You said: "I was interested if anyone out there has been a part of a group and has any input to offer. How do you get a group together, do you find people who are at your level of performance? They find you. Self selection applies. Do you look for people who trade like you and like the same asset classes? No and yes. How do you judge who is a good fit for you? They judge you; you do not judge them. Finally, any advantages to trading in one physical space versus remotely?" The ramp up to expert is a matter of months instead of years. The best part od a group forming is the arrival of newcomers. the more seasoned traders (those a few months ahead, get to support the learning of others. This is where they supporters accelerate their rate of learning. There are many possible group arrangements. No one has to trade full time to become very rich.
I have belonged to a few of them. Most meetings are not very useful. But occasionally, you learn something really helpful. It is like reading books: you have to read several of them to find any new ideas. But once you find one profitable idea, it makes all the time you spent digging for it worthwhile (sort of like ET, huh?) It is easy to find people by starting a Yahoo group. A small, free-form group is better than a larger group with formalized presentations. The membership of each group I have belonged to has been similar. There are two types of of people in the group. The first is a small core of traders who come to each meeting and are grinding it out little by little. This group tries to mentor the other group, which is a larger, ever-rotating group of gunslingers who don't want to hear about methods so mundane that they only yield 15-30% per year. One of my groups, which consists of mostly experienced options traders, meets in a library. A new guy came, and kept asking if we knew what the US stock market was going to do in the next month or two. Each time he asked some version of this question, we all paused briefly, looked at him blankly, and then continued the conversation. Finally, he announced that he was going next door, to a futures trading group meeting in the same library. He came back an hour later, looking slightly frustrated. We asked him how the futures group was, to which he replied, "They don't know what the market is going to do, either!" As I knew would happen, he never returned.
I was watching a documentary on Bruce Lee a few weeks back on youtube. It turns out Bruce Lee had several martial art masters that he learned from, not just one. Whose teachings he would use to create his own style. As far as I can tell he didn't go look for a group to learn with. Now think hard and deep why I would mention this in a trading forum.
I've gone to a few meetup.com groups, which happen after market hours most of the time, although a few happened during market hours. They are okay, but its not in this setting where people are actually trading together. Either its an informal chit chat free for all, or its a presentation that is usually given by some vendor who has something to sell. My concept of a group is more like a group that trades together actively, as in a prop firm. Everyone has their own P/L, its just that the group communicates throughout the day including doing a post mortem at the end. Of course, its helpful to find profitable traders to learn from, but barring that I guess if you find mature people who are interested in getting better, that might at least be something to go with....
I agree with what everyone else has said, but want to add a couple of things. Sociology: Group think/civility. Before the days of the Internet, day-trading, from what I read, meant standing around a brokerage. Bigger accounts could even get a space in the office. Still bigger traders had their own ticker and a direct line to the broker. From what I've read, group think was a major problem. If a couple of people think that a certain railroad is a good buy, they preach. The more they convert, the more certain they become. Anyone who insists on trading independent of the group is being insulting. We are social animals built for the survival of the pack, not the exultation of the individual. Psychology: Losses. Maybe you guys are all good at isolating you emotions from your trading, but in a group, forget about it. Do you really benefit if the guy sitting next to you throws their phone at their common infrastructure monitor? Psychology: Competitiveness. I remember in school that when a quiz was passed back, everyone wanted to know how their friends did before revealing their own. If you are out-performing, can you really help but be a little patronizing. If you are under-performing, can you really help but be resentful. If this motivates you to be a better trader, great, but if your take-home, depends on the other guy, I don't see it lasting long. Entanglement. I have a friend who tried working as a trader working a common pool. He found himself working desperately trying to make up the losses of other to keep the pool alive. A couple of ideas.
There's a difference between "trading groups" and "chat rooms". My point is the two above are completely different via verification process, expenses and location. For example, a real trading group can see each other (in person) and quickly verify any information another member talks about or trades via the fact there almost sitting next to each other. In contrast, such very difficult to do via a chat room that some traders try very hard to slap the term "trading group" on it. My point is that if you're truly looking for a "trading group"...find several like minded traders in or nearby your city and rent an office space. If you're unable or unwilling to do such, I wouldn't put too much expectations on a chat room unless the members are sharing real-time white boards showing each others trading platform and other tools on their monitors for all members to view. I also notice you use the word "communicate". That's another way to say "Long or Short such and such at such price". To me, that should be called a "signal calling chat room". Can you imagine everybody posting trades at the same time in a chat room...most will find such a distraction unless only a few are doing it. I know via first hand experience via in the past being a member or moderator of small, medium or large online free chat rooms. I've also in the past been part of a trading group where several like minded traders rented/leased an office space. Notice how I refer to the office space as a "trading group" whereas anything online I refer to it as a "chat room". The latter (chat room) is much more difficult to manage whereas the former (trading group) is much more difficult to set up. A chat room obviously has a low overhead whereas a trading group is very expensive because everybody has to pay their share of the rent/lease of the office space. With that said, I'm not saying chat rooms are not useful. I'm saying that you need a verification process in place to ensure those you allow into the chat room are like minded and has something useful (verified) to bring to the chat room. You can also use a chat room to help find those that are willing to setup a trading group. Thus, you're using the chat room as a filter to find traders suitable for a trading group. P.S. You may want to look up the term "trading arcade" that's a different type of trading group. Mark
how do you get a group together? attend one of the trading expo conferences see whom you're personality fits in with, at one of the presentations, or discussions that happen see if there is a like need or desire to network or form a group observe the collective intelligence or experience of the group and decide whether or not you would be embarased to be associated with such a group, throw out that idea start all over again get stuck in that loop become a groupie at the trader expos
If everyone in the group are young traders, it could work out ok. But for those who are profiting each week or day are less likely to want to share what they have worked hard to master. I find that I have often learned from those who are better than myself, but most of the time, I have had to pay for that knowledge from them, whereas chat rooms, I have never learned anything useful. And most of the time when I have tried to explain what I do, am attacked saying it is not the way to trade cause I scalp. But sometimes for kicks I will enter a free three day chat room by a service that charges and call my entires, most of the time I am booted by the end of the day, LOL. But the more other traders know what you are doing, and you use limit orders to get in works against you as competition. You only learn if something is good by doing enough backtesting.
While it may be true that many of the more experienced do not want to share their methods, that is far less true in a face-to-face group, since the experienced traders who are willing to share are the ones likely to be in the group. It is a different population than you find on ET or other online resources.
Agree...the trading group (in person) that I was a member of in Seattle, WA...most in the group were consistently profitable and just wanted to be around similar like traders that had something to bring to the table. Simply, it's a known fact that markets are always changing and if you don't have any new ideas to adapt your trading plan to continue (remain) profitable...you're doomed. That's what we did in the group...we were able to adapt with the help of others in the group when markets changed. Another reason for the trading group was that those that joined also didn't want to trade alone in an office or at home. Thus, to some traders being around other traders in an office environment was very beneficial and helped legitimize what we do as day traders to our family, friends or other professionals... Treat your trading like a business and you'll be ahead of most. Mark