I've written about this before, but here goes again but slightly different format. I had mentoring by accident. As a noob maybe 25 odd years ago I owned stupid TA charting software which was all about dumb indicators. On a Australian trading chat forum (now not in existence) this stranger guy mentioned Amibroker and on his recommendation I bought it. Well I asked this guy 'kaveman' to code me up an indicator which he did. Then another, and another, and another..... I decided to visit his home because coincidently he lived nearby. In Western Australia 'nearby' is about 50km distance. And I bought him a carton of various wines. Well this went on awhile kaveman became a friend and I would frequently visit maybe once a month and he continued coding, I kept supplying wine. Then kave said "hey, I'm getting sick of wine, howabout paying" and so I did. Kave would also update my software from time to time and sort out any bugs. This guy had been a design engineer at Worley Parsons and no longer worked due to illness which kept him home. Anyhow I had no intention of self coding, the language looked too onerous, but one day kave designed this very huge program which was a trailing stop loss system which was my idea. The code had a bug and kave couldn't/wouldn't fix it, so in frustration I looked at it over several days and despite the fact I knew nothing about coding, fixed the problem. The sense of elation was huge. Anyhow Kave kept designing code for me and I began to tweak them to fix/modify and finally I began to write my own stuff. So that's a story of my mentoring. Kave never mentored me to trade, he just accidently mentored me to code which originally I had no intention. These days I no longer use Amibroker, I branched into Sierrachart, gave that away, now I just use googlesheets. This is 20 minutes delayed but works perfectly for how I self trade / self code. I've created my own algos, never been mentored in anything other than looked over kave's shoulder and decided the 'do your own' path. I have live streaming data on another (IRESS) system. I'm fortunate in that I love maths, love being creative, enjoy designing stuff (I'm retired now but ex fitter-machinist, thermal powerstation operator (NZ), come project engineer oil, gas mining Australia.)
Very good posts by @themickey (this page above) and @wmwmw (previous page). I fear that too many people come to threads such as this looking for a 'Holy Grail'. Those that have a holy grail are very, very, unlikely to part with it. One exception to this rule was Richard Dennis, who took on a group of trainees in the 1980s and taught them his holy grail. Dennis' holy grail does not work as well in the 2020s as it did in the 1980s, but anyone looking for a mentor, or perhaps someone to teach them how to trade, or perhaps a holy grail, could do no worse than to read Dennis' story, copy his system, then adapt, change, or do whatever, and come up with method that suits how that individual wants to trade. Unfortunately, the holy grail won't be found here. Google knows everything, but even Google won't give you or me the holy grail. Certainly, bits and pieces of that grail will be found in the most unlikely of places, but it is up to the individual to put all those pieces together in a form that suits how they want to trade. As the Nike advertisers once said, Just do it, read widely, and develop your own holy grail. KH
I remember reading market wizards how Dennis' chapter really stood out to me...it let me down the path of reading the books "the complete turtle trader" by Covel and "Way of the Turtle" by Faith (who I believe use to be an active member of this forum). Great story and great evidence in support of TA.
@zghorner Yes, it is a great story. What stood out for me, much more than the TA aspect, is the systematic trading that the trainees were 'encouraged' to follow. First, make sure your trading method has a logical and reasonable chance of success, then systematise (if that is such a word) it, and follow blindly until it either breaks, or you retire. KH
Originally Series 7 in 1982. 20 guys in the office. Dean Witter. Retail. You learn a lot from other's mistakes there, less costly than learning from your own mistakes. (I think Ben Franklin said something about that too). And general lessons on humility from the older guys, no substitute for that. But most of retail brokerage imploded with the advent of discount brokers. Decided to swing trade, 20 years ago. Haven't had a day job since 2006. I used to have all short term gains. Now I trying to tweak that, only long term gains. Like Buffett and those guys. It's not what you make, it's what you keep. Already mentioned, Market Wizards books. Read them. One guy featured is Ed Seykota. Math genius MIT (I think) He must have gotten so tired of people asking him how to do it, he just put up a vid: The Whipsaw Song But everybody is different. Find your strengths. Become the best there is at that. Be honest with yourself. And be true to yourself.
Would that have been incrediblecharts? I also started out with amibroker all those years ago. Their programming language was ok to use. In terms of a mentor. Not really. I couple of people give you ideas along the way. For myself I knew where to look for trades so it was a matter of developing my owns tools to pinpoint those spots. It took a while to figure it. There is no magic just time and a willingness to accept when you are wrong and using that to move forward. The truth is not everyone can be a trader. No different to not everyone can be a doctor. The barriers to enter into trading is not high so almost anyone can give it a go. That leads to many failures as people have no clue hence they always say trading has a high failure rate. Well yes as many that start have no experience.
No, my memory fails me on the name now. I think I have it written down somewhere in some old notes. If I recall it was based in the Sunshine Coast QLD.
What’s an Ivy League education x4, an apartment in the city for the summer to intern at a firm til your ass falls off and meet a successful senior? That’s the answer.
Read some simple JPM research a long time ago. Mkt ends the year green 75% of the time and 70% of the time it also gets drilled intra annually for 10%.