask on the trading forums if anyone has had any experience with this commodity course vendor. You'll probably be attacked for being a shill for the guy by the paranoid anti-vendor movement, so be prepared.

Check the commodity course vendor's URL or website address. You want to see a real domain, something like "snakeoil.com". You should be suspicious of any that are based on a freebie site like AngelFire or Tripod or whatever...a clue is all the popup adds and banners that keep flying into your face every time you move your mouse.

Why would you want to buy a commodity course from someone too cheap or poverty stricken to afford their own domain name and to pay to have it hosted properly?

Same applies to his email address: avoid like the plague those commodity course vendors with email addresses from freebie services. TradingMegaStud@hotmail.com just doesn't cut it. And run like the wind if his IP traces back to a proxy or an anonymizer service - it's the dude from Patagonia.

One more thing: ask for a track record - preferably his own, because you want to be sure he actually has a clue and has done his time with wild turkeys and mobile phones.

More to follow on commodity courses.

-shaggy

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