Hi guys, I have seen many posts saying they were guided by a professional trader or they knew someone who was guided by a professional trader .. How to find someone like investment professional to teach ? Did you guys pay for this or did you know someone already ? Thank you
It's easy. Pick a product that actually requires thinking analytically and understanding of value (fixed income, quant equities, options etc). Go work for on a dealer desk (less good) or or join an established PM team at a good fund (more better).
If you are seeking a mentor to teach you how to trade, they usually charge $5,000 to start, others charge $10,000. It probably, will cost more by the time they are done with you. Exercise caution. There are a lot of crooks out there! As to your question, I taught myself to trade. It is harder without a mentor obviously, and I made a lot of mistakes along the way but, it was worth it! I also, taught myself how to trade options which I did not know how to do before!
Of course, anyone could. However, just like when Jesus was feeding a crowd with five loafs of bread, there is a long line.
Hello element, I was taught to tape read by one person at a prop firm. There were many traders and methodologies... most prop guys were buying or shorting baskets of stocks.. The banks, brokers, semiconductors.. Follow the group, dump the laggers and take a lot of risk. At that time the firm wanted to diverse it’s risk exposure.. So, I was paired with an NYSE tape reader.. Scalped for 1/8, sometimes way more.. This style with very consistent and realatively low risk. I took this basic but highly focused skill and developed and improved my own style over many years... I want to be very kind here.. there are no gurus. The only reason I had a mentor was because he was forced by the firm to teach me.. An interest point. I followed him within seconds.. one month he made 70k,,, I only made 9k... Maybe stay away from anyone online.. idk Many horror stories... Greg
Talk about horror stories in trading. I relate this story in hopes people derive lessons from it on what not to do in trading! I have this doctor friend who I was teaching (mentoring) how to trade options. So, we have a trading plan (mine), risk management (mine), entries and exits, stock selection. All the pieces of the puzzle together. I teach her how to read stockcharts. Now, to make a long story short, she managed to lose 7 figures in the stockmarket. She continues to lose even now. Now, I love her as a friend but, her trading is horrendous. The BS reason of not having enough capital has been put to rest! If you have $1,000,000 and cannot produce any profits inspite, of all the knowledge, there is something wrong! Now, why did she lose so much monies? The reasons are: 1) Lack of risk management. Imagine risking hundreds of thousands in one trade. Multiply that by the number of stock options traded. She is trading way beyond the 2% risk parameters per trade. 2) Trading against the trend. Despite, our trading plan clearly stating to trade with the trend, she continues to take positions against the existing trend. 3) Refusal to create a trading log. I have repeatedly told her to log all her trades and reasons for it so that, she can review her mistakes. She refuses to make a trading log. No trading log, no way to correct her mistakes. 4) Arrogance and Ego is a big one. If you have either one and think you are the world's best trader, you are in for a rude surprise! The stockmarket will take your monies, all of it! She refuses to accept when she is wrong. Like the VRX/BHC trade, the stock was in a downtrend yet, she bought calls. I told her to buy put options and get out of her position and close the calls. She refused and instead, bought more calls! She lost 90% of her monies! 5) She said she will just follow my trades which I share with her. So, if I share 10 trades within say 6 weeks, she will pick 2 trades and take them. Now, I have a 40% win rate, lose 60% of the time on my options trade. Most times, she gets the losing trades. Common sense would dictate to take all 10 trades because I do not know which ones will work out and turn out to be good trades with decent returns so, why gamble? If you want to be a successful trader, do not do these things!
Learning of how to trade profitably is a long journey of self discovery. One has to step out of one's body and look from outside in i.e. truly knowing oneself. There are may ways but find the way that fits you is the key.
Hello smallfil, Yikes. That is horror. Omg. Talk about schwacking herself.. 1 million. Questions if you wish to answer. Do you think she was a gambler? Did she believe things would improve? Did she just become desperate and try for the big bet to recover? Thanks Greg
Obviously, she was thinking that throwing huge amount of monies would give her huge returns. To some degree she was gambling. I told her multiple times that if she just stuck to the rules of the trading plan, she would make monies. Take the VRX/BHC trade. That was a no brainer trade. She got it wrong by buying calls when it is trending down. She had the opportunity to turn the trade around and instead, made hundreds of thousands easily if she listened to me and bought put options and close her call options to salvage the residual value of the calls. Instead, she bought more call options doubling and tripling down on her losses! She lost 90% of her monies she put in that trade alone! Oh, one more thing, she gets paralyzed with fear when she is suffering these huge losses! I tell her, you have to still manage your positions and salvage what is left of your capital. Doing nothing is not an option! One more problem with the arrogance and ego thing, when she places a bad trade and she manages to eke out a profit somehow and it works, she thinks she is doing it right! I told her, what about the 19/20 times that bad trade did not work out? Without the trading journal, you cannot see your mistakes like her! I have my trading journal so that, I can correct my mistakes to make me a better trader.