Quick Verdict
In my opinion, Anton Kreil appears to be one of the most carefully marketed frauds in the entire trading education industry — and after a 2026 investigation that included pulling Anton Kreil's actual UK Financial Conduct Authority regulatory record, my confidence in that opinion has gone up substantially since I first reviewed him in 2024.
I'm a former Wall Street investment banker (interned at Morgan Stanley then worked at CIBC World Markets and Petsky Prunier). I'll concede the verifiable parts of Anton Kreil's resume: he really did work at Goldman Sachs (2001-2004), Lehman Brothers (2004-2006), and JP Morgan (2006-2007). The UK Financial Conduct Authority register confirms this. What that register also documents — and what Anton Kreil's marketing has never disclosed — is that his only regulatory function at any of these three banks was CF21 — Investment Adviser. Not proprietary trader. Not market maker. Investment Adviser. The FCA function for giving investment advice to clients.
ITPM's own website claims Anton ran "a Proprietary Trading book [that] grew from $25mln in the year 2000 to over $400mln by 2004" while simultaneously functioning as a "Market Maker." Both claims would require an FCA customer trading function — CF26 under the pre-2007 system or CF30 after that. Neither appears anywhere in his official regulatory record.
In my opinion, it is quite possible that Anton Kreil never made a single proprietary trade at any of these banks. It is quite possible the $400 million proprietary book never existed. The most plausible interpretation of his actual career, in my opinion, is that he was a financial advisor or private client sales representative — a legitimate, well-paid Wall Street role, but one where the job is advising clients on investments, not personally trading firm capital.
Combine that with the fact that he has never publicly shared a single verified trading statement in the 19 years since his May 2007 retirement, that his most-cited TV credential (the BBC's "Million Dollar Traders") was a show on which he managed novice traders rather than trading himself, and that a 12-year documented pattern of refund disputes, customer harassment allegations, and fake-review evidence trails ITPM — and in my opinion you have one of the most elaborate credential fabrications in the entire retail trading education space.
Students are paying anywhere from $1,499 to $50,000-plus for ITPM courses and mentorships. In my opinion, what they're actually buying is trading education from someone whose own documented Wall Street experience may have consisted entirely of giving investment advice to clients — not trading the markets.
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Key Takeaways
- The UK Financial Conduct Authority register documents Anton Kreil's only regulatory function at Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and JP Morgan as CF21 — Investment Adviser, an advisory function for giving investment advice to clients. The customer trading function required for proprietary trading or market making appears nowhere in his official record.
- In my opinion, it is quite possible that Anton Kreil never personally executed a single proprietary trade at any investment bank — a far more plausible interpretation of his actual regulatory record than ITPM's marketed claim of running a $400 million proprietary book.
- Anton Kreil has held no UK regulatory permissions of any kind since April 30, 2014.
- On the BBC's "Million Dollar Traders" — Anton Kreil's most cited public credential — he was the group MANAGER, not a trader. The $1 million of capital was provided by hedge fund manager Lex van Dam. Twelve novice traders executed the trades. Anton mentored them.
- Anton Kreil has not publicly shared a single verified personal trading statement in the 19 years since his May 2007 retirement from banking.
- In 2011 Anton publicly committed to releasing a monthly "Global Monthly Report" containing his personal trading positions. I could find no public evidence that the report has been maintained since approximately 2011-2012.
- ITPM's publicly listed course pricing ranges from $1,299 to $3,499 — but documented customer reports show the actual full pricing ladder, including mentorship and Discord access, reaches $40,000 to $50,000 or more per committed student.
- The 3-month mentorship program is listed as "Price on Application" only. Customers report quotes of $16,000 for remote mentoring and $25,000 to $35,000 for the Thailand program, plus a $25,000 minimum broker deposit requirement.
- A documented pattern of refund disputes, customer complaints, and allegations of harassment with private investigators and fake social media accounts spans 12+ years across Ripoff Report, Trustpilot, Wall Street Oasis, and HardwareZone forums.
- ITPM has been alleged to use fake five-star Facebook reviews — multiple accounts created moments before posting, timestamped within minutes of each other in a coordinated wave pattern.
- Anton Kreil cultivates a "Pure Blood King" persona and an aggressive "we are winners and everybody else is a loser" marketing tone — in my opinion the opposite of how successful traders typically behave.
- A better alternative is learning a verified, hedged, mathematically sound options strategy from an educator who publicly shares E*TRADE statements. View my verified results here.
Anton Kreil and ITPM: 2026 Status Update
The Institute of Trading and Portfolio Management remains active in 2026 under Anton Kreil's leadership. In October 2025, ITPM launched POTM 2.0 — the "Professional Options Trading Masterclass" 2.0 — replacing the original POTM 1.0 that was delisted in March 2025 after seven years on the market. The new POTM 2.0 is currently priced at $2,999 for 12 months of access according to ITPM's website.
Anton Kreil's primary stated trading activity, per his current bio on theinstitutetrader.com, is "oversee[ing] Jakubstadt Holdings' global portfolio via corporate trading accounts from Singapore, along with his own long-term investments outside the Institute." In other words: an opaque Singapore corporate trading vehicle with no public statements. In my opinion, this is the kind of arrangement that allows ongoing trading claims to be made without any verification mechanism — fundamentally different from a personal brokerage account with publishable monthly statements.
On Twitter/X, Anton Kreil currently uses the brand position "Pure Blood King" — consistent with the aggressive "we are winners and everybody else is a loser" rhetoric that has characterized ITPM's marketing for over a decade.
His current UK regulatory status: none. Anton Kreil has held no FCA or PRA permissions of any kind since April 30, 2014. The full regulatory history is documented on the UK FCA Register under reference number AXK01212.
Watch the Full Investigation
I've published multiple investigations into Anton Kreil and ITPM. The videos below walk through the evidence in depth, including the fake review pattern, the customer complaints, and the regulatory record problems. The first is my comprehensive review. The second is my reaction to a former ITPM student's own video describing his experience as a complete waste of money.
9 Reasons Why I Believe Anton Kreil and ITPM May Not Be Legitimate
1) The UK FCA Register Documents Anton Kreil's Role as "Investment Adviser" — Not Proprietary Trader, Not Market Maker
This is the single most important finding in this review, and in my opinion it changes how every other claim Anton Kreil makes should be evaluated. The evidence comes directly from the official UK Financial Conduct Authority register — the government regulator that maintains the authoritative record of who held what regulated role at every UK-regulated financial firm.
Anton Kreil's FCA reference number is AXK01212. His regulatory record documents the following roles at investment banks:
- Goldman Sachs International — CF21 Investment Adviser — December 1, 2001 to February 26, 2004
- Lehman Brothers International (Europe) — CF21 Investment Adviser — April 16, 2004 to February 3, 2006
- J.P. Morgan Securities plc — CF21 Investment Adviser — March 2, 2006 to May 2, 2007
- JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association — CF21 Investment Adviser — March 2, 2006 to May 2, 2007
CF21 is not a trader function. CF21 is the FCA function under the pre-2016 Controlled Functions framework that regulated giving investment advice to clients. It is the function held by financial advisors, private bankers, wealth managers, and equity sales coverage staff — anyone whose job involves advising clients on investments, not trading firm capital.
Traders at UK-regulated banks who dealt with external counterparties held different controlled functions — CF26 Customer Trading under the pre-2007 system, or CF30 Customer Function after that. Market makers, by the nature of their work (providing liquidity by dealing with external counterparties), would also have required a customer trading function — not an advisory function.
Anton Kreil never held a customer trading function at any UK-regulated bank. Across his entire 5+ year career at investment banks — supposedly running "a Proprietary Trading book [that] grew from $25mln in the year 2000 to over $400mln by 2004" while simultaneously "functioning as a Market Maker" (direct quotes from his own ITPM website) — the only regulatory function his actual record documents is Investment Adviser.
There is one nuance worth being honest about: pure proprietary traders trading 100% firm capital with zero external counterparty interaction historically did not always require FCA registration. So in theory, the absence of a trader function could be explained by Anton having been a pure prop trader trading only firm capital with no client interaction. But this explanation fails because Anton's own marketing explicitly claims he was simultaneously a market maker. Market making by definition involves external counterparties. Market making requires regulatory registration. If the ITPM marketing claim of "Proprietary Trader and Market Maker running two separate books" were accurate, his FCA record should show a customer trading function. It does not.
In my opinion, the simplest and most likely explanation is this: Anton Kreil's actual role at Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and JP Morgan was as a financial advisor, private client representative, or equity sales coverage staff — likely covering Pan European equities for institutional or high-net-worth clients. That is a legitimate, well-paid Wall Street career. The "Vice President" title at JP Morgan at age 27 is entirely consistent with that role, since "Vice President" at investment banks is a relatively common mid-career title held by both sales/advisory and trading staff.
In my opinion, it is quite possible that Anton Kreil never personally executed a single proprietary trade at any of these three banks. It is quite possible that the $400 million proprietary trading book never existed. It is quite possible that the "Market Maker" claim is similarly fabricated or dramatically embellished. The official UK regulatory record corroborates none of those marketed claims. It corroborates only an advisory function.
Anton Kreil has held no UK regulatory permissions of any kind since April 30, 2014.
Source: UK Financial Conduct Authority Register, Anton Kreil reference number AXK01212.
2) Million Dollar Traders: Anton Kreil Was the Group Manager, Not the Trader
The single most-cited public credential in ITPM's marketing is Anton Kreil's 2008-2009 appearance on the BBC television series "Million Dollar Traders." In ITPM's marketing materials, this is typically framed as evidence that Anton has been publicly endorsed as a top professional trader. The reality, in my opinion, is meaningfully different from what the marketing implies.
Per Wikipedia's entry on Million Dollar Traders, the show's premise was straightforward: hedge fund manager Lex van Dam provided £620,000 (approximately $1 million) of his own money to a group of novice traders, who traded for two months during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. The $1 million was Lex van Dam's money. The novice traders executed the trades.
What was Anton Kreil's role? Per the IMDb plot summary and ITPM's own page describing the show: "Professional trader Anton Kreil was appointed as the manager of the group." A direct quote from antonkreil.com: "Anton managed the group of novice traders, monitored their risk and mentored them without giving them any specific investment advice."
In other words: Anton Kreil did not trade on Million Dollar Traders. He did not put any of his own money at risk on the show. He did not make any of the buy or sell decisions that were broadcast. He was the group manager, supervising twelve novice traders who were trading Lex van Dam's capital.
In my opinion, this matters because Anton's most cited public credential — the credential that introduced him to a global audience and made the ITPM business possible — is repeatedly framed in his marketing in a way that creates the misleading impression he was the trader on the show. He wasn't. The traders were the novices. Lex van Dam was the capital provider. Anton was the supervisor.
3) Zero Verified Personal Trading Record in the 19 Years Since His 2007 Retirement
Even granting Anton Kreil every benefit of the doubt about his banking career — granting that the FCA register is somehow incomplete, granting that the $400 million proprietary book really existed, granting that he traded successfully through the entire 2000-2007 period — there remains a problem that is, in my opinion, fatal to ITPM's marketing.
Anton Kreil retired from investment banking in May 2007. That was 19 years ago. In those 19 years, Anton Kreil has not publicly shared a single verified personal trading statement.
Not one E*TRADE statement. Not one Interactive Brokers statement. Not one screenshot of a real personal brokerage account showing actual P&L. Nothing.
Per his current bio at theinstitutetrader.com, his current trading activity is conducted via "Jakubstadt Holdings' global portfolio via corporate trading accounts from Singapore." In my opinion, the choice to trade via an opaque Singapore corporate entity rather than a personal brokerage account is itself revealing. A personal brokerage account produces standardized monthly statements that can be screenshotted, redacted for privacy, and shared publicly — which is exactly what I do at my own /results/ page. A Singapore corporate entity produces no such standardized public-facing documentation. There is no equivalent verification mechanism.
In my opinion, if Anton Kreil had successfully traded his own money in the 19 years since 2007 — and especially if he had done so with the kind of returns implied by ITPM's marketing — he would have published statements. He would have made those statements the centerpiece of his marketing. He hasn't. ITPM's marketing instead relies almost entirely on retelling a banking career that the FCA register suggests was advisory, and on a TV show appearance where he didn't personally trade.
4) The 2011 "Global Monthly Report" Trading Positions Commitment Appears to Have Quietly Stopped
In July 2011, Anton Kreil publicly announced via PRNewswire that he would begin publishing his personal trading positions in a monthly publication called the "Global Monthly Report." The press release stated: "Anton Kreil, the portfolio manager in the BBC programme that let eight members of the public trade $1m (£620,000) and run their own hedge fund, is now publishing his trading positions in his 'Global Monthly Report.' Until now Mr Kreil's report has only been available to friends and high net worth individuals."
The press release further claimed: "Since inception, 75% of his subscribers are profitable. There have been some pretty solid calls, historically."
This was an extraordinary commitment. A trading educator publicly committing to monthly transparency about his own trading positions is exactly what a legitimate professional trader would do. It would have been Anton Kreil's strongest credibility asset — a continuously updated public record of his actual trading.
In my research for this 2026 review, I could find no current evidence that the Global Monthly Report has been maintained. The original publication URL (instutrade.com, which was ITPM's previous domain) is no longer the active ITPM property. There is no current publicly accessible Global Monthly Report on itpm.com or antonkreil.com. There is no current monthly publication anywhere of Anton Kreil's personal trading positions.
In my opinion, the most plausible explanation is that the Global Monthly Report — Anton Kreil's 2011 public commitment to monthly trading transparency — was quietly discontinued some years ago. If the report continues to be publicly published somewhere and I have missed it, I would welcome a correction. As of this 2026 review, it is in my opinion a documented broken promise of public trading transparency, now approximately 14 years old.
5) Even If Anton Did Trade at Goldman Sachs, Those Skills Don't Translate to Retail
This is the section where my own background as a former investment banker matters most. Because even if you grant every claim in ITPM's marketing about Anton's banking career — every single word of it — you still hit a wall that ITPM never addresses honestly.
Institutional trading at major Wall Street investment banks is fundamentally different from retail trading. I worked at multiple investment banks. I understand the distinction firsthand.
Institutional traders at banks like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Lehman Brothers generate revenue primarily as market makers. Market making means: you provide liquidity to the market by quoting buy and sell prices to external counterparties (other banks, hedge funds, institutional clients), and you earn the bid-ask spread on enormous volumes of transactions. The trades themselves are largely flow-driven, meaning the trader is essentially "renting out" the bank's balance sheet to facilitate other firms' transactions, earning a small spread on each transaction across massive volume. This is, in industry parlance, a relatively low-risk, high-volume business.
This is fundamentally different from retail trading, where the trader is taking directional risk with personal capital, has no order flow advantage, has no balance sheet to rent, and earns money only by being correct about future price direction.
The skills required for the two activities have essentially zero overlap. A successful market maker at Goldman Sachs may have no idea how to trade retail successfully. The strategies that work in institutional market making (capturing bid-ask spreads on flow) do not work in retail trading (predicting price direction with personal capital at risk).
ITPM's flagship courses teach retail traders to use fundamental analysis — macroeconomic indicators, ISM Manufacturing data, company financial statements — to predict stock price direction. This is not the methodology institutional market makers use. It is also a methodology that, under the efficient market hypothesis and decades of empirical evidence, provides essentially zero edge to retail traders, because the public macroeconomic and fundamental data ITPM teaches students to use is already priced into the market within seconds of being released.
So even if you take every claim in ITPM's marketing about Anton's banking career as accurate, you arrive at a paradox: a man whose alleged banking work was institutional market making is teaching retail traders to use fundamental analysis — a strategy he didn't use as a market maker, and a strategy that the market has already priced in by the time retail traders see the data.
In my opinion, this is the deepest structural problem with ITPM's value proposition: even the best-case interpretation of Anton's career produces someone whose actual skills wouldn't help retail students.
6) ITPM's Pricing Ladder Is Designed to Extract $40,000 to $50,000+ Per Committed Student
The public pricing on ITPM's website is, in my opinion, misleading by omission. The publicly listed entry-level courses are presented at digestible price points:
- IPLT Video Series: $1,299
- Core POTM Course (1 month access): $1,499
- Core POTM Course (12 months access): $2,999
- PTM Video Series: $3,499
- PFTM (Forex) Video Series: $2,999
These public prices represent only the entry tier. The actual full pricing ladder — documented across multiple independent customer reviews — is significantly higher.
Per a Trustpilot review from June 2024 by user "Subh Boon", the full ITPM pricing extracts include:
- Mentorship program: $15,000 to $30,000+ (listed publicly only as "POA — Price on Application")
- ITPM Discord access: approximately $3,000 per year
- A required $25,000 minimum broker deposit with an ITPM-contracted broker (the broker presumably referring trade flow back to ITPM)
The reviewer summarizes: "Mentoring (25K USD) + discord (3K a year) + course — alone, if you decided to do it all, it's a 40-50K cheque."
A separate Trustpilot review from December 2025 by Gerry Drew reports being asked to pay a $2,000 deposit before being permitted to speak with a mentor at all — a deposit reportedly demanded after completing a multi-page application form, with no opportunity for a preliminary conversation.
Customers consistently report on Wall Street Oasis and HardwareZone forums that the Thailand mentorship program costs $25,000 to $35,000, and that the remote mentorship costs approximately $16,000.
In my opinion, the gap between the publicly displayed $1,499 entry price and the actual full pricing ladder of $40,000 to $50,000-plus is one of the most aggressive pricing structures in retail trading education. The public price serves as a lead magnet. The real revenue lives in the upsell ladder behind it.
7) Documented Refund Disputes and Customer Complaints Going Back to 2013
The pattern of customer complaints about ITPM is unusually long, unusually consistent, and unusually well-documented. Complaints span 12+ years across multiple independent platforms.
2013: The Wendy Huang case, documented across Ripoff Report, HardwareZone, and Wall Street Oasis. Wendy Huang paid $7,001 for a 3-month mentoring program. After what she described as inadequate sessions and erroneous course content, she requested a refund for 7 unused sessions. Per her account, ITPM refused a full refund and only partially refunded $2,500 after extensive negotiation. ITPM publicly responded that the refund was being paid "out of cash flow" — in my opinion, an unintentionally revealing admission of cash flow constraints.
2015: A Ripoff Report from a customer of Instutrade (the previous ITPM brand) alleges that Anton Kreil personally responded to a technical complaint with personal insults — including allegedly calling the customer "mentally ill" and telling him he "should have taken Adderall" — then blocking the customer's access to paid course materials after the 180-day PayPal dispute window had closed.
2023: A Trustpilot review from "Joe Blo" describes the Q2 2023 mentorship experience as one where "Ben says nothing, it means you've done a good job" — characterizing the assigned mentor as emotionally disengaged and non-committal, with the reviewer eventually concluding the experience didn't deliver actionable feedback.
2024: Multiple Trustpilot 1-star reviews including the September 2024 review by Dawyne Wallis: "Most mentees are down but they will tell you they are up... The regulatory history doesn't match with anything remotely to do with proprietary trading."
December 2025: Gerry Drew's $2,000 pre-conversation deposit experience, described above.
In my opinion, a 12-year pattern of customer complaints across multiple independent platforms — including specific, detailed accusations of misleading marketing, inadequate course content, refund refusals, and personal insults from the company's owner — is significantly more than the occasional disgruntled-customer noise that any business accumulates. It is in my opinion a consistent operational pattern.
8) Allegations of Customer Harassment, Fake Reviews, and Bullying Tactics
In addition to the refund and content-quality complaints, multiple independent sources allege a pattern of conduct by Anton Kreil and ITPM that, if accurate, would in my opinion be deeply troubling.
Per the September 2024 Trustpilot review by Dawyne Wallis: "Owner is also harassing students with private investigators and scores of fake accounts across social media."
Per the June 2024 Trustpilot review by Subh Boon: "I've also found there's a culture of 'if you go against us, we will expose you to your friends, employer and so on'. Remember, when you sign up, you put your home address and all your details on the form. Bullying tactics essentially are at play if you step out of line."
Per the 2015 Ripoff Report by the Instutrade customer described above, Anton Kreil personally allegedly responded to a complaint by calling the customer mentally ill and telling him to take Adderall — before blocking his access to paid course materials.
In addition, an independent investigation by Emmett Moore of tradingschools.org documented what appeared to be a coordinated pattern of fake five-star Facebook reviews on ITPM's official page. Per Moore's investigation (which I referenced in my 2024 review), multiple five-star reviews were posted within minutes of each other from accounts that had been created just before posting — a textbook fake-review pattern with reviewers appearing in coordinated timestamped waves.
These are allegations from third parties. They have not been independently verified by me, and I cite them with attribution to the original sources so the reader can evaluate them. But in my opinion, when allegations of this nature appear consistently across multiple platforms and multiple years from multiple unrelated customers, the pattern itself becomes evidence. And in my opinion, the pattern alleged here — combining harassment, intimidation, fake reviews, and personal insults of dissatisfied customers — is not consistent with how a legitimate, confident, well-run trading education business operates.
9) The Strategy Itself: Teaching Retail Traders Public Data That's Already Priced In
Setting aside the credential questions, the customer complaints, and the pricing structure, there is one final problem with ITPM that, in my opinion, is fatal on its own merits: the strategy ITPM teaches doesn't work for retail traders.
ITPM's flagship Professional Trading Masterclass (PTM) teaches students to construct trade ideas through a top-down fundamental analysis process. The process, as described in detail in a video review by a former PTM student that I reacted to in my 2024 update video, goes roughly like this: start with macroeconomic indicators (ISM Manufacturing, GDP releases, interest rates), narrow down to sectors and industries, then identify individual stocks with strong or weak fundamentals, then construct a long-short portfolio.
In my opinion, this approach has three fatal problems for retail traders:
First, all of the public macroeconomic and fundamental data that ITPM teaches students to use is already priced into the market within seconds of being released. ISM Manufacturing data is a scheduled monthly release. The market sees the number, digests it, and prices stocks accordingly — automatically, instantly, and in much greater depth than any retail trader can replicate. By the time a retail trader has analyzed the ISM release and decided which sector to favor, the market has already adjusted prices to reflect that information. There is no edge.
Second, long-short portfolios for retail traders generally underperform during bull markets. A retail trader running a 5-long / 5-short portfolio in a strong bull market will see their short positions destroy the long-side gains. This is documented and widely discussed even by the former ITPM student in the video I reacted to — who explicitly noted that his shorts killed his portfolio performance in the bull market that followed.
Third, ITPM also teaches forex trading via the Professional Forex Trading Masterclass (PFTM). Retail forex trading has, in my opinion, one of the worst long-term outcome distributions of any retail trading activity, with substantial counterparty risk from retail forex brokers compounding the directional risk of the strategy itself.
In my opinion, the ITPM strategy teaches retail traders to spend hundreds of hours analyzing public data for an edge that, by definition, the market has already removed. It is, in my opinion, a strategy designed to make students feel like they've earned the right to be profitable by virtue of hours invested — and to give Anton Kreil a "you didn't do enough work" excuse when the strategy fails to produce returns.
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Anton Kreil Net Worth: The Real Business Model
What's his estimated net worth?
In my opinion, Anton Kreil's net worth is somewhere in the range of $15 million to $30 million (estimate). This range is an inference based on ITPM's stated 1,400-trader global community, the documented pricing ladder ranging from $1,499 entry-level courses to $35,000-plus mentorship programs, and approximately 15 years of ITPM operations under the current branding. The actual figure could be meaningfully higher or lower.
The wide range reflects genuine uncertainty. I have no inside information about ITPM's actual financials, and ITPM is a privately held entity that does not publish revenue figures.
Where does the money actually come from?
In my opinion, the overwhelming majority of Anton Kreil's net worth comes from selling ITPM courses, mentorship programs, Discord access, and related products — not from trading.
This is the same business model question that determines whether any trading educator's claims of trading wealth are credible. If a trading educator's net worth has been generated by selling courses, then the courses are the actual product and the educator's "trading success" is essentially a marketing asset, not a verified track record. If a trading educator's net worth was generated by trading and the courses are a side business, then the trading itself is the verified product — and there should be public statements to prove it.
In Anton Kreil's case, the evidence for course-derived wealth is substantial: 15+ years of documented course sales, an aggressive pricing ladder, a continuously upselling mentorship structure, a $25,000 minimum broker deposit requirement that presumably generates additional referral revenue. The evidence for trading-derived wealth is essentially non-existent: no public statements in 19 years, an opaque Singapore corporate trading entity, and a 2011 monthly-trading-report commitment that appears to have been quietly abandoned.
Why this matters for prospective students
If you are weighing whether to spend $1,499 to $50,000-plus on ITPM, the income-source question is in my opinion the single most important consideration. If Anton Kreil's wealth comes from selling courses rather than from trading, then the implicit promise of ITPM's marketing — "buy this course and you'll learn to trade like I did" — has no foundation. He didn't make his money trading. He made it selling.
A Better Way: The Verified Approach to Generating Income from Options
There is, in my opinion, a fundamentally better way to learn options trading than paying $1,499 to $50,000+ for ITPM. The approach I teach at BestStockStrategy.com is built around a few principles that, in my opinion, address every weakness in the ITPM model.
Criteria | ITPM (Anton Kreil) | BestStockStrategy (David Jaffee) |
|---|---|---|
Verified personal trading record | None publicly available since 2007. Singapore corporate vehicle, no public statements. | Verified E*TRADE statements published at /results/. +78% on a ~$700K account and +67% on a ~$2M account in the trailing twelve months. |
Pricing transparency | Entry tier publicly listed; mentorship pricing "POA only." Full ladder $1,499 to $50,000+. | All pricing publicly listed. $279 trial, $1,250 quarterly, annual plans. |
Strategy basis | Top-down fundamental analysis + long/short equities + forex. Public data already priced in. | Selling options premium on high-quality stocks. Statistical edge from premium decay. |
Time commitment | 35+ hours of video lessons per course, multi-month curriculum. | 10 minutes per day. Real-time alerts service. |
Refund policy | Documented disputes spanning 12+ years; mentorship sessions reportedly non-refundable. | Transparent membership plans with clear terms. |
Continuing access | One-time course purchase; access can be revoked at the company's discretion. | Ongoing alerts service with real-time trade ideas. |
The contrast, in my opinion, is the difference between an education product built around a credentials illusion and an education product built around a verified, publicly documented trading approach.
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Conclusion: My Anton Kreil and ITPM Review
When I originally reviewed Anton Kreil and ITPM in 2024, my conclusion rested on a simpler observation: he has never publicly shared a single verified trading statement, despite charging students up to $35,000-plus for trading mentorship. That observation alone made him, in my opinion, not credible.
In the two years since that original review, I've found something significantly stronger than absence of evidence. I've found affirmative evidence — from the UK Financial Conduct Authority's official register — that Anton Kreil's documented role at Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and JP Morgan was Investment Adviser. Not proprietary trader. Not market maker. An advisory function for giving investment advice to clients. The customer trading function that would corroborate his marketing claims of running a $400 million proprietary book and functioning as a market maker simply does not exist anywhere in his official UK regulatory record.
I've also confirmed that his single most-cited TV credential — the BBC's Million Dollar Traders — was a show on which he managed twelve novice traders rather than trading himself. The $1 million of capital was Lex van Dam's. The novices traded it. Anton mentored.
I've found that his 2011 public commitment to monthly publication of his trading positions appears to have been quietly abandoned within years. I've found a 12-year pattern of customer refund disputes, harassment allegations, fake-review evidence, and bullying tactics consistent across multiple independent platforms and multiple unrelated customers.
In my opinion, Anton Kreil has constructed one of the most carefully marketed credential fabrications in the entire trading education industry. The credentials are partially real. The implications those credentials carry in his marketing — proprietary trader, market maker, Million Dollar Trader, verified successful trader — are in my opinion not supported by the evidence. It is quite possible, in my opinion, that Anton Kreil has never executed a single proprietary trade in his entire career. The actual evidence is more consistent with a multi-year investment-adviser career and 15+ years of trading-education sales than with anything else.
If you are weighing whether to spend $1,499 to $50,000-plus on ITPM, this is what you should know: in my opinion, you are paying for trading education from someone whose actual documented Wall Street experience may have consisted entirely of giving investment advice to clients — not trading the markets — and whose post-banking record offers no public verification of trading ability of any kind.
There is, in my opinion, a better way.
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Consumer Resources & Protection
If you believe you have been defrauded by a trading educator — Anton Kreil or any other — there are official agencies you can file complaints with. These agencies investigate fraud, deceptive marketing, and consumer protection violations. Filing a complaint creates an official record, even if the agency does not pursue your specific case.
- Federal Trade Commission (FTC) — Report Fraud — For deceptive business practices, false advertising, and consumer fraud.
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) — Submit a Tip or Complaint — For securities-related fraud or investment advisor misconduct.
- Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) — For forex and commodities-related fraud (relevant given ITPM teaches forex trading).
- UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) — Report a Scam — The UK regulator under which Anton Kreil was previously registered. File complaints about UK-regulated activity.
- Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) — File a Complaint — For broker and securities dealer complaints in the US.
- Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) / FBI — For internet-based fraud schemes.
- National Association of Attorneys General — Find Your State AG — Your state attorney general's office handles consumer protection complaints.
- Better Business Bureau — File a Complaint — Documents complaints publicly visible to other consumers.
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) — For financial products and services complaints.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is Anton Kreil legit?
In my opinion, no. Anton Kreil's marketed credentials as a "former proprietary trader" and "market maker" at Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and JP Morgan are not corroborated by his official UK FCA regulatory record, which documents only the CF21 Investment Adviser function — an advisory function for giving investment advice to clients. He has not publicly shared a verified personal trading statement in the 19 years since his 2007 retirement from banking.
Did Anton Kreil really work at Goldman Sachs?
Yes. The UK FCA Register confirms Anton Kreil was registered at Goldman Sachs International from December 1, 2001 to February 26, 2004. However, the FCA register documents his role at Goldman Sachs as CF21 — Investment Adviser, an advisory function. The record does not document any proprietary trading or market making role.
What was Anton Kreil's actual role at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Lehman Brothers?
Per the UK Financial Conduct Authority Register, his only regulatory function at all three banks was CF21 — Investment Adviser. This is the FCA function for giving investment advice to clients. In my opinion, his actual role was most likely as a financial advisor, private client representative, or equity sales coverage staff — not as a trader. The "Vice President" title at JP Morgan at age 27 is entirely consistent with that role, since "Vice President" at investment banks is a relatively common mid-career title used across both sales/advisory and trading functions.
Is the Institute of Trading and Portfolio Management (ITPM) a scam?
In my opinion, ITPM is a trading education business built around credential claims that are not corroborated by the official regulatory record. The strategy it teaches — top-down fundamental analysis using public data already priced in by markets — is in my opinion not a viable strategy for retail traders to use to generate consistent returns. Combined with a 12-year pattern of customer complaints, refund disputes, harassment allegations, and fake-review evidence, my opinion is that ITPM is not a legitimate trading education product.
How much does ITPM cost?
Publicly listed pricing ranges from $1,299 to $3,499 for individual video series. The 3-month mentorship program is listed publicly as "Price on Application" only. Per documented customer reviews, the full ladder including mentorship, Discord access, and the required $25,000 minimum broker deposit reaches $40,000 to $50,000-plus per committed student. The Thailand mentorship program is reported to cost $25,000 to $35,000.
What is Anton Kreil's net worth?
In my opinion, Anton Kreil's net worth is somewhere in the range of $15 million to $30 million (estimate), almost certainly derived primarily from course and mentorship sales rather than from trading. ITPM is a privately held company that does not publish revenue figures, so this is an inference based on stated student counts, pricing, and approximate years of operations.
What is Anton Kreil's age and background?
Anton Kreil was born in Liverpool, England in 1979. He studied Economics at the University of Manchester. He worked at Goldman Sachs from 2001 to 2004, at Lehman Brothers from 2004 to 2006, and at JP Morgan from 2006 to May 2007, when he retired at age 28. He founded the Institute of Trading and Portfolio Management in 2011.
Is the ITPM Thailand mentorship program worth it?
In my opinion, no. The Thailand program is reported to cost $25,000 to $35,000. Per multiple customer reviews on Trustpilot and other platforms, mentees have reported that the experience does not deliver consistent profitable trading outcomes, and that the assigned mentors are sometimes emotionally disengaged or non-committal. One Trustpilot reviewer described the experience as "more of a holiday than a training seminar," and another alleged that "most mentees are down but they will tell you they are up."
Did Anton Kreil actually trade on Million Dollar Traders?
No. Per the show's premise and per ITPM's own description on antonkreil.com, Anton Kreil was the manager of a group of twelve novice traders. Hedge fund manager Lex van Dam provided the $1 million of trading capital. The novice traders executed the trades. Per Anton's own website: "Anton managed the group of novice traders, monitored their risk and mentored them without giving them any specific investment advice."
Why doesn't Anton Kreil share his trading statements?
I don't know. In my opinion, the simplest explanation is that the verified statements either don't exist or would not support the marketed claims of trading ability. Some former ITPM students publicly defend Anton's trading ability — for example, a 2024 review on stockmarketconnaisseur.com claims he has a 60/40 win rate and made good calls on Credit Suisse, Lululemon, and Moderna shorts. In my opinion, in the absence of verified statements with named brokerage accounts and dated documentation, these defenses remain unverified third-party claims.
Does ITPM offer refunds?
ITPM's published refund policy is not transparent. Per multiple documented customer complaints going back to 2013, customers have reported significant difficulty obtaining refunds for unused mentoring sessions, and have been offered partial refunds only after extensive negotiation. In one widely documented case, a customer was reportedly told that her refund was being paid "out of cash flow" — meaning in installments rather than as a lump sum.
What's a better alternative to ITPM for learning options trading?
In my opinion, the better alternative is learning from an educator who publicly shares verified personal trading statements, has transparent pricing, teaches a strategy with a documented statistical edge (such as selling option premium for income), and provides ongoing real-time guidance rather than a one-time course purchase. View my verified E*TRADE results here and start with my free options trading training here.