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The Futures Trading Seminar - Course Assessments - Page 1 of 5
These are a selection of course appraisals from past seminars.
Just a few lines to thank you for an excellent course. I just hope I can put in to practice successfully what I have learnt.
I thought the choice of venue was good. I suppose the service in the hotel could have been sharper, but when they employ foreigners who don't speak much english, what can you expect.
The pace of the instruction was about right I think. Once or twice you went over old ground which seemed unnecessary at the time. However, with such a new concept, the more times you hear the information, I now realise the better it sinks in.
You covered a lot of ground and your knowledge of the markets is outstanding and you make what could be a bland subject fascinating. I feel it is important to understand the background to the markets and your experience here is invaluable.
It would be useful to see the Hoots system live and indeed see live trading, although I appreciate the difficulty with the practicalities. I also feel some written guidelines on the operation of Hoots would also be useful to refer to when we are back in our own environment and away from the classroom.
You quoted from a number of books associated with motivation and trading. I know this has been said before, but yellow stickers marking the relevant pages for ease of reference would be a good idea. The breaks from studying charts is both welcome and necessary, but it would flow better if you did not have to flick through pages to find the relevant bits. I do realise you are a trader and not a professional trainer, but knowing you have now run a number of seminars, this would be an improvement.
I thought our group was a good mix. Clearly, you cannot predetermine how your pupils are going to gel, but I felt ours was a good one. I know we had a slight hiccup on Tuesday of the second week, but our group definately came out stronger as a result. Maybe you should engineer this for any future sessions you run or even talk about it to pre-empt any disruptions.
I think several of us expressed the desire for a refresher some way down the line - perhaps we could discuss this in due course.
Finally, I will have to see if your fee turns out to be good value. At this stage I feel it is. I know it is not cheap, but as the old expression goes, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
With best wishes
Cliff
GENERAL COMMENTS:
The seminar was a very good insight into how the money market really
works. I did not realize how much the markets could be manipulated. It
is now easy to see why people loose vast sums of money when they do not
take the time and money to train properly in this subject.
VENUE:
Very good. Nice and spacious.
PACE OF SEMINAR:
At times it did seem slow, especially when you repeated what you had
previously told us. This turned out to be the correct way of teaching in
the long run because if we missed somthing or did not understand
correctly the first time it all became clear later on.
BOOK REFERENCE:
A nice long list of books to read! Without this list, though, it is
rather hard to find the correct books to read on this subject.
AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT:
It would have been better to see a few more longer term charts instead of
mostly 3 minutes - it would have been easier to see exactly where the
price had come from.
It would have been nice to see some incomplete charts so we could discuss
where the price was likely to go and then move on to the completed chart
to see if we were correct.
GROUP:
A good sized group from various backgrounds.
WHERE I WILL GO FROM HERE:
Hopefully put into practice all you have taught us. Firstly by paper
trading and once I know this is correct I will move onto real trading.
VALUE:
£5000 did seem a lot of money at first for the seminar, but as it turned
out it was good value for money. Hopefully with what you have taught us
I will recoup this money quite quickly.
Judith Boulton
VENUE
1st week - OK, not too comfortable - too warm
2nd week - very good, London pub - best location
CONTENT - highly interesting (I knew nothing about trading before this seminar). Seems like excellent information for starting to trade - will see where it leads.
STRUCTURE - I would prefer shorter days - finishing at say 1700 hrs. The last hour I tended to feel too tired, especially as information was all new.
PRESENTATION - Overhead projector would be a good idea, so that all group members could see chart at same time and Duncan could point out details to all. Actual paper trading would also be beneficial.
GROUP - Good size and good group discussions.
WHAT HAS BEEN ACHIEVED - I feel confident that I shall be able to put the material learned to good and effective use in the future. The information provided by Duncan has opened my eyes to a whole new world of whose existence I was totally unaware.
I expect to spend perhaps I month in paper trading and then if all goes well, to start the real thing. The knowledge and understanding I have obtained in these 2 weeks will, I am sure enable me to trade profitably.
CHARTS - Charts very useful, but I feel that 3 partial charts, and say 3 completed up to the point where a trade could be started would be better, so that the group could discuss the situation without being aware of how the chart continued.
Richard Staveley
Content - Emphasis in basics was very good - useful for me as I had many (wrong) ideas carried over from the stockmarket etc, which could have imposed me.
First week seemed to go slowly, but it all feel into place in the second week.
Ability of Duncan to explain concept - excellent.
Group/Venue - Size of group OK - probably 6 is ideal maximum number.
Interesting mix of people - I was pleased that not all from finance and investment background.
Those from a non-finance background may get the best from the course.
Contribution from group members all helped - perhaps one individual did tend to ask too many less relevant questions.
Venue - London - very good. Surprisingly the pub function room worked better than the club. In some ways a hotel type meeting room would have been better - boardroom type tables etc.
Informality worked well - good to have coffee and tea breaks.
Finish time not later than 6pm would have been preferred.
Presentation - Duncan very good - so many seminars waste time on watching videos etc. Keeping it simple worked well.
Expectations - I expected course to be more "technical" and was worried that complex maths etc would be involved and was pleased that this was not the case. Overall the course was better than I expected.
Enjoyment - 100% Yes it can be hard going and dull at times, but this is to be expected - the subject is not easy.
Plans - to paper trade, then may need to opt for S & P to allow for office work in the mornings.
Aim - Is to trade full time, but keep outside interest in present business. May later move to an office at home and may allow a move to a more rural location (quality of life issues etc).
Overall - 9/10 - perhaps reduced to 8/10 due to negative outside concerns (former datafeed guy etc).
Personally I would find it interesting to meet you in 6 months for a "refresher" course and to see what problems and success the other group members have had.
I will send an e-mail with any other thoughts.
The subject is fascinating - I wish I had started 10 years ago.
It has "life changing" potential!
R.M.
The reason I participated in the seminar was as a result of purchasing shares in the telephone company I was representing. Coupled with the media background promoting trading stocks from home, I became fascinated by the access to all this information over the internet.
Clearly trading stocks was a hit and miss affair. On learning about your seminar, that instruction was available about the stock market - I leapt at the opportunity.
I am well aware at this point of the value of the instruction I have received. Even if I was never to trade a future, I now have an understanding of the stock market and will be able to profit from the market henceforth.
Rather than pick out any faults in the way the seminar has been taught and conducted (I cannot think of any bye the way), I would prefer to consider all the things that have worked.
Venue-wise - I much preferred the week above the Pub. I felt it was our space and the service from Darren was excellent. I loved the bright, airy daylight and the furniture was all extremely comfortable for study purposes.
Who knows whether I'll make a successful trader, only time will tell. However, the information received must work - in that I am in no doubt.
I do feel that the pace of delivery was excellent. The nature of this learning process requires understanding not knowledge (that will come later). To understand the principles you have taught us requires time to assimilate and then "sink in".
Two weeks seems a perfect amount of time and the break in between. There was plenty of time to work things out to a satisfactory conclusion, so each stage could be thoroughly understood.
I would not wish to change anything. I do have a suggestion to make: to listen to one person speaking constantly for 7 hours per day does need breaking up. If participants are questioned so that they are encouraged to express themselves - this has 3 main benefits a) it keeps the participants awake and on their toes b) you as the instructor will know precisely what the student knows or is unclear about c) this will bring out far more wisdom that is in the heads of any group of people that all will benefit from.
Well done Duncan 10/10 I do NOT think you are boring!
John Leigh
Coming into this market from scratch is a very unnerving thing. The initial week of instruction with regard to understanding the market was a great deal more intense than I thought it would be.
As this was my first seminar that I had been on, I found the venue of the meetings to be a relaxed and informal place to work. The presentation of the first week was very informative and at a speed that I could take in.
To understand what it is all about, took a time to settle in, but the way that you would re-track during the days and week helped it all to sink in.
The length of the day and volume of information I think was just right to do only one week at a time and have the space to take on board what had been said.
As the information must be taken in mentally, you do need to have time to reflect.
A lot of the work must be done at ones own pace, and I am sure that the learning has only just begun.
The second week was easier to grasp, due to the break and amount of studying done. The relaxed venue again helped with the seminar. I can only give thanks for the information that I have gained, as to enter into trading futures without any type of background would be foolish.
I cannot think of any other way this would be done. It is a mind game and one which has to be handled with care.
I am sure that all we have been shown will in time show up well in futures trading. I am sure that the relationship formed between myself and Duncan will continue.
Many thanks.
Chris Goodridge
My background was not connected with the financial markets or money industry.
The Seminar Attendees - the group number of six (started with 7) was a good size which enabled Duncan to have a lot of personal contact - more attendees would not have allowed this.
Venue - Week 1 - Club, London : Week 2 - Pub, London
The venues were adequate only - some room for improvement.
Content - the content was extremely good - some items appeared at first to be very repetitive, but eventually this transpired to be the correct method of teaching.
Presentation - the presentation was authoritative, pleasant, and at times humorous, varied in its pace and generally relaxed - all of which were good. The example charts etc that were used for the presentation would be better viewed centrally on a screen/flipchart/blackboard.
In conclusion, I can say that I am very satisfied with the seminar, but as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I trust and feel that the "eating" will prove that the tuition fee was money well spent.
Mike Mellor
I came to this course knowing almost nothing about the markets and absolutely nothing about trading futures.
I felt that the subject was introduced well in that it was gradually built up. Some very boring, or what could seem like unremarkable information, was well-introduced by giving vivid examples of past experience or facts from the market. In other words, some boring data "sank in" more easily as a result of the way in which it was presented.
I found the course very interesting - in fact much more interesting than I anticipated. It built the knowledge up gradually and constantly brought out the importance of the psychology of trading (which was probably the thing I know least about).
I found the reading list very useful and those books I have read so far have been very relevant and helpful.
As for the structure of the day, I felt that we did take enough breaks and the days generally flowed well.
On the reading of quotes! - I generally found this interesting, but would suggest marking these up in future in order to spend less time leafing through in search of them - yes I know patience is important in this game, but at times it got tedious.
Venue: Well I liked the fact that it was London. Suited me much better than Isle of Man. I thought rooms in the Club too hot and stuffy, but location excellent - and the pub was OK - would prefer more suitable tables though.
Thought the break between week 1 and 2 a very good idea - pity it had to be spoilt a bit with all that went on, but thats life!
I think the software/hardware issues handled a bit haphazardly - in my case most of this caused by the former data-feed representative, who has now been replaced. Trying to think how this could be improved - I would suggest you put a copy of Hoots on the laptop with some old data and just show people the software - maybe just 30 minutes in week 2 just having a look at the screen structure and what the charts actually looked like on screen. Just going through the icons and explaining the key features. I feel that this would make people much more comfortable about this. Also maybe just a mini hoots manual - couple of pages explaining the charts which have been already set up etc.
I felt that 7/6 was a nice group size and was glad it wasn't any larger. Good idea that they were all from different backgrounds - it sort of proves a point that anyone can do it.
I would have liked to spend more time on chart reading and less on quotes - in the second week.
Now that the 2 weeks are over, I feel that I have learnt an awful lot about the markets but I also feel that I have a lot to learn from my paper trading and intend on doing this for a long time - a lot longer than I would have thought before I started. I think I have a lot to learn about myself as much as anything.
Rating - well I would say 6/10, which in my book is pretty high.
Well done and thanks.
Norma McCarthy
Although I knew I wanted to get involved in trading futures, I had no idea what I would be letting myself in for.
Not only was the first day an eye opener for me from what we learned about the marketmakers and how the whole financial institution is as powerful and as manipulative as it is, I started to look at life in general a different way. As the week progressed both my understanding of the market and the charts began to improve.
As far as the venue was concerned, the first week at the hotel was fine. I personally didn't have a problem with the length of time that was spent sitting and studying, but I can see that someone with a more active discipline may find it difficult, but as we now know this is all part of the learning process.
The second week at the different venue I found a more relaxed environment, whether I was a lot more settled in my own mind or not I don't know but it certainly felt easier.
The amount of books that you recommended can be overpowering, but they are there for me to get through in my own time.
The information taken in and the understanding in the second week was immense (but never a chore) and I am sure will be rewarding.
During the course we discussed the ratings used by the marketmaking firms to grade their investment recommendations, I have done the same for your course.
| Venues | AAA |
| Content | AAA |
| Delivery of information | AAA |
| Overall recommendation | AAA |
I would like to think that not only have I been fortunate to be shown the way of the futures market by one of the best, I have also gained a friend which in this business is apparently very rare.
Chris Goodridge
Firstly, I think that overall the seminar was the most interesting and worthwhile course that I have ever attended. I think all of the group members felt that you had succeeded in giving us a good basic understanding of futures trading, which we can now apply as the basis for learning our own style of trading.
The methodology seems reasonable, logical and factual. Certainly harder work than relying simply on some magical "signal" or chart trend line, but surely a more sensible long term approach.
The mid seminar uncertainty initiated by the previous datafeed representitive seemed a big negative issue at the time, but rapidly became just an unnecessary interruption which did not have any impact on the value of your tuition.
Personally, I found your teaching method to be very well suited to the subject - I suspect other courses will try to rush on to chart study far too quickly without first understanding the basic principals.
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