Reviews of the Online Trading Academy

A few years ago I fell in love with a TV show called "Wall Street Warriors" on HDnet. I'm fairly sure I'm the only person in the United States that watched it (although they did somehow churn out 3 short seasons), but it was riveting nonetheless. They followed around several different characters, a floor trader, a 'connector/master networker', an upstart investment firm, recent college grads, and a wiz-kid day trader. All of these characters were operating in the ultra-competitive, one-of-a-kind world of Wall Street.

By way of background, I spend my time in the Information Technology world. The closest I get to money and investments in my daily life is when I read articles on TechCrunch about new startups that have received venture capital funding. So watching this show was like watching a whole new world. Most of the jobs on the show seemed like a nightmare - I loathe networking, and that is what it seemed like most of them had to do 85% of the time. However, the kid that made over a million dollars by investing his $1,000 bar mitzvah gift got the gears turning in my head.

The guy was a day trader, a really good one. He was taking advantages of these really complicated looking charts that he seemed to be reading like they were children's books. It was a foreign language to me, but second nature for him. I wanted that to be me. I wanted to be a day trader - the rush and potential to do a full time job for myself seemed so appealing.

So I set off to learn, and boy was it a rocky start. Learning to day trade is not easy, there is no way around that. There seems to be so much information, and mis-information, online, that it can be hard to separate the, to use an 'old man cliché', "wheat from the chaff".

There are a ton of forums with topics on forex, day trading, real estate investing, shorting, etc etc and the list goes on and on. How does a complete beginner get started with all of this when they have literally no background in accounting, finance, markets?

I was watching TV late one night and stumbled across a TV show that at first seemed like millions of others I had watched. Some young guys find a new strategy to make money, quit their jobs, and are successful doing it full-time. However, this one didn't make outrageous claims. It seemed honest in that it would take work, but that you could certainly do it successfully if you dedicated yourself to it. After getting sucked into this show (I guess I'm really into financial TV shows), I discovered it was from the Online Trading Academy and I quickly headed over to their website.

I felt comfortable after I saw them covered favorably on CNN. The reviews from the students were really positive. Also discovering sites with online trading academy reviews like the one I linked to and this trading academy reviews article were helpful.

THIS was what I was looking for. You know how I asked, "How does a beginner get started?" The answer is: Online Trading Academy. They literally have classes for people who need to core basics (like me), all the way to some really advanced topics... the reason I know they are advanced is because I don't even understand the course title.

Right now I've been consuming everything from their Free Tools section of their website. In short, it’s awesome. I feel confident I'm finally getting good and foundational information I need to be a solid trader. I've gone through some sample classes, listened to their podcasts, signed up for the newsletter, and checked out the blogs. I'm actually pretty surprised at the amount of info they give up compared to the other training sites I've checked out. On the other sites I've looked at, almost everything is behind a pay wall, which is unfortunate and prohibitive for a newbie like myself.

In the next few months I'm going to invest a half-day on a Saturday and do one of their in-person workshops. I want to get comfortable with them in person and really understand how the in person training sessions work. After that, who knows? They have weeklong professional trading classes for when people are really ready to step up their game.