Investopedia Academy Review – Is the Premium Education Worth It?

About Investopedia Academy

Investopedia Academy is a trading and investing education marketplace with a growing library of online courses for purchase. It’s a spin-off from the popular Investopedia.com finance site. As the growing universe of financial skills education platforms continues to expand, it can be confusing for newbies to know who to trust and where to begin. The Academy was created to meet the needs of consumers desiring deeper in-depth knowledge of finance topics under a trusted brand at a good value.

Courses are self-paced and come backed with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Developed by experts in their respective segments of the financial markets, purchased courses are accessible online for life. Users must register to access paid courses as well as free archived webinars.

Are these courses worth it? Keep reading our Investopedia Academy review to find out.

Investopedia Academy Pricing Options

Academy courses are sold individually. You can think of Investopedia as a trading school that offers multiple courses.

The pricing varies by course from $19.95 to $279 for the various bundled courses like the Options Bundle and Technical Analysis Bundle. Payment plans are available as well as seasonal promotions offering savings up to 50% of all courses.

Popular courses include:

• Become a Day Trading ($199)
• Investing for Beginners ($199)
• Trading for Beginners ($199)

Trading Styles

Investopedia Academy trading courses accommodate pretty much all styles and experience levels of trading including day trading, swing trading, and investing. Whether you are looking to become a day trader or learn about investing for beginners, Investopedia Academy has a course that could fit your needs.

Investopedia Academy courses cover all types of financial education ranging from day trading to simply managing money.

Investopedia Academy has supplementary personal finance courses related to budgeting, Microsoft Excel, and credit and personal finance management. The personal finance courses are much cheaper than the investing courses (most of the personal finance courses are priced around $19.99).

Algorithmic trading training courses are available for traders looking to automate their strategies. Cryptocurrency trading courses are available for those looking to enter this realm of trading.

Investopedia Academy Trading Courses

Like an online university, the Academy provides online courses individually by topic and skill level. The courses address some of the most popular topics and needs for traders and investors. Each course is self-paced and comes with videos, interactive content, quizzes and a certificate of enrollment.

For the sake of this review, we can’t cover all of the Investopedia Academy courses, but here are some of the courses tailored specifically for traders:

Trading For Beginners Course

This on-boarding course explains the differences between trading and investing. It provides the context for principles and parameters to establish a foundation both tangibly and psychologically to begin the journey into trading. The trade management sequence and rules are comprehensively explained from putting together a trading plan to the execution of trades to performance enhancement. Taught by RJ Hixson, of the Van Tharp Institute, he prepares newbies on the how’s and why’s of trading including risk management. The 50-lesson course is best suited for absolute newbies and comes with a money-back-guarantee for $199 USD.

The Become A Day Trader Course

This introductory course is the gateway for those interested in learning intra-day trading. It comes with 50-lessons that encompass over five-hours of videos and content that teach you how to minimize risk while maximizing opportunity. Become A Day Trader is taught by David Green, a former Wall Street floor trader with three-decades of experience. He teaches his proven strategy that includes six types of trade set-ups that can be used in any market climate. The course is suited for newbies and semi-newbies with no prior trading knowledge required. The cost is $199 USD and comes with the 30-day money-back guarantee.

You can see some clips from the course below:

The Technical Analysis Course

This medium-level course introduces basis technical analysis components taking students in to the realm of price action interpretation through chart reading, indicators and patterns. It includes over 75-lessons with exercises and interactive content. Students will learn how to make education projections on price targets and planning exit strategies for stop-losses and or profits. This Investopedia Academy course is taught by popular trading mentor and Chartered Market Technician (CMT) J.C. Parets. Transforming market intelligence into actionable trades using charts is the central theme of this $199 USD course.

Students also receive a free 30-day trial to his All Star Charts website. This is actually a pretty valuable bonus considering a quarterly membership would generally run $479 ($160/month). It also offers students a nice opportunity to start applying the lessons they learned in the academy course.

The Advanced Technical Analysis Course

In this advanced level course, J.C. Parets takes the training to the next level by putting it to use. He teaches how to scan for trading candidates in U.S. and international markets. Students learn how to identify intra-day trading patterns and set-ups with more advanced indicators and concepts including dozens of additional techniques. With over three hours of video and interactive content, the course introduces basis technical analysis components taking students into the realm of price action interpretation through chart reading, indicators and patterns.

The $199 USD course is designed for experienced traders seeking to integrate and apply more advanced level technical analysis into their trading strategies. Students can purchase both courses bundled together in the Technical Analysis Bundle for a one-time payment of $279 USD.

The Options For Beginners Course

Once you get acclimated to trading stocks, it’s beneficial to add options trading to your arsenal to free up capital by using the leverage and risk protection that options provide. This intermediate level course introduces the concept of options and the applications to protect your portfolio and generate income streams. There are over 39-lessions with videos and a bonus Options Outcome Calculator template for Excel to calculate the value of options over an inputted time and value. The $199 USD course is taught by Luke Downey, fore Head of ETF Sales at Cantor Fitzgerald and founder of MAPsignals.com.

The Advanced Options Trading Course

This experienced level course trains students on beyond the basic directional options trades to multi-leg strategies with spreads, strangles and collars. Luke Downey introduces his personal methods to evaluate liquidity, market climate and directional trends to select the best options strategy to maximize returns. This course has over 70 lessons with video and interactive content for $199 USD. The course is suited for traders with a solid foundation of basic options trading, that are looking to generate income streams and maximize returns through multi-legged options strategies. The Options Bundle includes both options courses for a one-time payment of $297 USD.

What Do Traders Need to Best Utilize the Courses?

While the courses cater to all styles of trading, it’s important to have the resources ready to apply the training realistically.

Day traders will need to have a minimum of $25,000 USD in an online brokerage account to avoid (Pattern Day Trading) PDT rules, which limit traders to three-round trip trades in a rolling five-day period.

Swing traders and investors can have less capital since trades will encompass longer holding periods ranging from overnight to days, weeks and or months. However, an online brokerage account will still be required to put the lessons to use.

How Investopedia Academy Compares

There is an endless supply of trading education sites calling themselves trading schools and academies. Many of them advertise with infomercials and free seminars to lure in newbies and continue selling courses to ‘advance’ higher. The Investopedia brand carries a lot of credibility and the courses are taught by well-established professionals. There’s no bait-n-switch here where salespeople try to upsell the students. The credibility of the brand and value is what makes this Academy stand out. 

Overall, the courses are well-produced and offer a lot of great lessons in investing, trading, and money management. When compared to the financial education you will find on sites like Udemy and Coursera, Investopedia Academy definitely stands out as the better option for online courses.

If you are interested in a very specific style of trading, you may find more comprehensive courses elsewhere. Here are some examples of courses that are a bit more comprehensive (but also come with a higher price tag):

• Textbook Trading is a comprehensive course on momentum trading from Investors Underground.
• Learn Plan Profit is a comprehensive course for beginner-level trading
• Warrior Trading offers comprehensive courses for trading strategies that only require a few hours per day
• Bulls on Wall Street offers a multi-day bootcamp for technical trading

What Type of Trader is Investopedia Academy Best For?

Investopedia Academy courses apply to all levels of traders. Each course indicates the skill and experience level it’s intended for. These are self-paced and require the commitment and follow-through from the student. Therefore, the best type of individual for these courses are those with a desire to learn and the will and commitment to apply the training consistently with prudence and discipline.

Investopedia Academy courses are well-produced and relatively well-priced. They can serve as great supplements to other trading services.

Beginner traders who use services like Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor and IBD’s Leaderboard can get a basic understanding of the markets with the beginner courses. Active traders who find themselves following Investors Underground, Timothy Sykes, and Warrior Trading, would likely opt for some of the higher-level technical trading courses.

Pros

• High-quality, self-paced interactive video courses for all skill levels
• Well respected instructor-created content
• Well articulated training further enhanced with interactive quizzes and tests
• Lifetime access with purchase
• Courses like Investing for Beginners and Become a Day Trader offer great entry-level content for beginners
• Diverse library of trading and investing courses including Forex and Cryptos
• Live scheduled webinars and free archived webinars
• Great value with no annoying upselling

Cons

• Library could use more courses
• Information may be too basic for very experienced traders.