Trading seminars are a somewhat popular way of learning trading. Trading seminars have the potential to be an effective and efficient method of trading instruction, but only if they meet certain criteria. Otherwise, trading seminars can provide a lot of useless information, and be a very expensive way to meet other beginning traders.
Advantages of Trading Seminars
A well designed and presented trading seminar can provide a substantal amount of trading information in a short amount of time. Depending upon the number of students, a seminar can also provide a decent amount of individual instruction.
Trading seminars are flexible in that they can be designed specifically for their target audience. For example, a seminar for beginning traders might cover the basics of trading (e.g. order types, markets, etc.), while a seminar for experienced traders might focus on a specific aspect of trading (e.g. an options trading seminar).
Disadvantages of Trading Seminars
One of the disadvantages of learning trading from trading seminars is that a lot of trading seminars are provided by professional seminar hosts (or companies), rather than professional traders. These types of seminars are not designed to teach trading, but are designed to make as much money as possible from the seminar. Many so called trading seminars often require additional course materials at additional cost (e.g. books, software, etc.), or even require additional seminars to continue the instruction.
Another disadvantage of learning trading at a trading seminar, is that the instruction cannot be designed for each individual student. This might be acceptable for seminars that are focused on a specific topic (e.g. a CFD trading seminar), because the students would already be somewhat experienced, but a large seminar for beginning traders might not be able to provide the individual instruction that each student requires.
Choosing a Trading Seminar
The right trading seminar can be a very good method of trading instruction, but the wrong trading seminar can cost a lot more than just the price of the seminar. For example, a seminar that provides incorrect information could cause a new trader to blow up their trading account (i.e. lose all of their money) much more quickly than they would have done without the seminar.
As with trading books, trading seminars are most useful for experienced traders who want to learn about additional aspects of trading (e.g. stock traders learning about currency markets). Advanced seminars usually focus on a specific topic, and provide only factual information (e.g. a futures trading seminar would explain futures contracts), rather than providing potentially incorrect subjective information.
If you are considering learning trading at a trading seminar, my article about choosing a trading seminar describes the criteria that a trading seminar should meet in order to be useful. If a trading seminar does not meet all of the mentioned criteria, it should be avoided, as it will most likely be a waste of potential trading capital, and could irreversibly damage your trading career.
