You pay the market for your trading class, hopefully after paying enough, you learn how to trade. For those that still struggle, they look for others to try and teach them. Some are good teachers, some just want your money. It's a confusing question. I'd pay for a class to learn about options, those are complex, and I'd just like to learn the strategies involved. If you do pay for a class, you'd be better off probably paying for different classes that focus on different things, like risk management, psychology, then trading strategies and such. I don't believe in those classes that are like "Learn how to trade Forex!!!" or crap like that, I think it needs to be specific so they can clearly cover the material, not spread it out and give a little info on seperate things. Paying for a mentor with cash or pay for time.... No. Paying a % of your profits to a mentor while he teaches you and you can put the stuff he teaches you into action.... Yes
I have offered these so called rainbow merchants who sell books or seminars, to trade live against me but they wont, anyone on ET who sells book or seminar up for a challenge All I here is talk talk talk, well talk is cheap put up or shut up,
Most mentors don't charge money nor do they share profits. I believe that mentoring is a terrific idea for everyone. It compresses the front end a great deal and eliminates most tuition paid to the market by people who are oriented as you seem to be. The most terrifying consideration that I run across is people who will no longer be able to be mentored. There is a very clear and definte line in the sand. As time passes it gets closer and closer as it comes up behind the person and he is finally trapped by it. Paying dues into the market to learn is just one of the ways the line is accelerated to catch up with a person. It is just the continuing learning process that is going on. What is being learned, primaritly, is failure. Not just one general way to fail but it is like a tree that branches out in several directions with each kind of failure. The fact that each kind of failure is periodically reinforced is one of the biggest killers. None of the learning ever goes away. It accumulates and is very dificult to counter. It, of course, has to be countered (surrounded, so to speak) because it affects everything in exactly the same manner as a person's personal history does. The alternative to the kind of situation you tell us you are in is to not go through the process you have done. If a person is able to sit along side an expert for a while from the beginning, there are no dues to be paid. How does something like this happen. The mentor has to think it is worth his while. Mentors are not interested in answering billions of questions. You are a question billionaire who generally goes unanswered you may be observing. Mentors look for people who are not paying tuition and who are lifestyle oriented to be spectacular kinds of people. Most mentors take a good hard look behind the person to see how far the line has advanced to catch up behind that person and nail him. When anxiety, fear... uncertainty, and doubt are in the space consciously closing the gap behind the person, the game is about over. A mentor wants energy available at 100 to 120 % and nothing, energywise being wasted. Mentors have one thing. they are models that can be observed (this is a mouth shut no questions scene) and they are 150% capable of supporting all the energy a person being mentored can generate for direct focused "processing". How many of the posts in this thread do you think a mentor would pick up on and say "I will give you my time to make you an expert". It is a small fucking number.
i dont think the question is whether paying is worth it or not. the question should be "will i get what i pay for?" paying $36,000 for expertise to trade successfully would be pretty cheap if it works, dont you think? but this is clearly not a mentor, its a class. in other areas mentors tend to take people under their wings and depending upon the circumstances, fees arent involved. a mentor is someone who want to give back what he has learned or pass along what was freely given to him/her. mentors arent looking for financial gain. you are paying for a class, so the question should be whether you will learn $36,000 worth of insight.
I'm not arguing that a mentor isn't a great thing. A good mentor is a great thing. But seriously, how many people on ET will ever have that.... less than 5% I'm willing to bet. I was fortunate to have someone that helped me, sadly it was the wrong market *Futures*, but I did learn a lot in my short time with him. It can be a shortcut to learning trading quickly. I personally learn things in a way where it just clicks for me. I can be screwed up on an idea all day long, or for several months, and one day it will just click in my mind and I'll have it all figured out. That is how I learn everything I do, from back in HS, to in the markets. I might very well not be here if it wasn't for my mentor, I'm not really sure. I still failed at futures, but if I didn't try futures, I don't know where i'd be now. Futures is where I really started day-trading, and it made me determined to keep on going no matter what. So, yes, a mentor can be a great thing, but most of the people on here won't have that opprotunity and will have to figure it out themselves or go onto one of those scams and pay someone to teach them, or have to join a prop firm and find help there. But most on ET will not have that opprotunity or be willing to take it to that level to find a mentor.
riskarb Let me know we go live in a chat room Monday, a few on ET have seen me trade live. If you can"t challenge me, I say to you Shut up.
Better yet, fund a $500k account and I'll be glad to do the same. Loser pays winner an amount equal to winning return. Chat room calls... wtf, are you 14yo? Now, go play with your train set and stfu. =)