Templeton Trading

Thanks reading today’s review of Templeton Trading. What is Templeton Trading?

Templeton Trading is a prop trading firm, that describes themselves as the following:

We provide brokerage services for traders looking to trade U.S. Stocks but don’t have $25k to meet the PDT rules. We noticed this is a huge issue for traders within the U.S. and outside, therefore we offer U.S. Equities accounts with minimum deposit of $2k.

So what does this mean? Some readers may not be aware, in the United States, if a trader executes four or more day trades within 5 business days, then this person is considered to be a “day trader”. This person would then be required to maintain a $25,000 balance at his brokerage. Its a lame, stupid, idiotic rule that was birthed in response to the Nasdaq bubble that burst in the year 2000. Congress was attempting to fix the problem of over speculation in stocks, and hopefully legislate away financial bubbles. Obviously, it did not work. Only a few short years later, another bubble formed in the housing market, which of course bled into the stock market, and we know how that bubble ended.

The PDT or pattern day trading rule is meant to protect traders based inside of the United States. Which in theory sounds great. However, what if you live in Canada or Peru, and you want to open an account with $1000, and then day trade with that money? No problem. There are no such PDT rules in most countries. In fact, there are plenty of companies around the world that will take your money, and some will even even allow you to purchase up to $20,000 in stocks, effectively allowing a margin of 20 times the current balance. From the perspective of United States financial regulators, they are protecting US citizens from the horrors of day trading, but from the perspective of the actual citizen wanting to speculate, the regulators can go fuck themselves. The person in the US is thinking, “Why does the guy in Peru get to day trade with his own money, that he earned, while I cannot participate!?”.

Pushing Activities Offshore

So, how are United States citizens responding to the day trading rules within the United States? They are looking for offshore opportunities. They are simply opening stock trading accounts in places like Guatemala, islands like Bermuda, funny sounding countries like Swaziland. Most of these countries have little to no financial regulations, court systems rife with corruption, and economies based upon an agrarian lifestyle. Most of these countries are not even aware that a stock trading company is operating from within their border. In fact, most of these stock trading companies have no actual people on the ground in these countries. They are just using an address of a random office building, placed inside of a credible looking website, with an 800 number.

As you can see, this type of situation opens a consumer up for all manner of fraud and deception. If a person sends their money to one of these places or people, and the money disappears, then what? Well, I will tell you…the money disappears. How often? All the time. Nary a week goes by that someone emails me, warning me to stay away from a certain person in Canada, or Bulgaria. And how a company with a website just disappeared overnight, along with their $3,000 trading account. What does a person do? Do they pick up their iPhone and call 911? Do they go onto the internet and search for the SEC of Bulgaria or Lichtenstein? Good luck with that. The money just disappears.

The Veneer Of Legitimacy

After a person loses their monies with a one of these offshore prop trading firms, they usually go looking for answers. Where did they go wrong? How could they have been so gullible? How could someone just take their money and disappear? The firm had such a nice looking website, with pictures of people sitting behind trading screens doing things that look like trading, looking important, looking official. These images convey a sense of trust and importance. But are these really the images of the actual firm, where they deposited their monies? Or are these just images scraped from a website named, hedgefundspaces.com, a real estate company that specializes in renting office space to hedge funds. With Templeton Trading, all of the images on their website have been randomly scraped from various websites, including hedgefundspaces.com.

Another problem I hear from people that get fleeced, are that they trusted the company because of the implied credibility that comes with a relationship with a reputable software provider. What does this mean? For instance, on the Templeton Trading website, there is a link to download and immediately begin using Sterling Trader. By simply having these images and a download link, a person is lead to believe that if a reputable company such as Sterling Trader is willing to allow imagery and download links, then this company must be credible. However, this could not be further from the truth. Anyone can simply scrape images and provide links to the Sterling Trader free download. In fact, Sterling Trader, and every other trading software provider is more than happy to get as many people downloading their software as possible. Some of the free downloads, which are all for demo accounts, might eventually turn into paying customers at $200 per month.

Another company that provides a veneer of legitimacy to companies such as Templton Trading is Ninja Trader Brokerage. Ninja Trader will allow anyone to simply download and use the software for free. Each person that downloads the software must provide a name and email address. Ninja Trader then encourages companies such as Templeton Trading to place a link with images on their respective websites, and in return, Ninja Trader then promotes these companies with free webinars. Ninja Trader implies credability. But this could not be further from the truth, Ninja Trader Brokerage does absolutely no vetting whatsoever, Ninja Trader provides an open platform for companies such as these to commit wholesale fraud. Ninja Trader is in effect a co-conspirator because their financial interests are aligned with the fraudulent company. The fraudulent company wants to sell the trading program, and Ninja Trader wants to sell brokerage services and software. In my opinion, the rapid rise of Ninja Trader has a direct and undeniable correlation with ongoing fraud within the trading community. The Ninja Trader Ecosystem of brokers, consultants, and educators is rife with fraud and wholesale deception. Although there are some legit providers, the vast majority are cheap hustles promoted by Ninja Trader. If you take a quick look at Templeton Trading, you will notice how Ninja Trader is plastered all about. In this quid pro quo relationship, Ninja Trader provides the audience and Templeton Trading provides that salesmanship.

Diving Deeper Into Templeton Trading

So who is Templeton Trading? How long have they been in business? Who runs this company? So many questions. Lets dig in.

The first thing that I noticed about Templeton Trading is the imagery. Rather, the scraped imagery of traders. But we will give them a pass for this. The next thing I looked for is a physical address. Templeton Trading shows an address in both New York and London. The New York address is listed as: Third Avenue, Manhatten 10017. Ok, Third Avenue in Manhatten. I have been to Third Avenue in Manhatten, where on Third Avenue? Third Avenue in Manhattan is lined with massive sky scrapers. How do we find this “Risk Management Office”. And so I call the phone number with a 315 area code (315-636-0022), which happens to be in Syracuse, New York. Everyone knows that Syracuse, New York in relation to Manhattan is like comparing a goldfish with an orca whale. And to make matters worse, the 315 Syracuse phone number is a free Google Voice number that anyone, anywhere on the planet can easily obtain. Regardless, I call the number and leave a message. I want to open my account!

Sometime later in the day, I receive a phone call from a person named Mandeep Singh Athwal. I asked Mandeep a few questions about himself. He explained that he is the floor manager of Templeton Trading in the United Kingdom. That in addition to being a full time professional trader, Mandeep is also a lawyer and holds a masters degree in Law from the University of Wolverhamption. This of course sounded great to me. Lawyers tend to be honest and avoid risky activities. So we continue our conversation and I asked more questions. Like, on the first page of his website how he claims that his traders at Templeton Trading have already grossed over $7.9 million dollars in profits since 2014. He exclaimed that its all true. Of course, as he is telling me this, I take a look and see that the Templeton Trading website has only been up since November 2014. Have a look here.

Notice how his “traders” have made $2.5 million in only 9 months, vs $7.9 million only two months later? Was $2.5 million not enough? Did he get a better response from $7.9 million? Of course, as I am sitting on the phone with Mandeep and listening to him give his sales pitch, I could not help but think what a bunch of nonsense. Nope, I just let Mandeep continue working himself further into a hole of lies and deceit that even the best magician could not work himself out of.

Next I asked Mandeep, that after I send him my money, how do I verify that my account exists and my trades are being placed? Mandeep replied, “No problem, all of your trades are cleared through and executed with a company named Clear Pool Group. I then told Mandeep that this is great to be able to verify everything. I next tell Mandeep that I am going to be calling Clear Pool Group to verify this relationship, and that their relationship with Mandeep does in fact exist. He then replies, “Great, the name of my company at Clear Pool is listed as Tower Hill Trading and Great Point Capital. Immediately, alarm bells start ringing in my head. Tower Hill Trading and Great Point Capital? These are two of the biggest names in prop trading out of Chicago. The president of Great Point and Tower Hill is a very well known and highly respected individual named Doyle Olson.

And so I next call Tower Hill and Great Point Capital, leaving a message with the risk management department. The next day I receive a personal phone call from Doyle Olson, the president of Tower Hill and Great Point. It turns out that Mandeep’s story was pure nonsense. Doyle explained that his company is a Finra regulated entity and they simply do not accept accounts in this manner. Doyle was quick and thorough in explaining every detail of his prop trading operation. Doyle Olson is a heavy hitter, with a company that has been around a very, very long time. He is not involved with Mandeep in any way, shape or form. Doyle was very firm and quite surprised that anyone would attempt this sort of representation of his companies.

More About Mandeep Singh Athwal

Of course, this whole supposed relationship with Tower Hill Trading and Great Point Capital just made me more curious about this Mandeep, the lawyer from Wolverhampton, England. And so I decided to do a quick search using Google’s United Kingdom specific search engine. It turns out that Mandeep is actually a bonafide lawyer. Unfortunately, in 2012, Mandeep was convicted of fraud and stealing money. You can read a quick excerpt here.

As I sat and read the story of Mandeep, I could not help but feel a little sorry for him. It turns out that Mandeep has a bit of a gambling problem and that he had gotten himself into about $150k in debt. He was 29 years old and decided to skim a little here and there. He stole about $50k before the authorities finally caught onto the scheme. What is most shameful about this young man’s life is that he invested so much time and energy into getting a masters in Law and becoming a lawyer. But the gambling addiction and conviction ruined that career.

Now Mandeep supposedly owns a prop trading firm, which of course is pure fantasy.

More Fantasies From Mandeep

In addition to Mandeep offering a prop trading firm, and an educational experience at a cost of $2500…Mandeep will also give you money to trade. Yes, you are reading this correctly…Mandeep wants to fund your trading with his money. How does this work? Mandeep has a trading challenge. If you pay Mandeep anywhere from $160 to $350 per month, and pass a trading combine, then Mandeep will give you between $30,000 and $100,000 to trade equites or forex. Have a look, amazing stuff folks:

Mandeep’s Amazing Opportunities Continue With Omega Trading Signals

Our great and generous Mandeep also has another wonderful offering that I need to mention. Its called Omega Trading Signals, that can be found here. What the heck is this? In a nutshell, many of Mandeep The Magnifacent’s students would love to have a live trading room where they can copy Mandeep’s trades, using Mandeep’s money, to also become successful traders just like Mandeep.

This past week, our good friends at Ninja Trader Brokerage helped Mandeep promote his many trading products and provided him with a free webinar. For an hour, I sat through and watched Mandeep talk about his secret trading system named “Black Panther and Snake Line”. Of course, no details of how this system has performed in a real trading environment, nor are there any performance results listed anywhere on Mandeep’s Omega Trading Signals website. We are expected to just trust him and his amazing “Black Panther and Snake Line” trading system. In fact, the system is described by Mandeep as “highly classified, 86% accurate” and not for sale. One of the people at the webinar asked Mandeep what was the worst draw down that the system has ever had, Mandeep quickly replied that his trading system had never, ever experienced worse that a $295 dollar draw down. Really? $295 drawdown? I just sat in my seat, recording all of this nonsense on Camtasia, thinking to myself, does anybody really believe this stuff.

Another person wanted to know whether Mandeep was willing to sell his system. Mandeep then replied that he might be willing to sell the system, but only after several conditions had been met. The first condition is that a person needed to be a paying subscriber for a minimum of 5 months at $249 per month. And then after 5 months, Mandeep would assess whether this person was “worthy” to purchase the system. He actually uses the word “worthy”. And that in addition to being worthy, a person also needed to be, “not too greedy”. He explained that persons being too greedy and making too much money with his system would not be allowed to use his system. Seriously folks. Camtasia does not lie.

Wrapping Things Up

At the end of this review, what are we left with? The bottom line is that Mandeep Singh Athwal, a lawyer, has already been convicted once for fraud and theft. Now, after ruining a law career, he has decided to open his very own trading brokerage. Unfortunately, none of this brokerage nonsense can be verified. He has already been caught attempting to use the identity of Doyle Olson’s respected prop trading firm in Chicago. He is offering a trading education at $2500. He is offering his super secret Black Panther and Snake Line trading system to only those that he deems worthy and not too greedy. A trading room at $249 per month. And probably worst of all, is attempting to convince people that he will give them between $30,000-$100,000 if they pay him a monthly fee and pass a trading combine.

This guy is pure nonsense. Thanks for taking the time to read today. Sorry about this being yet another depressing review from yet another trading charlatan, offering yet another prop trading opportunity. Please do not forget to leave your comments below. Even the haters will find that their voices are heard.