Table of Contents
2020 has been a tough year and no person has remained unscathed (in our professional and personal lives), even for stock traders and investors. Just because there’s a positive performance in stocks doesn’t always mean economic stability.
Still, in the midst of a pandemic, I see hope that the economy will continue to recover. Some markets even powered higher, like remote working tools, electronic transfers, logistics, entertainment, and e-learning.
And speaking of e-learning, there’s an investing and trading education marketplace that I want to highlight in today’s post. It’s the Investopedia Academy targeted for beginner traders.
So, if you’re interested to know more about the quality of education or course you get from Investopedia Academy, about the depth of the topics it provides, and its teaching style, then I got you covered. Hopefully, this Investopedia Academy review will help you think critically to make a smart decision.
Let’s dive in.
What Exactly is Investopedia Academy?
Investopedia Academy is one of the most well-known trading education platforms for beginner traders. It offers various courses, including personal finance, cryptocurrency, Excel, investing, and trading (under the finance courses). I’ll discuss in-depth later each of these courses.
The Investopedia Academy platform itself is a spin-off of the Investopedia.com financial website. If you ask me, I do find their information (and video lessons) reliable and good.
Their trading courses are designed in such a way that they will meet the needs of people who want to grow their financial skills and want to learn more about finance topics at a good value, and without having to formally enroll in a finance or business school.
They also offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. Courses are created by experts of their respective fields of the financial market. And to be able to access this information and archived webinars, all you have to do is register and pay the necessary fees.
If you want to know more about these Investopedia academy courses and whether or not they are truly worth it, keep on reading this in-depth Investopedia Academy review to find out.
Pricing Options
The pricing for Investopedia Academy online courses varies. It ranges from US $19.99 to $447 (one-time payment) for the bundled courses, such as Technical Analysis Bundle as well as the Options Bundle.
For experienced traders, there are also courses worth $199. Their courses allow them to use a more advanced technical analysis. There are also courses, wherein you can pay per topic.
Popular Trading Courses (as of 2021)
As of 2021, popular Investopedia academy courses includes the following:
- Become a Day Trader
Like other Investopedia academy courses, the Become a Day Trader course is one I find interesting because you get to learn the trade from an experienced Wall Street trader, David Green.
Who is David Green, you may ask? Well, he is a Wall Street trader and former market maker with more than 30 years of experience in the industry of day traders. So, I think his lessons are worth a shot.
As Investopedia Academy details on its website, Green oversaw trading in some of the biggest publicly listed companies at the NYSE, including Bank of America, Best Buy, and IBM. These are big names. It’s no surprise why his curriculum ( Become a Day Trader) is one of the sought-after among other financial courses in the academy.
- Technical Analysis
In the Investopedia trading school (online), you’ll also learn about technical analysis, from basic to advanced. This means you’ll have the opportunity to improve your chart reading skills (very important for proper risk management).
Although with a myriad of resources online, I think you can skip this class (just my personal opinion) and learn from free sources about stock picking and how to reach a stock chart.
Nevertheless, should you decide to go for this course, you will most likely learn from the experts themselves. At the very least, they can also guide you one-on-one or as a group.
One expert from the Investopedia trading courses is JC Parets, known also as a Chartered Market Technician and one of the most followed technical analysts worldwide.
In fact, this analysis has been regularly featured on Fox Business, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNBC, and ABC. So, it would be useful to learn from him through the course.
- Options for Beginners
Then, Options for Beginners is where you can learn options trading. This is a self-paced class. There are lessons about how to increase the consistency of returns and other tips about investing for beginners.
- Crypto Trading
Priced at $199, the Crypto Trading course capitalizes on the volatile crypto market. You can learn trading strategies from experts as well and apply what you learn to commodities, tokens, and cryptocurrencies.
In this curriculum, you will most likely meet an Investopedia Academy instructor named Ian King.
Ian King is an accomplished entrepreneur in his own right and a known trader with more than two decades of experience in the financial markets. He also founded the Intellicoins (INT) cryptocurrency. It is also where he teaches investors to navigate into the cryptocurrency market.
He started his Wall Street career at Salomon Brothers as a desk clerk (Mortgage Bond trading desk) and later joined Citigroup’s Credit Derivative trading.
- Advanced Technical Analysis
Technical analysis involves studying historical market data, including volume and price. As for this Investopedia course, it’s where you learn how to use trend trading or use trends like a professional trader with the use of chart analysis and advanced technical indicators.
- Advanced Options Trading
If you’re interested in the Options Trading Course, then the Advanced Options Trading curriculum might be what you are looking for. Not that I’m saying it’s good, but here Investopedia promises you’ll learn how to leverage trades and begin options trading.
- Forex Trading for Beginners Course
Now, if Forex Exchange is what interests you more than other financial courses, then the Forex Trading for Beginners course is a good choice. Honestly, though, I think you can still learn the basics of currency trading for free online without having to enroll yourself in the Investopedia Academy.
If you enroll in this course, your instructor this 2021 will be John Jagerson, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Chartered Market Technician (CMT) holder.
- Binary Options Trading
And even if you are a beginner investor, you can also take advantage of the Binary Options Trading course. Investopedia, however, cautions you that this market can be risky.
But to help you manage the risk based on the technical indicators, this is the promise of the course. Still, you are to pay $199. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather learn this for free through videos and guides online. Although if you don’t mind paying for the Investopedia course and you think it’s worth learning, then do so.
- Penny Stocks Trading
Investopedia Academy also offers the Penny Stocks Trading course. Among the list of finance courses, this one gives you the basics of penny stocks trading. Aside from an introduction to penny stocks, you will also learn how to select penny stocks that you can buy.
- Trading for Beginners
To become an active day trader, you have to learn the basics first and create your own trading system (or follow the rules adopted by other professional traders if you think they’re effective for returns).
Unlike other trading courses from Investopedia that are more advanced, this one I don’t think is worth the value of money.
- Algorithmic Trading for Beginners
Then, there is also Algorithmic Trading for Beginners. In this course, you will learn tips of trading and investing for beginners, such as what are the mechanics and theory behind algorithmic trading and how will you be able to create a trading algorithm.
What is the Best Day Trading Course?
Out of the 11 finance courses that the Investopedia Academy provides, which of these is the best day trading course?
If you’re just starting out in your day trading career, then the best choice would be the Become a Day Trader or the Trading for Beginners. In these packages, you can acquire basic professional trading skills, learn to create trading plans, and know the type of financial markets as well as their characteristics.
If you think your trading skill is mid-level, then go for the Technical Analysis course because you will be exposed to more technical learning of price analysis, chart reading, past trends evaluation, and interpretation.
Yet, if you believe you are already familiar with the basics of technical trading, then choose the Advanced Technical Analysis offered by the Investopedia Academy.
One of the longest courses with about 70 lessons as of now is their Cryptocurrency Trading.
- Personal Finance for Grads (Bundle)
This bundle contains all seven personal courses and each is paid $19.99. These courses include:
- Bank on Your Budget (customized budget)
- Invest in Your Future (where you will learn about smart retirement portfolio)
- Increase Your Earning Power (how you can effectively leverage and identify your side hustle)
- Tackle Your Debt
- Three C’s of Credit (talks about the world of credit scores and credit reports)
- Power Up Your Savings (where you can develop a personalized savings plan based on your income, debt, and expenses)
- Plan for Large Purchases (how you can make affordable large purchases without leaving you deep in debt).
Is the Investopedia simulator good?
Stock market simulators are a fun way to be familiar with investing and trading without risking your hard-earned money. But is the Investopedia Academy good?
Yes and no. Yes, because it’s easy to use and you are given $100,000 pretend money (virtual cash) to begin the game. Investopedia says you can “play your way to profits” and true enough, you can use real market data but trade in the context of a game.
But I also say no, because the simulator platform has not been updated and their Stock Research module needs to be more comprehensive. If they could update it, it would be better.
Click here to try Investopedia Academy’s simulator!
Feedback From Others
A Reddit user asked in one thread that he or she got the Investopedia Academy courses “for just over a hundred dollars, but didn’t know if they are worth the money.” He/she then ask people’s opinions about the courses.
To which, one answered, “It probably won’t give you a bad education, but you’d be better off spending that money on books or a library card(free and reading instead. It worked wonders for me.”
Another commented on the same thread about Investopedia Academy, “There’s nothing wrong with either using Google or heading to your neighborhood library. I haven’t paid for any investing knowledge yet and I plan on keeping it that way.”
YouTube
Edgar Gabriel did a live registration of the Investopedia Academy and said, I cannot show these videos to you as they are copyrighted… There are resources and notes, depending on where I’m at in the process.” She also replied to a comment in her video, saying “but yes definitely [a] beginners course.”
What Investopedia students are saying
“I love the way Investopedia designed their courses. The Academy allows me to have complete on-demand access to each course I purchase. Investopedia Academy was perfect in that it allowed me to take the courses at my own pace and I could rewatch any lessons I wanted.”
“I am really enjoying the Technical Analysis course. They have a great professor that is simple and easy to understand, especially for a beginner like me!”
Pros
- Instructors are experts in their fields
- Content is created by these respected instructors themselves
- Money-back guarantee (30-day policy)
- A diverse library of investing and trading courses, including Cryptos and Forex
- Live Investopedia webinars (scheduled) and access to free archived webinars
- No upselling
- With interactive tests and quizzes
- Interactive content, such as exercises and stock simulators
Cons
- Education may be too basic for experienced traders
- Costly bundled courses
Conclusion: Would I Recommend Investopedia Academy?
Investopedia Academy is a good starting point if you want to be familiar with the basic trading language. It is legitimate, backed up by financial experts, and it gives you a good amount of information to start your business and financial journey on the right foot.
Whether you are a beginner or an experienced swing trader, I believe there’s something to learn about investments, financing, and trading on the platform. But with so many platforms that offer free financial and investing courses (like Ameritrade), I don’t think Investopedia Academy is something I would recommend.
