Lex van Dam was the brains behind the BBC program Million Dollar Traders, a television series in which he bet $1,000,000 of his own money on the fact that he could teach 8 normals how to trade. The series was captivating, the markets were exciting, the contestants were either flourishing or melting in a dramatic fashion. It was compelling viewing but what it never did, was explain what Lex had taught these contestants – what pearls of wisdom did he hand them behind the scenes that meant that over the weeks they were filming they managed to outperform the professionals? Lex’s groupies had done better than professional hedge-fund managers, the people who get paid handsomely to grow our money.

After the series ended, Lex continued his day job running a high performance hedge fund in the City of London, but it seems I wasn’t the only one that wanted to find out what the contestants had learnt.

Lex launched an online trading academy, teaching his 5-Step-Trading method and recently, I got the opportunity to take the course. The website is simple to use, I was able to access the course quickly; it’s comprised of five videos that are between 20 and 50 minutes long, each one covering a different aspect of trading.

What I most enjoyed about the course was that it doesn’t dive straight into talking how to actually trade, but more about the methodology of trading and the mindset you need. This isn’t just a course for people trying to trade stocks, but any kind of trading. In fact any kind of business.

What’s more, it helps you understand how the people that manage our money should be thinking with this knowledge surely we can better understand the decisions they’re making on our behalf and question them.

As for the videos themselves, they’re good, production values are high, charts and graphics are clear and easy to understand. Information is complemented by articles in the knowledge base and the videos can be watched many times pausing and rewinding is allowed, meaning it’s very simple to absorb everything you need to, without having to dedicate too much time to the screen.

At £399, the course is inexpensive, I’ve lost much more than that in poorly considered investments. I completed the course over a few nights and I’m about to have a go at trading myself. I’m also going to keep a closer eye on my current investments and re-think how I make my decisions in the future.

www.lexvandam.com.