After I had studied the videos I tried to find a reveiw of Anton Kreil material that describes a realistic reality.
The closest I came was this, carefully read through this review give your comment
What you think …!!!
Having been through the course I feel that I can possibly help with the facts on what you get, what you do not get, and offer some insight into whether or not Anton’s pitch and marketing is the “TRUTH” as he so often states. My brother actually works in a Hedge Fund. I only recently graduated and had been to one of the ITPM/Anton Kreil seminars. I had also watched MDT and some of the videos on YouTube. My bro is a bit of a fav when it comes to the parents, so I never really asked him for an advice on what course to look at, or if one of these programmes was in any way going to be helpful to me. So I pretty much went for it. Anton gave a 40% discount which was great. I’ll start with the course itself.
The support is fairly minimal if you just go for the video series. You can send an email, however really that is pretty futile in terms of real coaching and guidance. You would have to go bespoke for that, which again is just a few remote sessions with the guy over an agreed period, at his convenience.
The video series consists of 28 videos. The first thing I would say is that they could be improved upon in the sense that Anton seems to spend a lot of time talking about things that are clearly designed to lead onto you buying into ideas that will lead to having an account with the institute, and trading in a way that you never draw capital. That’s fine if that’s your aim, however it is quite clearly a serious aspect of his business model and huge chunks of his teachings and seminars are based around delivering on that objective of his. There is no doubt about that. I’ll give you video for video here:
V1: Pro Vs Retail … Pretty useless to be honest. Just a sales pitch.
V2: Pro Vs Retail - Again, pretty much more of Anton trying to be clever to his own end. This is not to say there are not minor elements of what is said that is accurate, it is more to say that you really learn very little here.
V3 & 4: Distribution & Odds: Sounds fancy, however in reality it is year 1 under-graduate material. Seriously, it’s based around getting some free data from Yahoo and plotting a bar chart (histogram). beyond that there are some very basic descriptive stats. It is all very basic and a massively flawed argument. It is quite clear that it is more of a pitch to convince the world that day trading is to be avoided most of the time and that you should use the “leave your cash with Anton” approach. Ok Saxo, whatever. That’s his objective here. The rational is a long trade on the open, take off at the close by the way. That is the empirical evidence. Very amateur.
V5/6/7: Volatility stuff. This is ok actually. You look at backward & forward looking and will be shown very basic methods of analysing the volatility of a security/asset. You will use ATR (Average True Range), the VIX, and he has also plugged a Black-Scholes model into Excel for you. Decent stuff. That said, what is given is readily available on Investopedia. that is how simple it is.
V8/9: Framework - This is good. Gives you a good framework to work within. Especially good for a beginner. Very intuitive.
V10/17: Correlating indicators: This chunk of the video series really frustrated me. All that is given to you are some spreadsheets with some free data downloaded from the net into Excel. So GDP, Manufacturing, housing data etc. Covers US, EA, Asia. It is very basic stuff and is something that most students would be aware of. It is no more than a basic grounding for people with pretty much zero knowledge. It is macro at its most basic.
V17: Just a recap of what has been covered so far
V18/19: Top down approach - This is good, and is one of the most common approaches used in the industry. Again, easily Googled. Nothing is taught beyond what you’d get on Google. If anyone wishes to challenge me on that present the evidence please.
V20/21: Gate-keeping/Capital deployment: This is just a simple spreadsheet for creating a watch list. You get shown spread-trading to. Both are good and Anton teaches these 2 well, without much BS. Well, I never spotted any here! Again though, the theme continues here in terms of this being at a very basic level. You can Google and find this stuff at this level easily at no cost.
V22/24: Sold as risk management, self-awareness. The RM is largely using true range, beta, and using the Kelly stat for looking at yourself! Pretty amateur risk management stuff (not what you’d get in a professional environment. You would use true range stuff however not as a proper risk management model. Beta of course is a good to know and arguably necessary. The Kelly stat, well whatever. Again, all available free on Google.
V26: Day trading: Just a sales pitch to put you off it
V27: Trading Plan: It’s ok
V28: Exam prep: Anton talking for a few minutes about nothing overly useful.
Overall my summary for you is that the programme is a decent grounding for a person with zero knowledge. It is nothing more than a basic introduction and framework for you to go away with. It is not as is sold. It is sold as “the most comprehensive trading programme in the world!!”. Clearly it is nothing of the sort. That is not to say that at the most basic level it is not useful. It is more to say that sadly it is sold as something that it is a million miles away from being. I can’t say that the many positive reviews out there are not accurate. However considering the above I find them peculiar to say the least. I can give you an example. In one video P/E is discussed. That is it however. There are no other items in terms of financial statement analysis discussed. It is incredibly basic and lazy. I say lazy because it is a video series produced once, very cleverly that can be farmed out over and over again. That is fine if it is sold like that, however it is clearly not.
Anton seems to go to lengths in his marketing and pitch that result in him spending a lot of time talking about himself and trying to discredit every other person/entity around. Even at the most basic level. There is a constant theme to this. I also feel that he is pretty reckless. He constantly looks to appeal to people that he sees as impressionable or naive, and it works. Students/graduates mainly. Telling them they would be better investing themselves than trying to forge a proper career in banking, or other financial institutions. Dangling carrots about crazy earnings at Hedge Funds and ideas of being placed at one through the ITPM. I’m sure a <1% maybe achieve that. Is that a function of learning what I described above? Not so sure. The whole telling the world CFA is no use and suggesting it is better to seek a proper trading education? What, the stuff I described above? You must be having a laugh.
It’s an scenario for a guy that is obviously very successful and very intelligent. I can only guess that he is not in this for the long-term, or that he thinks the conveyor will continue regardless. I’m honestly not sure.
I’d sign this off by saying that I am not knocking the programme in itself. For a student/graduate that wants a very basic introduction and an idea on a framework it is fine. It is poor value $$$ wise in that sense, however with a 40% discount and lifetime access it is ok. It is not the way that it is sold. It is absolutely nowhere near some other programmes out there when you compare the content. The guy is a master of sales and marketing though by the look of it!
It’s a pity that he has to approach things the way he does. Take the seed planted that you will turn £10k into £1m in 7 years. That is insane for an individual. 25% p.a. returns (I’m assuming risk-adjusted at a good level) on leveraged products. Every year! Clearly madness. I’m pretty sure the idea at the seminar was to take £10k cash (if you have it) and use that. No cash left in the bank or anything. I’m not sure that is sound financial advice. That said, he has no obligation to be our financial adviser. All that FSA stuff is great marketing. They are an appointed rep for Wallwood which is nothing to do with our programmes. Our programmes are not under a regulated situation.
In the end, I’ll repeat that if you want a basic intro to some very basic concepts in finance without the hassle of Google, then go get a 40% discount and buy it. It is structured and you can have lifetime access. Just know what you are buying and try to ignore the marketing whether it is YouTube, Twitter, Email etc. The marketing, PR, and delivery from a sales angle is exceptional. He is a exceptionally good at what he does. And business aside, seems like a sound guy. I’m possibly a little unfair on the bespoke option as clearly I never went through that. Possibly it is more hands on and get’s into more sophisticated stuff. Maybe worth a look.
Anyway, I hope that helps.
