One of the most popular trading rooms on the internet is Investors Underground with 800-1000 members (as of 2017) and several moderators which include some well-known traders such as Tim Grittani. I initially tried it because their DVDs had one of the highest ratings on investimonials.
Based on my own experience as well as anecdotal evidence from around the web, I estimate that at least 50% of the trading rooms and alert services out there are run by people who actually don’t know how to make money trading. Click here for my article on how to avoid scammy trading rooms. One way to determine if a trader is legit is to see if they have a profile on profit.ly, which is a service that connects to traders’ brokerage accounts to verify their trades and calculate statistics. There are at least a couple IU moderators that profit.ly shows to be quite profitable, including OzarkTrades and kroyrunner (Tim Grittani) who both have more than $2 mil in profits as of the writing of this article. The guy that started Investors Underground is Nathan Michaud (a good ChatWithTraders interview is here).
Investors Underground has a daytrading chatroom and a swing trading chatroom. In the past they did not have screen sharing, but this may have changed recently.
The IU traders mostly trade high volume momentum stocks. Multiple watchlists are posted every evening along with a simple trade plan on how to trade the stocks on the watchlist. During the day, many traders will be watching the stocks on the watchlists and comment on what they notice or when they are getting in or out. It should be noted there are not specific alerts in the form of ‘Buy XYZ at $45 with a stop at $40). If you are just looking for an alert service you will be happier somewhere else. I’m also skeptical 1000 people can daytrade the same alerts if they are all trying to get in at the exact same price and have the same stops and targets. But I do think a couple hundred traders can trade similar ideas on liquid stocks if their entries and exits aren’t exactly the same. If you want to learn to trade on your own with some guidance from professional traders then you may enjoy this chatroom.
The chatroom can also be a good source of news and a good place to hear about the hot stocks that are really moving even though they may not have been on the watchlist.
In my experience, many of the traders in the chatroom are very helpful, even the ones that aren’t moderators. A lot of the value of this room comes from the community, but you have to take some initiative to reach out and ask people questions. The IU trading room makes that easy to do by allowing you to private message any other user.
There are also frequent webinars for members on various topics (which are posted to the website so you can watch them later if you miss them), and there are also video recaps where they go over some of the trades during the day. Some members seem to really like the recaps, but I thought the quality varied and Nate could sometimes be better at explaining WHY he got in or out at a given price. You can see an example video recap here.
investors underground video recap
Another minor negative for me was all the unusual lingo Nate Michaud (the site owner whose username is InvestorsLive) uses. There is a dictionary page that defines some IU terms, but there were still some expressions that it took me awhile to figure out. For instance, what is a ‘stuff move’? I’ve never heard any other trader use that term.
I should mention something about their methodology. Basically the moderators look at the daily charts to find stocks with good context for the patterns they trade. Then they look for basic patterns on the lower timeframes close to support and resistance areas. I think this is a valid approach to trading that works, and is also relatively easy to learn because you just need to know what common patterns to look for while watching the stocks on the watchlist.
If you’re really serious about trying this service they offer a value bundle that includes a 3 month IU elite membership and both of their Trading DVDs, which is significantly cheaper than getting all three separately. I would recommend at least buying Textbook Trading if you want to try the chatroom. That course goes over the main patterns they trade including several example trades, and without that I imagine most people would be fairly confused in the trading room. To get a better idea of the content in Textbook Trading you can read this IU blog post that goes over some of the concepts contained in the DVD or read our course review.
If you are interested in the service but aren’t ready the buy a membership, I would recommend watching their free video lessons to get more of a feel for their philosophy and methodology. You can do that by going to their blog and you’ll see a box on the right to sign up for free video lessons, or you can see all 8 videos from the beginner trader course here.
Overall, I have had a good experience using this chatroom, and I think it’s a good service for those who who want to learn how to trade stocks.
Pros
- Great community. Lots of helpful professional traders
- Reasonable monthly cost with annual membership
- Good daily scans
- Nice chatroom interface with features such as the ability to only see the comments on a given stock.
- Good news updates
- Lots of additional resources including video recaps of the trading day (these are posted a couple times per week), and lots of webinars on a multitude of topics
- Daytrading and swing trading chat rooms
- Professional DVDs with hours of instruction help explain their methodology
- Methodology is easier to learn than many others I’ve tried
Cons
- No free trial
- Lots of unusual trader jargon
- Amount of information in chatroom can be overwhelming at first
- Probably need to buy Textbook Trading course to have a good understanding of the methodology (see our course review)