Market Traders Institute Review – Martinez Family Scam?

Market Traders Institute is a forex trading company.. they claim they can teach you to be a successful investment trader.

They have many different products and services for sale.

Are they a scam or will they help you profit?

That's what this review will answer.

Additionally, you'll get more information on this company including insights into who's running it, how much it costs and overview of the overall quality.

By the time you're done reading you'll know if Market Traders Institute is worth buying.

Let's get in to it!

3 Things To Know About Market Traders Institute

Before we look into what exactly is being offered by Market Traders Institute, let's take a look at some important background information.

Here's what I think is most important about this company:

1) Don't Trust The Martinez Family

If trading were organized crime, the Martinez family would be one of the major mafia families.

A lot of times I review trading programs from people that are new to the game but that's not the case for the people who run Market Traders Institute.

The Martinez family, led by Jared Martinez (pictured up top), have been doing this for over 30 year.

If you dig into their past and look at what they're doing now I wouldn't trust these guys.

The following are some red flags about the Martinez family:

Olint Ponzi Scheme

This is probably the biggest red flag and involves the patriarch of the family, Jared.

Olint was a massive ponzi scheme that Jared was involved in around 2009.

This company pretended to be a forex brokerage that would invest money on behalf of customers.

You pay Olint money and then they trade it for you in forex.

They claimed to get 10% returns but never really traded anything.. they would just take new investment money and give it to people that paid earlier.

Hundreds of millions were scammed from Jamaicans and other Caribbean countries.

This company was run by a man called Dave Smith, who called Jared his mentor.

In fact, Jared Martinez went as far as calling Smith the Moses of Jamaicans. 

Dave Smith was the only one charged for Olint and was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his actions.

However, he claims he was just the fall guy and Jared was the mastermind of the scheme.

Smith claimed he didn't even know what forex was until he met Mr. Martinez.

Besides just being Smith's "mentor," Martinez ran the brokerage Smith "traded" out of.

Martinez would also fly to Jamaica and other countries to vouch for Smith's success.. calling Smith his "best student."

The US Attorney overseeing the case called the whole thing "a huge washing machine of fraud."

Luckily for the Martinez family they weren't charged because of the statue of limitations of the crime.

Their brokerage was shut down and Jared had to pay a fine of $250K.

The Whole Family Is In On It

It's not just Jared either.

The entire family plays some role in these schemes and run different companies that do the same thing.

For example, I did a review about a company the grandson of Jared (Joshua) runs a few months ago, called Traders Agency.

Joshua never mentions his family anywhere on the website and literally pretends he started from nothing.

Here's a direct claim from the website:

He's trying to convince beginners that day trading is possible, even if you only have $500 (it's not).

The Martinez family are truly hucksters. 

2) Don't Believe The Returns

Another great reviewer covered Market Traders Institute in the past and actually called the Market Traders Institute boiler room.

This reviewer asked the sales people if there was proof of successful trading going on at Market Traders.

The person responded with the following graph showing a very good trading period for under two years:

As you can see this account has gains of over 4,000%!

If you could trade 4,000% gains like this every two years you'd be a billionaire in no time.

However, the sales person accidently gave away the game when he said this is "one of many trading accounts."

Market Traders is a multi-million dollar operation and spends millions on marketing.

They can afford to run dozens of trading accounts at once.. and can use the winning ones to pretend they're profitable traders.

For example, here's an account they used to prove their success until it started to tank.. then they dropped it and no longer used it:

So you can't really believe any returns they claim because they don't show the entire picture:

3) Day Trading Is For Suckers

The biggest thing to worry about Market Traders Institute is they push day trading.

Day trading is by far the worst way to trade and basically zero people have success doing it.

However, the myth it's doable persists.. the main reason is it promises fast profits.

Why wait years for returns when you get can get them every day?

There's good reason to wait and here's why:

Day Trading Success Rate Is Basically Zero

There's been several huge day trading studies over the years and they all show the same thing.. succeeding with day trading is almost impossible.

Some people like to report the success rate is around 5% but it's actually much less than this.

5% is the number of people that make anything.

If you day traded for an entire year (hours a day) and made $100 would you consider that success?

No, that would come out to about 30 cents a day.

The truth is less than 1% of day traders make more than minimum wage.

Most day traders lose about 30% every year when it's all said and done. 

There's Nothing You Can Do to Improve Your Chances

There's one key difference between a skill and gambling - a skill can be learned and the longer you do it, the better results you get.

However, with gambling you'd expect to lose more the more you do it.. there's nothing you can really do to change your odds.

The house always wins.

Day trading is gambling and isn't something you can really win because the odds are stacked against you.

Again, many studies prove this.

The more you day trade, the less likely you are to be successful.. the same way you would lose more money if you played roulette every day compared to a few times.

And there's nothing you can do to change your odds.

Market Traders Institute will tell you through technical analysis and charts you can be successful but this is just wishful thinking.

Technical analysis and charting is almost completely fraudulent. 

Don't take my word for it either. Here's what investing genius Warren Buffet has to say about technical analysis:

It's A Full Time Job

Not only is long term investing better, it's a million times easier.

Day trading requires you to treat it like a full time job and spend hours in front of a computer screen everyday.

Even worst is you'll have to wake up before the sun comes up to create your trading plan.

This makes day trading impossible for anyone that has a full time job or any kind of busy life.

Long term investing can be done in about 15 minutes a week.

Doesn't that sound better?

Recommended: The Best Place To Get High Stock Returns

Market Traders Institute Product Overview

There's a ton of products and courses at Market Traders Institute.

Here's a brief overview of all the products offered:

Courses

To be completely honest there's too many courses at Market Traders Institute to cover them all (144 in total).

The courses are all thousands of dollars for most part and cover different aspects of forex and day trading.

They also have training programs on stocks, options and crypto.

A good question to ask yourself is this:

How can a company possibly offer 144 different training programs and each one of them be quality?

Don't you think it's hard to do quality control on THAT many courses?

I personally don't think it's possible and to me proves this company essentially makes all its money selling services, not actual trading.

Especially when you consider the prices for these products.

Live Trading Rooms

There's several different live trading rooms at Market Traders as well.

Here's a look at  them:

• Fibs And Formations ($499 per month): This trading room is run by Jared Martinez and focuses on day trading and swing trading. The main trading strategy is Fibonacci and meets one time a week. 
• Flex Trading Room ($299 per month): This trading room is run by Chris Pulver and focuses on all trading styles. They claim it focuses on the geopolitical landscape, news headlines and market performances.
• Hybrid Trading Room ($299 per month): Gary Fichardt runs this trading room and focuses on swing trading and day trading. It meets three times a week.
• Money Flow Trading Room ($199 Per Month): This is another day trading and swing trading room and it's run by Tyson Clayton. It only meets once per week.

You can also join 360Pro Trading Circle and get access to all four trading rooms.

This will cost you $999 per month.

Market Traders Institute FAQ's

You might still have some questions about Market Traders.. here's some answers to common questions about this company:

1) Do you think the price is fair?

You need to consider something about trading.. the more you spend on chatrooms and training, the further in the red you start.

Basically all the courses at Market Traders are thousands of dollars and the chatrooms are thousands a year.

If you want all access to all four it will cost you over $11,000 every single year.

That's a lot of money and means you'll be WAY in the red before you make a single trade.

On top of these costs there's a ton of fees involved with day trading.

Every time you profit 28% of that gets taxed (long term investments are only taxed 15%) and each trade comes with brokerage costs (can be up to $100 per trade).

Day trading is already almost impossible to succeed with - add thousands in fees and it gets even harder.

2) Is there a refund policy?

There's apparently a refund policy but an ex-salesman for the company claims it's virtually impossible to get.

To get a refund you need to call Market Traders Institute and they will try anything to keep you from getting a refund.

This includes throwing in add-ons, mentoring and every thing else you can think of.

Basically the goal is to keep you in the program past 6 months so you're past the time to get a refund.

After 6 months they stop taking your calls and giving you add-ons.

Many people have confirmed this:

3) Are the people at Market Traders Institute legit?

No I don't think so.

There's enough evidence out there that the people running the company aren't profitable traders and they don't really produce profitable traders.

The owner called a ponzi schemer his best student.

It turns out this "best student" lost millions instead of making 10% per month returns like Jared Martinez claimed.

You can say the ponzi schemer tricked Jared but what does that say about him?

If he truly were an expert he'd know 10% returns a month is basically impossible. 

It also means he didn't verify anything before pitching the scheme to naïve third world citizens. 

Market Traders Institute exists to get you to buy courses and make the company money.. not to make you into a super star trader.

4) What are common Market Traders Institute customer complaints?

The customer reviews for this company are brutal.

They have an abysmal 2.09/5 stars according to Better Business Bereau:

The most common complaint about the company is the refund policy.

Many people thought it would be an easy process and buying a product from Market Traders would be risk free.

However, the opposite turned out to be the truth.

Another common complaint is about the price.. many people don't feel like they got enough training for the thousands they paid.

5) Are there similar programs out there?

I don't recommend you get into day trading.

However, there's a ton of day trading courses and chatrooms out there.

Some I've come across recently include:

As you can see there's no shortage of day trading grifters out there.

Recommended: The Best Place To Get High Stock Returns

Market Traders Institute Conclusion

Market Traders Institute is a sophisticated operation.

They have millions to spend on advertising, the Martinez family members are all slick promoters and they know how to get you to buy.

However, there's nothing from this company I recommend you buy.

The training is overpriced and overrated.. honestly there's nothing you can really do to change your day trading results besides hope you get lucky.

On top of that the chatrooms are overpriced as well.

This means starting your day trading career thousands in the hole.

It makes it almost possible to succeed.

All you're doing by buying from Market Traders is funding the Martinez family's lifestyle.

This includes mansions, expensive cars, boats and more.

I personally wouldn't want to be paying for those kinds of things.

Here's A Better Opportunity

I'd pass on Market Traders Institute.. and to be honest I'd pass on anything day trading.

It's just too hard to have success and takes too much time.

Long term investing will always be more profitable and there's plenty of newsletters that can help you pick good stocks.

To see my favorite place to get good stocks (that's very affordable), click below: