For those who are unfamiliar with the product, the Trade Tech Market Analyser is a black box share trading package. It provides automatic buy and sell signals that, they claim, will enable users to make spectacular profits trading the stock market.

The vendors of the product advertise their "free beginner trading seminars" widely in the newspapers and radio, attracting complete beginners that have no idea of what the evening holds in store.

The seminars are of course a sales presentation for the product. While absolutely no generic trading information is given at all, they do expand somewhat on their software package with all of its proprietary indicators. Once you attend their seminar, their telemarketers call you for several more weeks, always insisting that the package works extremely well and is highly profitable. I had this experience myself after I attended their seminar and found them to be quite persistent.

The package includes software, training and a data source to update your database of stock prices. Trade Tech does not force anyone to use their aligned stock broker, but of course they are encouraged to, however users should know that the software only works with Trade Tech's own data suppliers, one of the more expensive data vendors, and will not work on any of the free stock data available from the Internet. The price of Trade Tech's package is breathtaking, well over $10,000, however as they put it this ought to be considered a small cost when you think of share trading as a business, and the software to be your startup costs.

Of course Trade Tech isn't the only product on the market, there are much more sophisticated rival packages available for a fraction of the price, some even available for free. While they do seem like bargains in comparison, Trade Tech does point out that their own software comes with unlimited training and support for users, hopefully helping keep their clients profitable. Would-be traders should know that the majority of software available out there costs just a couple of hundred dollars, the most expensive packages go for about one thousand. Anyone contemplating spending more than $1,000AUS on trading software should probably read a few trading books first to check that they aren't being ripped off.

If you are interested in trading software, the Australian Technical Analysts Association has a very good article on precisely that subject, not to mention the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which also have very interesting articles about this kind of thing. While we are on the subject there is a very good book on black box programs

While I am not too sure about Trade Tech's marketing practices, I have met a number of Trade Tech clients, while none that I have met have been particularly happy with their purchase, nevertheless apparently there are many satisfied clients and they pop up in aus.invest from time to time with their Hotmail email addresses and anonymous mail redirection services to chip in their own testimonials regarding the quality of this product.

Many of these Hotmailing users claim to have made back the purchase cost of the Market Analyser within only months and are now showing phenomenal profits. I wish them luck in their ventures, and look forward to seeing their exploits detailed in some of the excellent web sites that chronicle the successes of investment's greats.

Shares magazine and the Australian Financial Review have both looked at the Market Analyser, and while the reviews were singularly awful, some of the worst criticism ever levelled at a trading package, possibly the software does have one redeeming feature. Sooner or later, I am sure that a keen aus.invest reader, one who doesn't have an anonymous email address, will point this feature out. Buggered if I know what it is.

I personally have no further quarrel with Trade Tech, I think it is great that they offer their product in this way. If the product is half as good as they say it is then no doubt they could fetch an enormous amount of money selling it to a hedge fund or other money manager, but being such champions of the working class they share their technology with struggling middle class Australians. These people have mortgages and children, often already struggling financially. Clearly such people could ill afford losses accrued from short term stock trading, but with the much vaunted training that Trade Tech's clients receive it won't take them long at all to figure out how the industry works.

I apologise to Trade Tech for comments made in this web site and in the newsgroup aus.invest, clearly such comments must have had an impact on their business, and hence I will refrain from saying anything further about this organisation. I have removed all references to Trade Tech from this web site, apart from one article in the trading FAQ where I have quoted a reviewer's remarks about their product, I am sure this will be acceptable to them as the other reference is merely a product review, and is perfectly factual.

Travis Morien
12 September, 2001