Hello all. First post here. Stocks/Equities/Futures/Forex Trading Mentor wanted. I want to daytrade for a living. I would love to be able to teach my wife how to trade along side me. I have studied everything I could over the past 10 years on and off. I have tried trading stocks, options, forex, and futures. I have tried swing trading down to scalping a 5 second chart (ES mini) (28 trades today for a $200 loss.) DERP! I cannot seem to come up with a solid trading plan that I have faith in. There is too much misleading and contradictory information on the internet. I try to focus on price action with stochastics to help see the turns in price. I use Metastock for EOD, Amibroker, Sierra Chart, Interactive Brokers, and IQFeed at the moment. I am well capitalized (100k). I am at the point where I need help or I will be searching forums for another 10 years. My confidence in my future success is diminishing. My 45 year old ADHD brain has a heck of a time remembering what I have learned. So many strategies in forums but most seem to be full of indicators. So much information in my head I could put to use If I knew what to use. I'm in need of a proven strategy, an EDGE, a method, that I can master then possibly tweak to fit my personality. As probabilities of winning trades can be like the flip of a coin. Money management is key. The search for success is getting exhausting. I live in La Mirada, California (Border Los Angeles and Orange County) Should I just keep trading support and resistance areas or pullbacks until I find my own edge? Any and ALL advice and or suggestions welcome. Thank you, Mike
Contrary to Al Brooks I don't think it's entirely possible to share an edge or teach people how to trade profitably due to the insidious nature of how intuiton clouds even the most objectively-oriented human thought processes. If you could pay someone to show their income tax records, and video and audio recordings of all of their day trading sessions where they also talk outloud instead of the internal self-talk that guides traders without this interfering or delaying their trading judgments then it's possible you could learn a great deal if not learn an edge entirely, but I don't think any would want do to that for you. I think you would have to be a woman (a single/or in an open relationship woman would increase your probability more) and/or pay an enormous amount of money for people to help and trust you like that. I have met several women online who say they gained intimate firsthand guidance from male traders. I would just focus on one market, one timeframe, an as few types of setups as possible, focusing on risk:reward prior to entering a trade until the market's behavior can be predicted based on your intuition and experience, over multiple years of observing that one market on a daily basis and be prepared to sacrifice a large % of that 100K starting capital.
I think that I was in the same situation a time ago. I found a mentor that teach me to be patience in trading, this in combination with a rule based system. I see that you trade support and resistance, so you are on the right track. Take a look at this www.tradingpriceactiononfuures.com and make contact with Alex. All the best, Saber
Mike, Most traders are not suitable for trading...its a realization that should have occurred prior to the very first trade they've ever taken. Seriously, after 10 years and you're still struggling...that may be your reality and its a sad reality because someone should have been there with you in person on day one to ensure you got going in the right direction. The above is not a personal attack on you but it is something you need to seriously think about without bias. Now lets go forward because that's the past. If you truly feel that you can be a successful trader and that you've gotten onto the wrong track...that's possible. Yet, you won't know that until your potential mentor has had a chance to visit your home/office trading environment to see how you've been approaching your trading and to see if the problem is your home/office trading environment while you're interacting with the markets. This is absolutely critical before any real mentoring can occur. The point with the above is that successful trading is a lot more involved than just trade signals. Also, if you're seeking to be mentored...it must only occurred in person. No online stuff, no telephone, no screen sharing or whatever. You need someone to be sitting side by side with you in your trading environment to allow that mentor to see how you typically been approaching your trading day in your home trading environment. That mentor must then make suggestions that must complete prior to any real mentoring. Suggestions involving you making changes to your home trading environment so that its suitable for you to be a trader and to treat your trading like a business. Its during that process you would visit the mentor's home/office trading environment so that you fully understand your responsibilities to be properly setup to be a trader. As you can see, a lot of things need to be verified by your mentor prior to getting involved with you. That's the point, mentoring/student relationships is a two way street. The mentor needs to verify you're suitable for trading prior to attempting to mentor you and such can only be done in person. Next, you then verify the mentor is the real deal via watching in person the mentor trading his/her account with real money in front of your own two eyes. This also includes giving you any documentation of any account trading history and the mentoring signs such documentation. At this time...no money has exchange. Its just a process of discovery to determine if the mentor wants to work with you and for you to determine if you want to work with the mentor and find out how the mentoring will be done and if you're still interested. The Money Issue ? That's the tricky part. Lets pretend your mentor is making 15k per month and did such in person in front of your own two eyes during the above discovery process. Mentoring is a big distraction for anyone...that mentor will most likely expect to be fully compensated because nobody is going to mentor you for free without compensation. Someone here at ET once mentioned that its obvious a trader wanting to be mentored to find someone that's a profitable trader but not someone making too much trading profits because that person will want a pretty penny in compensation for their lost time. Seriously, someone making a few thousand (k) per month as a profitable trader is most likely to mentor you in person with you compensating them for such versus someone making 100k per month. Another reality, most traders can not teach and trade in person at the same time in front of someone. Seriously, go find a stranger or someone you barely know and invite them into your home for trading sessions in which you're trading live with real money (your hard earned money) on the line while at the same time trying to teach someone how to trade. That's a very tough gig to do. Simply, you may find someone that's successful/profitable with verification of such but their ability to teach may suck. I'm also suggesting via the above that mentoring will last a minimum of several months of in person trading sessions because its impossible to teach trading in a few days or weeks of mentoring. Is there a cheap alternative around the above ? Yeah but it ain't mentoring. You can continue buying books, attend online seminars, hang out in a chat room, join trading forums, watch Youtube videos, read all the internet information you can but it ain't real mentoring even if the other person thinks he/she is mentoring you via the cheap alternative. Heck, some traders have even come to ET forum to get mentor here at this forum via someone posting details about their strategy here...it just doesn't work like that to result in success. I'm not saying you can't learn from the above. I'm saying it ain't mentoring and it will not teach you how to trade. Another cheap alternative is that someone teaches you their trade strategy in a journal like environment you see here at Elitetrader.com but that's not teaching you how to trade. Simply, its impossible to share with someone an edge unless its automation trading. Discretionary trading without automation...impossible to teach that edge. There's an ongoing myth that an edge is one thing. In contrast, an edge involves many things workings together as a team and part of that edge is the trader. Yet, a trade strategy can be learned online but not the edge involved in applying that trade strategy mainly due to the fact I mentioned above...there's a lot more to successful trading than just a trade strategy that many traders do not discuss mainly because they do not realize it themselves or they don't discuss the details of such because its just too psychological. Once again, do not cough up a single penny if you're looking for mentoring until that mentor enters your home/office trading environment to watch you trade and to see if you're the problem, to see if your home/office trading environment is the problem. Most likely the problem with your trading is you because if it was something else that didn't involved you...you would have discovered and fix such in those 10 years of trying to be a successful trader. Therefore, if the issue is you...you'll most likely need more than just a mentor because no matter what trade strategy you're using...that strategy will not fix you. That's absolutely critical because some folks just are not suitable for trading no matter how many books they read, no matter how many strategies they learn, no matter how many online seminars they attend and its the mentor's responsibility to discover such prior to any mentoring instead of you coughing up a single penny. You need to find someone that lives in the area of La Mirada, California (Border Los Angeles and Orange County)...someone within driving distance to mentor you in person and if he/she is truly profitable...you will need to compensate them a lot because nobody is going to do the above freely for you unless they are old or retired just wanting to give back but still involved and up to date with current market trading conditions. P.S. You mentioned you had ADHD. I'm going to assume you're on medication and/or treatment and that its successfully helping you because you see successful impact of the medication or treatment in other areas of your personal life. If not, don't get involved with trading until you're on the right medication or treatment and that you see positive results in other areas of your life due to the medication or medication for a substantial time period. It may involve you trading ONLY during periods when you're completely focus and your home/office environment setup with minimum distractions for someone with ADHD that allows you to maintain focus for longer periods of time. Many other stories about traders/ADHD like this one @ https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/33620c/i_am_adhd_and_a_trader_in_the_financial_markets/ ADHD isn't bad, for some traders with ADHD it can open the door to creative solutions for traders that other traders without ADHD can not possibly imagine. More information about this involving neuroeconomics. Positive article about ADHD and trading @ http://curry.virginia.edu/magazine/fall2012/a-positive-approach-to-adhd/ Did you realize you had ADHD before you got involved in trading 10 years ago ? P.S.S. Join lots of forums, get the word out on twitter and stocktwits that you live in the area of La Mirada, California (Border Los Angeles and Orange County). Hopefully someone is profitable in that area and willing to mentor you in person via his/her trading account in front of your own two eyes. P.S.S.S. Leave your wife out of this. Right now you have a ton on your plate involving just yourself. You need in person mentoring...anything less is not real mentoring and its not suitable for you based upon the brief descriptions you've given.
Its a process, stick with it and keep reading books, watching YouTube videos, conversing with other traders, perusing Elite and eventually you'll piece together a method that works for you. Trading is an individual sport and traders are not known to share their edge.
Thanks guys, I greatly appreciate the advice. Wow Wrbtrader, VERY informative and eye opening post. I am truly grateful for that. Maybe I don't need a mentor. It seems that I am more after guidance/direction. I think a big problem of mine is that i'm not participating on any of the forums. I don't like asking questions because there is so much information out there I get a piece of advice that sets me on a path of learning (Say the Depth of Market, elliott wave or a trading system on a popular thread) then i'll get other advice that i'm wasting my time and end up looking for something new again. I'm looking for something I should master. Whether that be sitting in a Sim drawing support and resistance lines, supply and demand lines (there are differences), looking for specific patterns, watching the market moves through multiple time frame analysis, etc...... I'm not sure if there is any one subject I should be mastering. I started trading Apple options when Ipods were coming out and turned my 20k retirement into 120K in 6 months only to lose it all chasing the bottom of a bear market. I think part a big part of my problem is fear of loss. I didn't know what I was doing then. I think I know what I am supposed to do now, but I keep studying to make sure I know what I should be doing before I jump in again. I believe my time has been wasted on trying to learn what can't be taught without being in the markets trading with real money. I've recently been watching the lower time frame charts (1-30 min) and have been learning how they can run in different directions but are all tied together. If I see a setup on a 15 minute chart, I like to see if I can boil down an entry all the way down to a 5-15 second chart. Probably trying to fine tune things too much, but i'm trying to learn market structure that way. I have only recently tried to get into daytrading. I spent about 3 years (nights) designing and backtesting a Mean Reversion trading system in Metastock/Tradesim. That time would have been greatly reduced if I had used amibroker to optimize my numbers. I killed my time by changing one number at a time, running a test, comparing it. It was pretty ridiculous but I came out with a pretty bad ass system (on the Russell 3000). The most recent years however mean reversion has lost it's flair and I haven't tried trading it. I've tried medication for ADHD and Adderall seemed to work wonders; however, I couldn't sleep at night and had no appetite. I am already 6-2 pretty thin and am like a furnace to calories. If I don't have an appetite people will be fighting to put me in their yards on halloween. I didn't know I had ADD/ADHD until my parents told me when I got out of the Marine Corps in 1995. I never heard of it till then. Adderall did wonders but too many sides, strattera turned me into a complete emotionless zombie, wellbutrin did absolutely nothing. I don't know if there is anything new. Thank you for the links, I look forward to checking them out. Trading the ES puts a little to much fear in my bones at the moment. It would be easier if my account wasn't bouncing down $13 a tick. Little too scarey for me. I can reduce my fear by trading stocks I suppose as I can start to trade smaller. Is forex a poor man's game? Should forex be day traded with all of the manipulation or is that just another thing you need to recognize before trading it? (reading the manipulation). I am most grateful for your well informed post and your time that you spent in writing it, and others as well. I have more questions but I have to get back to work outside so will post what I have here for now. Thank you, Mike
Possibly your focus misguided?? Teaching you how to trade would be easy Teaching you how to think / act like a trader - honestly imo..., you're rather too self absorbed and mis-trusting for anyone to do so Not trying to be mean - just providing objective feedback ============= To get along in our journey - first..., we must get out of our own way RN