ClayTrader Review
Is ClayTrader scam or not? In Summer 2019, Clay completely redesigned his website and services. This ClayTrader review reflects new facts regarding pricing and products.
Besides this, you will learn more about my personal opinion of the platform and how it does compare to other day trading course providers. Let’s begin with the people behind this brand.
Who is ClayTrader?
Clay Trader presents himself as a down-to-earth guy next door to whom his family and friends mean a lot more than a fancy car, millions of dollars, and the so-called Wall Street Lifestyle.
Clay offers education and a chat room service to technical traders. Despite being a paid service, the platform makes use of its social media platforms to share useful trading tips to its community of followers. Clay’s trading journey started selling mutual funds in 2005, leading to a thriving career in day trading. As he likes to tell his initial trading journey, he began as an emotional trader, which mostly ended up in him losing money.
Today, he believes he trades strategically, relying on facts and figures from his technical analysis methods and past experiences. ClayTrader was founded in 2013, and he is an active contributor on investorshub. Other than that, its records get a bit fuzzy, as you’ll notice by the end of this review.
Products | Services | Costs
ClayTrader Inner Circle
The Inner Circle is ClayTrader’s base product. In its simplest, the concept behind it advocates for surrounding yourself with the best for you to become the best. The Inner Circle grants you instant access to ClayTrader’s platform at an annual or quarterly fee. The product also grants you access to live chats, watchlists, trade ideas, a Newsletter, and more.
Here are the ClayTrader Inner Circle benefits for subscribers in detail:
ClayTrader Chat Room
This is the core part of the platform’s community, and it allows members to exchange information in real-time. Three live chat rooms are available.
This is also the channel through which Clay and his team share daily trading alerts and other critical components of the trades. The live chatroom is exclusive to the Inner Circle and the Trading Freedom Pathway members.
Power Profit Scans
This exclusive feature of the Inner Circle grants members access to Clay’s personal watchlists and scans provided via a weekly newsletter.
Networking
The Inner Circle members have a chance to mingle and build lasting relationships with fellow traders, and a mobile app is also available.
Inner Circle Costs
To be a member of the Inner Circle, you’ll be required to part with $99 per quarter or $297 for one year. Here is a screenshot from ClayTrader’s website:
Right now, you can reach the Inner Circle page by using the main navigation “Private Community.” The ClayTrader Inner Circle comes along with fair pricing. $99 for a three months access sounds reasonable for those looking to interact with other traders mainly.
I always recommend staying away from interaction with other traders while trading because it’s completely distracting, and you won’t behaviorally learn anything.
But if you are looking for a network of traders, then you might enjoy the Inner Circle. And if you compare the price to Nathan Michaud’s Investors Underground, then ClayTrader is a bargain.
I am not sure if those three live chatrooms include real-time streaming of Clay’s trading account.
It’s hard to tell from the outside, and my interpretation of his explainer video is that he only posts trades. It seems that he does not trade all those alerts himself, and it appears that he does not stream his trading account. If you know it better, feel free to contact me and let me know more details.
Why is this so important? It’s important because it adds to trust. Look, other traders shares their desk all day long. You see them winning and occasionally loosing. That’s real-life of a trader.
IMO, the ClayTrader Inner Circle is for traders who are looking for networking. But in my experience, it is impossible to come up with a consistent strategy by listening to hundreds of other people.
ClayTrader Trading Freedom Pathway
The ClayTrader Trading Freedom Pathway is the new premium service at claytrader.com. It seems that the old ClayTrader video library is now part of this package. But let’s talk about the details. What is included in the Trading Freedom Pathway?
- ClayTrader University Lifetime Access
- ClayTrader’s Scanner Setting’s Guide
- Weekly Online Training With Clay (live)
- Personal Interaction with Clay
- Inner Circle Access
In the past, ClayTrader University alone had stood at $1,997. When surfing the web, you see that some people have termed this as the biggest ClayTrader rip-off, but still, some believe that the benefits mentioned above plus more are worth every penny.
Let us remain objective here. One thing is for sure, $1,997 was already a word, and one had to be sure that he can make back this investment when he pays this price. Now, the ClayTrader Trading Freedom Pathway is priced at $2,497 per year. Subscribers can also choose to pay $497 every 30 days, with 6 payments at $2,982 in total.
Things included in the Trading Freedom Pathway subscription:
ClayTrader University Lifetime Access: You get access for a lifetime to various video online classes. You can watch those videos whenever you want.
ClayTrader’s Scanner Setting’s Guide: Clay uses a market scanner and teaches you how to set up the scanner yourself.
Weekly Online Training With Clay (live): Clay likes to teach you the successful habit of traders during those live online trading events.
Personal Interaction with Clay: If you have any questions, you can send this question per email to Clay, and he will answer your question directly.
One Year Inner Circle Access: The Inner Cycle worth $297 per year is included in the ClayTrader Trading Freedom Pathway subscription.
ClayTrader at YouTube
Trading videos are a core part of the ClayTrader platform; they play a key role in keeping its community of users updated on the latest trends in day trading. One of the most common platforms for sharing video content is the official ClayTrader YouTube channel and its official website videos. On YouTube, the platform has a community of servers to the tune of 310,000 subscribers.
Proof of Performance
For this ClayTrader review, I searched for public account statements. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find any, and so, it is not easy to tell if ClayTrader is completely legit. He sometimes publishes screen records on YouTube, where you can see him making a trade.
But as we all know, the overall performance counts. Ross Cameron publishes his account statements on his website at Warrior Trading. Jason Bond shares his account with Jason Bond Picks subscribers. Nathan Bear even shares his entire trading account in real-time all day long at Weekly Money Multiplier.
And Clay? It would be great if he would also start publishing account statements or share his trading account with his subscribers in real-time. That would increase my rating tremendously.
Provider Checklist
To give you a birds-eye-view of the platform, I have prepared a quick checklist for you below:
- Founded:2013
- Company Address check:claytrader.com, PO BOX 141651, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49514, United States, support@claytrader.com
- Free trial:No
- Money back guarantee:Many limitations mentioned in the T&C
- Transparency:Not as transparent as other trading services
- Verified income statements:None
ClayTrader Review Summary
The brand new ClayTrader website looks excellent, and the navigation is easy. But, I honestly have a few concerns about ClayTrader products and services.
Intransparent Payment Terms: For a while, the payment term transparency improved. Before, even the lifetime-membership had some elements in it that resulted in a yearly auto-recurring payment. It is great to see that ClayTrader now fixed that. But there is is still the problem regarding the 6 payments for the Trading Freedom Pathway. I don’t understand why they don’t mention something like “6 Payments In Total every 30 days” or something like that directly in the pricing table. And the same goes for most payments. There is absolutely no information about an automatic renewal on the subscription page itself. Yes, the information is available in T&C, but transparency would be if the auto-renew would be mentioned on the subscription page itself.
Limited Money Back Guarantee: As lined out above, the money-back guarantee has some strict limitations. Don’t get me wrong here. It is not uncommon in the trading course business that there is no money-back guarantee. But my point is another one. If someone uses a “money-back guarantee” promise to promote/sell his products, then it should be a guarantee. And not a guarantee with tons of limitations mentioned in the terms and conditions.
Lack of Transparency: It is bizarre that Clay hides his name. His name is Clay Huber, and for some reason, the “about page” now doesn’t longer include detailed information about his background. No name, no background information, also no information about the team at claytrader.com. Even, we don’t know anything about the ClayTrader net worth. How does he make money? By trading, or teaching?
No Proof of Profitability: No account statements, no live screen share during trading days. Do you know if he ever made consistent money? If he never made money over a longer period, would you buy his course or join his community? It would be great if he would publish his account statements or share his trading screen all day long with his subscribers.
New Technical Terms: In my first ClayTrader review, I also mentioned that I do not like the fact that he uses newly created terms for technical analysis. It makes it a bit harder for beginners who have already read a book or attended other courses.
Pros
- Community access starts at $99 per quarter
- Transparency recently improved
Cons
- Clay’s full name is not visible on the site
- Intransparency regarding auto-recurring payments
- No account statements
- No live-trading
- Relatively high price
- Missing details about Clay and his team on the website
This was the ClayTrader review. I hope it was helpful to you.
Here are some more facts:
The real name of ClayTrader is Clay Huber – according to his Google Plus profile.
On an older version of his website, you could read that he found interest in the stock market in 2005 when he was enrolled at Ohio State University.
Rating:
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