Todd Mitchell Trading Concepts

Hello all.

My name is Marcus and I just joined this site. I've been trading options for about 3 years and I am interested in learning to day trade the eminis.

Has anyone had any experience with a futures trading course, more specifically Todd Mitchell's Trading Concepts? He claims to offer lifetime mentoring, a live trading room and daily educational videos. I have many reviews of his course, both positive and negative. There are dozens of futures training courses out there, all very expensive. I am trying to due my due diligence so I don't end up giving a bunch of money to a schiester scam artist.

Thanks,

Marcus

Howdy Marcus!

Am familiar with his course from a number of years back ... not what he's currently got in his bag of analysis that he's now marketing. It's simple as this to me ... ask him for documentation of at least his last few months of trading. Actually, you should ask for him to provide you at least 3 folks he's trained from more than 6 months ago ... and call 'em up and see what they have to say. The reason I mention other folks he's trained is that during the time I was familiar with him, he wasn't making money trading ... and barely trading at all.

As a vendor, Todd is charging money ... and with so many educational training courses out there, it is incumbent upon HIM to provide PROOF of at least him, some of his trainees (not the current newbie batch), his dad, grandmother, golf caddey, dog, pet iguana, goat or chinchilla showing profit over time using whatever he's edubacationing folks about to master the market currently ... making "$500 to $1,000 per day" as he's advertised for over 15 years now in S&C Mag among other places.

After 15 years and ALL of the students he's trained (15 yrs X 365 days per year = roughly 5,500 days) ... if ya find a couple that are banging it out (after shill vetting 'em) then STILL require DOCUMENTATION of trading success over time.

Man oh man, there's history of John Stenberg, Ed Moore and Todd Mitchell all going at each other (lawyers and s#*t) ... similar overlapping stuff/techniques (because some trained from the others - a FACT that I'm aware of). But what and who are they now?

Well, I hope I've offered you a decently reasonable roadmap for a REAL discovery process. There are other posts here inside mypivots that address courses including Todd's. Perhaps you can post to DayTrading (contact "the Guy" also known as "The Dude" in The Big Lebowski sense) to include those links here or somehow direct you there. Hope this is somewhat helpful.

Hell, you'll learn more from Bruce here or checking out Jim Kane's work than you will pretty much anywhere else.

I'm MonkeyMeat, and I approve this message.

Prior Trading Concepts students:

Fred:


Kosmo:


Wundergoat:


[and ya gotta see how he's doing now ... 2-minute vid ... audio required]

http://vodpod.com/watch/3446156-funny-goat-with-big-balls

Hi MonkeyMeat!

Thanks so much for your informative response. Asking for documentation, records and real references of long time students is a sure way to weed out a con man. I left voice mails for him and one of his associates but I haven't heard back from either one of them. Since it's a long holiday weekend I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.

I must admit the allure of the futures markets is strong. But reality is showing otherwise.

Thanks again,

Marcus

PS - Hilarious video. Those girls are easily entertained.

By the way, I just found an old thread on another website discussing his methods. Not a lot of positive comments I'm afraid.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=7085e97aa3f5ab3eeaa74a367d513e66&threadid=111588&perpage=6&pagenumber=6

Just a quick update. It's been a week since I left voice mails for Todd and one of his associates and I have yet to hear back from them.

HERE IS WHAT YOU MAY WANT TO BE AWARE OF.... Beware of a "Bait and Switch" marketing scheme. If a company offers you a satisfaction money back guarantee, do NOT allow them to SWITCH you out of that guarantee into some other kind of "BETTER" program with some other kind of guarantee. Watch out if the company offers you a "BETTER" program sometime after you purchased the first one just so they can entice you to opt out of the original guarantee into a different one with different terms which will not likely allow you to get any refund at all. If the company does try to switch you into some other "better" program with a different kind of guarantee, you may be better off just taking them up on the original guarantee and getting your full refund while you can. If they fail to refund your money upon your request, you may want to contact the FTC. Always read the details of the guarantee before purchasing and if they want to "switch" you into some other program with a new kind of guarantee, read the details of the new guarantee carefully because there are likely to be great differences.

They may claim the the new program is a "BETTER" one but the reality is that it may be just a scheme to get you to opt out of the original guarantee so that you cannot get a refund. So, this is how they can originally offer a 30 or 60 or 90 day satisfaction money back guarantee. They know that they will be switching you out of that guarantee during the guarantee period and getting you into a new kind of "performance" guarantee that will make it very difficult for you to get a refund. And, by the way, the performance guarantee would not guarantee you personally of any profits with real money. It will sound good but read it for what it is. It is a lesser guarantee than the original one. Also, to make it sound even better, they may ad a $500 payback to the new guarantee but again, read it carefully then do not make the switch. Rather, take them up on the original guarantee and get your money back. If they refuse, call the FTC.

I don't know much about the stuff he sells, but here is some interesting take that I agree with. Seems like this guy is quite a bit into BS self-promotion telling stories about his trading experience that hold no water and that disqualifies him in my eyes immediately.

Here's this take from a pretty good blog dedicated to exposing people like him:

http://tradingloonies.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/a-trading-genius-is-born/

I ran a backtest on a small part of his system, trading only the afternoon from 13.00 to 15.00, and ignoring setups with profit targets less than 1.5 ES points.
The backtest covered 2007, 2008 and 2009, a total of 300 trades with only a single contract for each trade. It works, but you can expect an average max drawdown of 26 points $1300, and an average max drawdown period of 72 trades (almost a year). His course needs some study, and he recommends backtesting/practising before you start. Here are the stats:

Statistics
-----------
Total profit:100 ES points ($5000)
Avg Win: 2
Avg Loss: 2.75
Win/Loss ratio: 65.00%
Max Drawdown:17.05
Longest drawdown: 113 days (13.35pts)

Montecarlo sim 1000000 iterations
--------------------------------------------
Avg max drawdown duration: 72 trades
Probability of dd duration longer than 100 trades: 16.47%
Worst case drawdown:86.15
Average drawdown: 26.07
Drawdowns greater than 37 points: 7.76%
Runs where equity dipped below -37:0.34%

Expectancy (ES Points): 33.75
---------------------------------------

PM me if you want more info.