Institute of Investing and Financial Trading

New Guy

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I was thinking of doing the 8 week diploma with IIFT in trading. I am a complete beginner. Does anyone know anything about them or have any advice? Its a considerable amount of money to sign up €995
 
If the course promises to show you how to generate superior returns from trading (i.e. better than a passive buy and hold investment strategy adjusted for how risky your portfolio is) then I would say €1 is too much to pay.
 
If the course promises to show you how to generate superior returns from trading (i.e. better than a passive buy and hold investment strategy adjusted for how risky your portfolio is) then I would say €1 is too much to pay.

Agreed, it they were capable of doing it, they would not need to sell the course now would they???
 
Anyone know what the best option is to learn the trade? The course makes no promises other than to teach you the skills over 8 weeks. They also state that they will provide live trading days with coaching and mentoring. The syllabus teaches risk mgmt, technical analysis etc. The website states that one could achieve a return of 2 - 3%
 
Anyone know what the best option is to learn the trade? The course makes no promises other than to teach you the skills over 8 weeks. They also state that they will provide live trading days with coaching and mentoring. The syllabus teaches risk mgmt, technical analysis etc. The website states that one could achieve a return of 2 - 3%

Lets put 2% or 3% into perspective: The general conciseness is that a solid equity portfolio should generate a return of between 6% and 8% and if you had invested in a STOXX 600 Reit you have achieved a return of a little over 12% pa. All of these options produce a higher return at a lower risk....

There are only two groups who consistently make money out of trading, those selling training courses and those selling software to traders (including myself in a past life). Everyone else eventually looses, despite the few killer trades they make. As an exercise you should take a look at the trading activities of UBS and in particular the lead up to the decision to no longer trade on their own account.

Believe what I said before, if they were able to make good money out of trading in the long run, they would not need to sell training courses!
 
As a matter of interest was the 2/3% the expected annual return? Or was it 2/3% above some benchmark return? Was there any mention of fees/transaction costs (the type of portfolio churning that active trading entails means massive transaction costs)?

Sorry for the questions but I'm interested to know how these guys sell this course. The amount of free publicity this institute gets from RTE's use of one of its directors as a market analyst is immense.
 
2/3% per month is what they were mentioning. There was no mention of fees that I could see
 
To tell you the truth... I was also intrigued by this course, probably if I have so much dividend from my stocks then the money involve will not matter... learning about money is never a lost cost... but at the moment if you ask me... is be defensive with your investments... I know a lot of people who engaged in market analysis that got exponentially rich... but sadly I also knew people that lost everything... Learning about market analysis and what day traders do is good thing... But unless you work in the bank or in the Department of finance it is not necessary to do it... the internet is your friend.
 
Warren Buffett is the world's most successful investor. Does he day trade? No, he does the opposite. I think I'll stick with the strategy of the man with a 50 year proven track record.

From Buffett's latest shareholder letter which was issued last month

I know of no way to reliably predict market movements


Steven
www.bluewaterfp.ie
 
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I know a lot of people who engaged in market analysis that got exponentially rich... but sadly I also knew people that lost everything... Learning about market analysis and what day traders do is good thing... But unless you work in the bank or in the Department of finance it is not necessary to do it... the internet is your friend.

And after over 25 years in the industry I know absolutely no one who got rich or even close to it for the long term! I know an awful lot of people that got rich on paper and saw it wiped out and I know some people that were rich in real terms for a few years but they eventually traded it a way. On the other hand I know a lot of who in their 20s set out with the objective of retiring at 50 and made it in their early 50s by living within their means and investing in good stocks when they were cheap.

If you are going to put your time into anything in this area then put it into learning about investing - is not nearly as difficult to accumulate enough capital to retire early if something like that is your objective.
 
Warren Buffett is the world's most successful investor. Does he day trade? No, he does the opposite. I think I'll stick with the strategy of the man with a 50 year proven track record.

From Buffett's latest shareholder letter which was issued last month




Steven
www.bluewaterfp.ie

Making money from trading ( as opposed to investing ) is more about money management than predicting market movements.
 
Making money from trading ( as opposed to investing ) is more about money management than predicting market movements.

But if you can't predict market movements how can you hope to exceed the (risk adjusted) market return?
 
Lets put 2% or 3% into perspective: The general conciseness is that a solid equity portfolio should generate a return of between 6% and 8% and if you had invested in a STOXX 600 Reit you have achieved a return of a little over 12% pa. All of these options produce a higher return at a lower risk....

There are only two groups who consistently make money out of trading, those selling training courses and those selling software to traders (including myself in a past life). Everyone else eventually looses, despite the few killer trades they make. As an exercise you should take a look at the trading activities of UBS and in particular the lead up to the decision to no longer trade on their own account.

Believe what I said before, if they were able to make good money out of trading in the long run, they would not need to sell training courses!


completely agree , ive owned stocks since 2010 and while ive made nice money and have enjoyed it , had i simply bought a global etf via vanguard or ishares , i would be better off and my broker would be less well off

ive learned that im simply not smart enough to beat the market which makes me as smart as four out of five fund managers
 
completely agree , ive owned stocks since 2010 and while ive made nice money and have enjoyed it , had i simply bought a global etf via vanguard or ishares , i would be better off and my broker would be less well off

ive learned that im simply not smart enough to beat the market which makes me as smart as four out of five fund managers
Thus it is sad that it is not so straightforward due to the complicated tax regime that favours holding shares over funds and ETFs. This complication combined with ETF's expense ratios do undermine the argument for passive investing in Ireland.
 
I'd go to a course that showed me legal loopholes to avoid paying excessive taxes on ETF's , a friend of mine suggested there was ways around paying exit taxes on ETF's but he may be talking bull.

It may be almost worth my while buying a house up the north and moving my address up there I dunno , seems criminal that in uk they get 10k cgt allowance and we get none on same products.

I'll probably pay a tax advisor soon , see can I find any ways around it , then post them here is I do , must be some legal loopholes left maybe spending x amount of months a year in uk
 
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