Trading groups uncovered - part 1 - the big boys

In an effort to improve my portfolio management skills I have embarked on a year long journey through numerous trading groups. I would like to share some of my findings and conclusions based on what I've witnessed, and some things that might not be so obvious from the outside.

Due to my own time constraints I've decided to make this a 3 part story

Part 1 - The big boys

Part 2 - The wannabe big boys

Part 3 - Focusing on yourself

Disclaimer - These are all my own impressions and conclusions which can be 100% wrong. Also I will not be naming any group or person for obvious reasons.

Part 1 - The big boys

These are mostly well organized groups which all have some sort of a study material, regular live updates and signals.

Study material is mostly fine, and probably the best thing in these groups. However most of the material you can find scattered over the internet explained in much more detail. The main advantage is that it is all in one place and well-organized in most groups.

The big issue with the education part in some of the groups is the censorship. In a well known group you can get banned (yes, banned even if you paid your monthly fee) if you mention certain concepts or keywords, something like orderblocks, liquidity raid etc... god forbid you mention other group or person that has free study material on YT.

Daily updates

These are valuable in the start, but as you learn the TA yourself, they just become redundant.

What's especially irritating is the guys would often, as they should ofc put numerous lines across the chart.

After the price action played out, they would delete all the lines except the ones that were hit and go... IMMACULATE PRECISSION LOOK AT THAT.

Signals

Signals are okay in the sense that they are generally in a good direction, however for a beginer that has no idea how to size their position they are suicide, and this is not pointed enough.

How much these guys earn?

Some of the well known groups have THOUSANDS of members each paying often more than $200 per month. Some of these guys really do make money trading, but the core of their income is the trading group itself and all the marketing around it.

Add referral links, collaborations, trading competitions etc... all constructed so that people would trade more and more so they could literally farm their trading fees.

Big trading competitions

These are organized solely to milk out the trading fees from the retail. Big trading groups cooperate with exchanges to make a quick buck.

Winning in these competitions requires almost no trading knowledge. It in fact requires a simple knowledge of combinatorics. The winner is the group with top 3-10 traders with the best PnL over the certain period of time.

Some of the PnLs you see on top of the leaderboard are straight up ridiculous with sometimes even more than 2000% over a week or so.

How do they do this...

In order to get this huge PnL you need to risk big. The money is distributed among hundreds of accounts, there are exact calculations how many accounts you need for certain PnL.

The concept is the following:

Say you make 1024 accs. At a certain point half accs go, say, 10x long the other half goes 10x short. Half lose, you are left with 512 accs that have doubled their account. Of those 512 once again at a certain price half goes max long, half goes max short. You get 256 accs that have quadrupled their PnL.. and you go on and on until you get 1 or two accounts with ridiculous PnL and all others completely wiped out.

The winner, a group with the deepest pockets and best organizational skills.

Some are even actively trying to program bots for these competitions specifically.

What do they get from this?

A hell of a promotion. Being no 1 in the world trading competition is a huge bait for retail and a source of infinite promotion for months, even years.

Bonus section - LARPERS

I stumbled upon this thing very recently and haven't had an honor of getting into this person's trading group. But would definitely love to xD

What I've seen so far is that the group is more like a cult, so much so that all of their students have THE EXACT SAME TradingView theme and color coding.

Here's the absolute gem of a quote for the end:

... "You guys have to realize, I don't get to make money on my science (their TA xD), it's rare that I get to trade. So when you guys see me call these perfect levels I maybe get 1 in 30... my schedule is morning to night work... and it's all to build this community. I don't make any money on these levels, but I do it for the greater good... And the second I started trading I simply wouldn't be here. If I was to do it seriously I would make 7 figures a month... There's too much stress, hassle, lost sleep with content creation.. but I do it because I have a big heart"...

Minutes later they continue to shill their patreon, paid content and referral links :)

To be continued...