Anton Kreil's Professional Trading Masterclass Review
- Quality of Education
- Price
- Credibility of Educator
Summary
In this article, we take a critical look at Anton Kreil’s Professional Trading Masterclass. Find out if its a good fit for you and whether or not it is worth the money.
Who is Anton Kreil?
Anton Kreil is the founder of trading education and asset management company Institute of Trading and Portfolio Management. He started his career working at investment banks like Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and J.P. Morgan. He rose to prominence in 2009 when he and Lex Van Dam hosted reality TV series Million Dollar Traders, where the two attempted to recreate their own version of the Turtle Traders experiment.
Since the release of his first trading course in 2011, he has been in the seminar business. According to Kreil, “almost everything you are taught by brokers and trading educators is rubbish and will never make you a successful trader. This is why 90% of retail traders never stay solvent.”
Anton Kreil Course Overview
Anton Kreil’s Professional Trading Masterclass teaches you Kreil’s trading/investing approach, process, and principles. The course teaches one a basic global macro outlook, that according to Kreil, is similar to an approach that would be taken by a professional hedge fund manager.
His process involves taking a top-down view of global financial markets, as opposed to the more traditional bottom-up approach taken by Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham. He gets a view on the world economy by establishing views on currencies, commodities, and interest rates, then a specific nation’s economy, then the industries within that economy, down the specific stocks in those industries.
Key Takeaways
Top-Down Approach
The most important principle that Kreil stresses in this course is taking a top-down approach to financial markets. This involves letting your view of the macro market climate guide your investment decisions. One starts at the global economy, and forms a view based on currencies, commodities and interest rates, the view you establish from this would dictate which regions you invest in. From there, your view on the industries within the region you’re investing in will dictate which industries you invest in. From there, you do individual analysis on stocks.
As mentioned earlier, this differs from the traditional bottom-up approach mostly taken by value investors, which involves looking for stocks that represent great value, analyzing the stock, only moving up their analysis from the stock level once they have determined the stock is a good buy.
Kreil calls his top-down approach the “W.I.S.H. Framework,” standing for the following four tenants of the framework:
- World view
- Industry view
- Stock view
- Having discipline
In the course, Kreil shows which macroeconomic indicators are important to watch, and helps traders cut through the noise of information overload.
Volatility
One of the quotes often repeated in Kreil’s course is that “traders are slaves to volatility.” He emphasizes that traders must chase volatility, while portfolio managers do everything they can to hedge for it.
Kreil’s approach to volatility is quite different from most of those in the trading world, as he thinks there is only enough volatility in markets to short-term trade about 20% of the time, and that for the other 80% of the time, traders should focus on managing a portfolio with a 1-3 month time horizon.
Kreil determines whether one should be day trading on any given day by a simple traffic-light system.
- Red is when the VIX falls 25% or more. One should be portfolio manager during this period
- Amber is when traders should be getting ready for short-term trading opportunities to present themselves by raising cash.
- Green is the day trading zone, when the VIX rallies 25% or more.
Day Trading Approach
As mentioned earlier, Kreil believes that the markets only present favorable day trading conditions about 20% of the time. This 20% of the time occurs when the market volatility is rising, and Kreil says one should take directional trades with a 1-5 day time horizon.
Kreil is a huge proponent of the Kelly Criterion to determine trade size, the criterion, in a nutshell, dictates that you should increase your trade size when you’re doing good, and reduce it when you’re doing bad.
To the chagrin of many technical analysts, Kreil says one should avoid any technical indicator that isn’t based on volatility, and instead use economic and asset specific newsflow to gauge sentiment and hunt for volatility.
My Opinion
I’ve taken more than a dozen trading courses, some very good, and some terrible. The courses range from rudimentary technical analysis, sophisticated options strategies, to order flow trading. However, Kreil’s course is the first to even graze the topic of global macro, probably because filming some stock charts with indicators is a lot easier than having an understanding of macroeconomics.
I much enjoyed Kreil’s course and learned a lot from it, however it’s not without its flaws. The top down approach was well defined and he walked everyone on conducting an analysis, however, he only very briefly touched on individual stock analysis. While there are countless books and seminars on stock valuation (or stock picking service like the Motley Fool), one would think that because of Kreil’s contrarian nature, he would also have a different stock analysis criteria.
The question of whether or not to invest your money into Kreil’s course comes down to how much capital you have for trading. If you only have a small amount of capital your money is better spent on great trading, investing, and economics books, while deploying a small amount of it to trading.
If you are, however, in the market for a trading course, Kreil’s course is within the industry average, at $1,499 for a month’s access, and $2,999 for a year’s access. And of any trading course I’ve seen, this is the best one.
Pros
- One of few global macro focused courses
- Kreil has a verifiable track record, working at top investment banks as an equities trader
- Very little in the way of esoteric theory, course gives concrete information
Cons
- Lacking in individual stock analysis
- The first tier of pricing only gives access to the course for one month.
Thank you for this review. I have been watching Anton’s videos for several days. I agree he has a masterful macro view of trading – describing all people, especially traders – as “slaves to the Central Banking System.”
But like you, I was hungry for any information on how to pick a stock and how to know it is the best choice. I found nothing in his videos except a mention about “fundamental analysis”
I can buy Morningstar for all the fundamental analysis I need. But we all know an A-rating from Morningstar does not mean you will make money, any more than an F rating means you will lose money (exactly the opposite in many cases).
I bought Anton’s book on Amazon, an e-Book. It cost $9.99 and was only about 4 pages long. Ridiculous.
Anton makes a living criticizing the scam trading system crowd, and I agree with him there. And I also believe you enjoyed his course as much as any you ever took. But you can learn what you say you learned by watching his YouTube videos (the Macro stuff). The real pro stuff – how to trade, manage money and pick winners; that is the only stuff I would be willing to pay for.
It’s too bad, but I was VERY impressed with his manner and extremely ready knowledge of the world economic system, but if you can turn that into nuts & bolts “how to do it” teaching, it’s not worth the money.
I don’t think Anton Kreil wrote a book, you may have been scammed there
Yeah, there’s books out there written by an ANTHONY Kreil, not ANTON kreil. They are NOT the same person. When you go looking for the picture of the author… no picture. It was cleary a scam that was being perpetrated on people who did not catch the difference in name and wondered to themselves…”hey, it’s not quite the right first name…I wonder if it IS the same person!”
Anybody have opinions on his Forex Course?
london academy of trading currently doing it now full time for three months at the end you gain a level 5 diploma in applied financial trading teach you technical analysis then assist you on how to build a trading plan. £8000.00 expensive but you can do a blended version online and class room base for £4k overprice for what they teach but you got to start somewhere but it does seem polar opposites from seems to be saying
The Forex course is basically a comprehensive course in macro economics with the focus on Forex. It covers the basics well. It is quite maths intensive but Kreil makes some complex ideas accessible for someone with modest maths skills and the willingness to put in a fair bit of work with Excel spread sheets. This is good for those of us who don’t have PhD’s in mathematics. Both the Forex and Trading Masterclass courses seem to cover similar ground in as much as they are both based on global macro concepts. in my view Kreil knows his stuff and is a good and patient teacher. He is inclined to repeat himself a fair bit but this may not be a bad thing. The course is not cheap but then neither is losing money in the markets.
I have a question. Can Anton Kreil produce documents to support his claims ? That is documents detailing transactions he has made with his own funds, in his own accounts, detailing profits, losses, number of contracts and so on.
If he refuses to do so, I will take the view that he is a modern day snake oil salesman.
Hi Maddy,
Do you have access to Bloomberg Terminal? If so, you can just search his name and you will see his resume. It is not something we can edit, this is internally from Bloomberg.
The point is, he is an insider and I rather take a training from him than Jason Picks, Warrior Trader, Penny Stock Guru, etc.
During his training, he will not tell you what to buy, how to setup the candlestick charts, how to become millionaire and all the crap that we see in other Wizard Traders.
Anyway, if you are really serious to take control of your financial life, I do recommend Anton’s PTM course. Trust me, you will enjoy every lesson. It’s not easy, but if you follow along and repeat the lesson you will get it and the way you see the market will change drastically. Trust me on that!!
I agree Anton has studied economics but his course seems quite basic on the economic theory and some good macro economic books/courses are available free online. The course may be ok for an investor.Having worked for an investment bank the trading methods used are different from those that could be deployed by a retail trader with the possible exception of those with account balance is in the millions. There are a lot of books to read written by professional traders and that may be a better first call. If the trainee’s trading records were published I would be less sceptical.
How do you get access to Bloomberg terminal?
by paying 22k hahah
Are you living on the same planet?
If you asked an average guy to give you all these details, probably he will punch you in the face.
It illegal to pretend that you’re doing something successfully, and he has been teaching for years with no issues.
I’m not defending him and I can say his trading style is completely different than mine, but please stop judging other people without any evidence proving your point.
“Your only evidence is that he is not showing his bank statements, cmon man “
I have purchased and watched his Forex course multiple times, as it took a quite a long time to absorb all the information. However, it was only after months of learning everything on the course did I realise it wasn’t possible to replicate his analysis on other Currencies. He goes in detail on how to analyse the USD, specifically by predicting GDP with numerous “economic indicators”.
The reason it wasn’t possible to replicate the process with other currencies is because on his excel charts, he correlates the economic indicator to the GDP by drawing a line from “left to right” (left vertical axis being the economic indicator and the right being the GDP reading”), however the GDP scale is different in every case.
His assertion that an economic indicator reading is correlated to a certain GDP level appears to be arbitrary.
To my knowledge the only way to correlate two data series is by using some form of regression analysis which I am not capable of doing. Using the Excel’s correlation coefficient also shows on almost all occasions close to zero correlation.
If anyone has any comments or suggestions regarding my experience it would be appreciated.
Sean, i came across the same issue. the scaling of the separate indicators seem arbitrary. He dosnt explain particularly clearly how to produce the scorecards and it seems that they are all produce differently.
However I think you can overcome the problem with the Descriptive Statics on excel and using averages for normal data.
If this helps let me know
cheers Ian
The scorecard concept in the forex class is very confusing. He uses USD and AUD as examples because they are the easiest. My advice is to completely drop the scorecard concept. You’re better off using tradingeconomics to develop your own excel sheets to track comparable economic data between countries. PMI, NMI, Consumer Confidence for leading. Inflation, employment rate for lagging. m3, cash rates for central bank reaction. The leading predicts the lagging which predicts the central bank moves which moves the currency. That’s all you have to grasp.
Hi, i understand why you confused about why those indicators doesnt have a positive correlation with GDP growth. Its simply because these indicators are predictive/leading indicator to GDP growth in the next 6M to 12M, if only u swifted the timeline (but i guess still will not apply perfectly correlated at all time). My point is those indicators/reports help you better capture the “flow” of what coming next. By just having a predictive move u are ahead and stand out from other traders who are “reactive/lagging” to the market. Just my 1 cent.
I have taken Anton course, it has some good points but if you have read a few books from profestional traders you will already have come across most of the information. He tries to trade on fundamentals which can be very subjective so may not be for everyone. There are multiple souces for information so if you do your homework , having said that you may pick up some tips if you are a longer term trader.
Would you mind pointing to some of those professional traiding books?
Hi,
Just wondering what trading platform does Anton and the Institute in general use to execute their trades?
Rgds, D
How much capital do I need to have to be able to to apply the strategies in the PTM course? any idea?
Anton suggests a minimum start of $15k
do not purchase any courses from the ITPM I purchased the professional trading Master course from this company when they were trading as Instutrade as a legacy member with Life time access.
They have since closed the server and despite sending several emails they failed to respond they also blocked me from their Twitter account when I started bring this issue to the wider world. Avoid Anton Kriel and the ITPM
Good day!
I am planning to purchase the PTM course at this moment but I am thinking if I can apply this to my country Philippines.
Can the PTM course help me to trade the Philippine stock market only?
Please someone let me know.
Thank you!
Yes his course will teach you to trade any asset class anywhere in the world..
as long as you can get data about the stock or index you want to buy ..then you can do some proper evaluation.
Have been with ITPM and all I can say is the content is great.
HOWEVER, Anton makes a few exaggerations ;
1) He claims that Alin will intervene when things go wrong..etc
This will NOT HAPPEN. IF you lose money, no one will phone you or email you or try and help you. So FORGET IT.
2) Is mentoring worth it ?
Price are Remote mentoring is $16K. Thailand is $25-$35K. It is overpriced. After those 12 weeks, you’re by yourself. Just remember that.
Overall, it is good but don’t feel you’re protected because you’re not. The courses in isolation is NOT enough to trade. You need much more.
Just remember, he was a “sales” trader.
They don’t really “care” about you once you’ve done the course. Its a money extraction model.
I think the whole “Institute Trader” thing is a marketing ploy. If you apply for it you likely won’t hear anything back. 15-16k is a lot for a mentorship especially for people who only have 25-50k in their accounts. You’re paying over $1200 per call at that point. If you do signup don’t expect to hear anything after that either. The original PTM class has a ton of gaps but he’s coming out with his “2.0” version that is going to fill those in. In the meantime I advise people to check out Gregoire Dupont’s class.
Do you think Anton is comparable with this great concept he share
he doesnt list his prices.. because the prices are crazy expensive.
he holds classes in beautiful locations around the world on your DIME.
he enjoys a luxury holiday in 5 star resorts and then tells you some information.. like anthony robbins etc..
but there are rich people around the world who can afford it and want a vacation and want someone to tell them things..
there are “courses” in all life problems from retreats, drug abuse clinics, spiritual awakening, etc etc all over the world for expensive prices which benefit the owner.. its a BUSINESS!!!
if these mentors and Anton were extremely successful traders making millions of dollars do you think they would be teaching??
this is a good business for them all.. yes they teach things..
of course they have to offer something..
my advice is this.. look back at their videos from 4 or 5 years ago see what they said on future predictions and see how right they were..
never heard anton say BUY CRYPTO!!! guess he missed that boat..
the mentors have experience .. this is true..
but is it worth to pay them what they are asking?
NO.. I dont know their prices.. but someone was saying its 20K or 30K for a course to thailand.. and 3000K for the videos.. not sure on the mentoring..
jesus, just go to wallstreet or the pub in the financial district and hang around the pubs and buy some drinks for traders and ask them questions.. alot cheaper..
he has explained everything you need to know in his videos you dont need his course he tells you 80% fundamentals and not buy a stock for its technicals only and never lump all in on one stock.
as for micro economics youtube has millions of people who do it for free