• APPENDIX D •
IBD Workshops
I sat down with some of IBD’s education experts and talked about the workshops that are offered throughout the United States.
Ralph Perrini is a National Speaker for IBD and Vice President of Sales. Jonathan Howard is Vice President of Education and in charge of IBD’s paid workshops. Justin Nielsen is a National Speaker and works on special projects with Bill O’Neil. All three travel throughout the U.S. teaching the CAN SLIM Investing System.
Amy: Describe IBD’s workshops and why the different levels were created.
Ralph: The biggest impediment that most investors face is a lack of understanding how the market works. That’s why we’ve constructed four core workshops. The Level 1 workshop helps investors new to the CAN SLIM System learn how to interpret the market, buy stocks at the right time and sell to protect profits. It’s primarily for investors who are new to CAN SLIM Investing. Our first goal was to dispel a lot of myths about investing such as buy low, sell high, or buying stocks with a low P/E. Our primary theme in the workshop is to help investors buy stocks with great fundamentals coming out of a sound base pattern. We teach investors to buy on strength with a stock that has already proven itself. We help investors learn a fact based system founded on decades of research gleaned from studies of the best performing stocks from the 1880s to the present day.
Justin: The Level 2 workshop which I teach with Scott O’Neil shows investors how to spot market tops and bottoms, how to read charts more accurately and profitably, and screening techniques to identify emerging winners.
Jonathan: The Level 3 workshop was designed to teach investors what to do between the initial buy and the final sell. We teach advanced holding and selling strategies, the intricacies of portfolio management, and the importance of post analysis. Finally, the speakers will put all the pieces together in a unique trading simulation, applying the CAN SLIM System in a real-market environment.
Ralph: And the Masters Program or the Level 4 features Bill O’Neil, IBD’s founder, and includes sessions with O’Neil Data Systems portfolio managers. We bring together the best financial minds to provide two days of intense, comprehensive training that can turn attendees into successful investors for the rest of their lives.
Justin: In addition to those workshops, we have three other workshops that are subject-specific such as Chart School, Marketschool, and the Model Stock Summit.
Jonathan: All of the workshops are designed to help investors reach a higher level of investing. However, we realized that some people, due to job commitments or travel considerations, can’t attend some of the workshops, so many of these great learning moments are available in the Home Study Courses.
Ralph: We started this series of workshops in 2004 and have been able to help countless investors who have taken the courses.
Amy: Why do you think so many people have had success after attending these workshops?
Justin: The vast majority of the investing public doesn’t follow an investing system. They purchase stocks solely based on gut feelings or poor advice and that is where we’re unique at IBD because we get into the facts behind why stocks move up and why they eventually falter and turn down. Investors walk away with a clear understanding of what to look for in potential leaders.
Jonathan: Through the years, we’ve heard horror stories of people losing much of their life savings because they don’t have a system that they follow, or they’ve received poor professional advice. The aim of our workshop series is to give investors a proven system with sound rules that will provide the tools necessary to make money when the market is in an uptrend, and more importantly, protect their capital in a downtrend. We want our investors to leave the workshops feeling confident and prepared to handle whatever the market throws at them.
Ralph: Another impediment to investing are emotions, most people invest from an emotional point of view. When they take a position in a stock and it begins to go down in value, they typically rationalize why it will come back. So at IBD’s workshops, we give you some specific rules that will help take the emotions out of it. We’ve found in our many years of teaching workshops that thousands and thousands of investors now feel much more secure with their finances and with their retirement because we’ve had a dramatic impact in helping them improve their investing returns.
Invest when the market is in a confirmed uptrend. Most stocks follow the overall market trend so it’s important to invest when the market and leading stocks are moving higher.