College courses for forex

I have a degree in finance and during my stay in school I had one 45 hours class focusing solely on technical analysis. Higher education institutions are usually reluctant to offer courses related to speculation and TA because it is believed by many academics that this kind of activity is not contributing to the collective wealth of society and also because TA's efficiency is yet to be proven in a scientific manner (as if finance as a whole was an exact science...).

During those 45 hours we spent most of our time studying the different tools used for TA and the math behind those said tools. So basically we learned how to draw fibos, trendlines and patterns (H&S, flags, triangles, waves etc.), we were taught how the main indis work (RSI, stoch, CCI etc.), we also looked over the implications related to changing volume and open interest and how to interpret candle patterns. The core of the class was revolving around trying to figure out if a tradable security that is chartable was over or undervalued and by how much. What was sorely miss was the money management aspect... The teacher only spent 15 minutes at the most talking about MM basically stating that you should always cut the losers and let the winners run... We did have a demo contest and it was hell especially without any sound knowledge of MM because it was during the debt ceiling circus act in the US combined with the greek crisis in the EU and we were limited to trade stocks in the S&P500 and S&P TSX60. You would see the S&P going 4% up and retracing all the way the next day and we could not trade the vix...

Anyway, anything we learned you could find in John J. Murphy book about TA... So unless you know that the teacher giving the class as loads of experience in the field of speculation it is not really worth the effort but that was just my own personal experience. However there was a trading club with students actively trading live with their hard earned money and teachers more than willing to share their knowledge. There was also a mutual fund run by business students where other students of the faculty would deposit their own money in the hope of making a profit. At one point I think we had 100K under management. Granted it was not trading but more investing but it sure was a great experience and it helped everyone involved in it to have a greater feel for the state of the market in general. I think any bussiness faculty should have the a fund run by students and a trading club. The trading club is easy to set up but the fund is a little more complex to get started due to regulations and laws but still very doable.

What courses? I would like to know more.

Universities will never teach courses like this. The education system is a business and it is in their interest to continue to profit when people believe they'll make money getting a diploma or degree. The market doesn't care if you have a PhD, or a GED . It treats every trader the same and the only reality that matters a the end of the day is how much money is in that trading account.


The only use I had for my Computer Science degree is the math/logic theory. Learning new methods and concepts weren't a struggle and took less time.

A mentor is a far better road to take in learning. Your only challenge will be weeding out the fakes and crooks, vs the real and profitable mentors/gurus

Besides, why would you listen to some professor teach you about trading? He's probably broke and an ex-hippie

Even if someone wants to be a mentor to a newbie, the mentor wouldn't want to provide every little detail. In my opinion, if I'm looking for a mentor, I wouldn't expect my mentor to provide guidance and answers to questions, but not spend so much time teaching the basics. The newbie would have to do his/her own homework and learn the basics himself/herself first. I think best place to start with the basic is BabyPips. Not only it has university courses, but also elementary, middle, and high school courses.

yes, very true. There are some disciplines like in sports where the coach can make all the difference in the world, and even if that coach/mentor taught their student everything they know, the student would never attain that level of expertise.

With the right mentor in trading, you'll get back the work you put in. Forex is the best market to learn money management and technical analysis . That being said, it will easily be the toughest market to be consistently profitable. For the first few years, I had some nice gains, but at the end of the year, I was just a little above break even.

I tihnk i first got on ForexFactory in the mid 2000's so I very much appreciate the few things I learned. There are some golden nuggets of information out there. Just takes effort to find it.

Hi. when i started trading three years back. i also searched for Uni courses. With experience in this time one can realise, why the Universities are not offering these type of course. But there are many other courses which you can do and for that you need a solid Technical Analysis. like CMT Exam. I bought two books, when i started trading named: Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets by John J. Murphy and one very good book about TA and for CMT Exam is : Technical Analysis. the Complete resource for financial market technicians. by Charles D. Kirkpatrick II and Julie R. Dahalquist. I watched many forex trading courses and i realized that from these courses i found traces from these books. But at the end you have to pick only few things to implement in trading. because you can not focus on 100 of things which are discussed in book or which every other trading system take differently.