1. Find out how much money the mentor makes using only the strategies and systems they are willing to teach you. 2. Find out if the mentor thinks you, personally, can net (after taxes and fees) that kind of money after perfecting your execution of that same set of S&S, <i>in the first year</i>. 3. If the mentor wants more money to train you than he expects you to net in your first year out of his training, he's not worth it.
Still, nothing beats real experience. Someone who wants to learn should find an old guy who has 30 years experience on the floor and beg them to teach some little tricks. Some of these online guys, I take with a grain of salt. That's what I first did 28 years ago when I showed up totally green in the wheat pit. I know a kid who has a real interest in markets, has a healthy respect for risk, and wants to learn how to trade. After bugging me for a year and a half, I finally relented, and showed him some tricks of the trade. He was at first bored by the grain spreads I trade, but after hanging around for awhile, he learned some valuable market lessons. My kid at college wants to trade because all his friends are paper trading and posting on boards like this. There is no way I'd ever teach my kid to trade, as he would be a loser. He just doesn't have the gamesmanship. One of my tools has always been to find a loser (a separate skill in itself) and fade his trades. This little skill added 20% to my bottom line in the pit. One little predictor of success at trading is finding out how many games such as chess, checkers, poker, and other things the newbie played as a kid. If he made a good, honest living at 16 playing poker, or was a good chess player, there's a good chance he will find an edge in the market and become a net profitable trader. When you get to the nut, trading is just a game. http://masteroftheuniverse.wordpress.com/about-me/
Poker, yes, a good indicator. Chess, no, absolutely not. These are two different games, very different.
Hello, I'd ask you an additional questions: - why successful traders spend their time to partisipate in this forum??? - why some people give people for cherity??? Obviously therer are more than a dozen of reasons for that. In any case the personal motivation is a very complex thing and for everione is diffrent. For example why the turtle traders were thouth how to trade? For money? Not at all. The reason was diffrent this time too. There are benefits for the mentor, too. Cheers.