Al is the most honest educator out there.

When I dealt with the CFTC after reporting EminiTradingSchool, I asked them this very question at the tail end of our telephone meeting. They stated that it is not against the law to disclose any kind of brokerage statement for public consumption. As long as the brokerage statement is real, representative of the service being sold and above all verifiable (presumably via the broker). The more disclosure when selling a service the better as far as they are concerned.

Al is the most honest educator out there

The vast majority of my career has been spent trading at the institutional level with a reasonable amount of success. Which is to say no one ever asked me to resign, so my employers must have been ok with my trading performance. I have no opinion on Al Brooks, though I suspect he probably falls somewhere in the continuum of retail trading educators.

Toward the latter part of my career, I experienced a brain fart and decided that retail trading education would be an excellent avenue to explore and hung my shingle out as a trading educator. The fact that I have returned to institutional trading should indicate my feelings on retail trading education. I have been a serial lurker on this site for several years and thought I would finally post my ideas on the premise of most retail trading. Here is my thesis: The notion that you are going to take any single trading course and succeed is false. To expound on that notion, the idea that the average new trader is going to learn to trade, then take a small retail account and consistently make money trading reasonably tight stops (as is the normal retail methodology) is pure fiction. Note: There have been several exceptions in my career to that generalization, but these traders are far and few between.

Why?

It is my opinion that trading encompasses a wide variety of skills and knowledge, most of which is learned through experience and a "style of thinking." You can't teach experience and the "thinking" of successful traders is counter-intuitive to the average individual. As a trader, you have to look forward in time. Our entire formal education experience focuses on historical thinking and present day thinking. Whether it's math, science or any other educational discipline, we rely on past theories, data, and analysis to form present day opinions. Trading often gives the illusion of data adherence, but eventually, the "historical trading" grinds your account into "blown" status. The success record speaks for itself, a 90%+ failure rate for new traders. I suspect the same failure rate exists among traders who have taken a course in trading, or read a book about trading and been personally mentored by a trader.

Traders are fooled by randomness into seeing discernable trading signals.

My advice? Learn as much as you can about a wide variety of trading styles and don't put too much stock in any of them. You should also spend 5 years watching the market studiously and trading. Learn as much as you can about random markets and probability because in the final analysis, that is what trading is about. Journal each trade and classify the entry and exit, then note results. You can get a crude idea of the probability of your own personal entries success/failure rate. Note the type of market each signal occurred. Keep refining that method. Sheesh, it sounds overwhelming. It is. I suspect that Al Brooks's course would be a valuable aid in learning price action trading. Unfortunately, if you focus solely on price action trading you will eventually miss the boat. Does that make the course bad? Nope, not hardly. Price action trading is a piece of the puzzle and you would be wise to learn this style of trading. There may be days when this is the only trading knowledge/experience that will produce results. Is it going to be the way to go every day? Probably not.

Ultimately, my attempt at trading education failed. I couldn't teach experience. I could not trade tight stops consistently (see randomness). I was unable to teach a trader's state of mind. My success rate in trading training was about 25% of the people enrolled. Not very impressive. The failed traders were often pissed off, and I had no answers for them.

New traders want to see results fast. They want to copy trades. They want to make money. No one has a solution for those unrealistic variables. Not me, not Al Brooks, no one; but that is the formula the retail trading business is trying to market. There are no quick results, copying trades is difficult, and the failure rate is abysmal.

Are trading educators scammers? A lot of them are, but I know some that are pretty good intentioned.

For me, returning to trading in the style I learned has produced the results I have come to expect. I can let trades run against me for a bit and not bail. I only need to get the mid-term trend right, and that takes patience and institutional sized trading accounts. Of course, when the market moves with you from the onset, it sure is a lot easier. Be well.

Well, rwbill, since I stated that trading tight stops and a small account results in a high level of losses. I believe it is safe to assume that if Mr. Brooks trades in either of those two misguided methodologies his results might well be delusional. Best of luck in your trading.

I agree with a lot of what you said, especially,

"average new trader is going to learn to trade, then take a small retail account and consistently make money trading reasonably tight stops (as is the normal retail methodology) is pure fiction"

What these trading rooms teach is just that pure fiction and it is why they can show no proof of their claims of profitability.

Maybe if you put the same effort in at least trying to learn price action from what Brooks says as you do in trying to extract "proof" you would be further along in your trading.

But don't bring assumptions about another traders effort or make suggestions otherwise.