I'm 20, I've been trading for 4 months and I've lost a grand and gained some knowledge but I'd like to have a teacher. Is it common for investors to be willing to mentor people outside family members? I know of a value investor that's been working at MS forever but it's one of those friend of a friend deals. Besides him I don't know how to find successful investors willing to be my mentor. Any ideas?
whatever you do, dont be quick to shell out a lot of money to a would be 'mentor' there's a whole industry of people who cant really trade, so they prey on people like you the paradox is, if you have something that really works you make more money using it than teaching it, and teaching what you have may threaten to dilute or kill it, if it really works - therefor, it is very difficult to find the person you are looking for, because they tend to not be in the teaching business so most of what is 'mentored' is priced in the thousands for what you could get in books, or even on the internet
best thing for you is the school of hard knocks. the pain endured in this school can be alleviated somewhat if you do some research. go thru the threads, read some books, check out some financial sites and see what you're attracted to. most good traders are not interested in mentoring some kid. (sorry but true)
Try this guy ... he's been calling every major turn of the market since the 1980's. And only this year started mentoring. Says he's getting old: 60 http://caldaroew.spaces.live.com/ Suggest you follow him for a while ... You'll see
I suggest you learn it on your own instead of looking for a mentor. Your time and energy will be better spent reading and thinking than trying to follow the others. The toughest part in trading is that at least 3 standard deviation (99%) of information out there are useless. What you really need to learn is to read fast and train your eyes to filter out the crap. Here's a list of readings that I would recommend. General: 1) Market Wizards I & II by Jack Schwager 2) Reminiscence of a Stock Operator by Edwin Levevre 3) Trade your way to financial freedom by Van Tharp 4) Trading and Exchanges: Market Microstructure for Practitioners 5) The Futures Game (if you're into futures) If you're getting into system trading: 1) Design, testing, and optimization of trading systems by Robert Pardo 2) Trading Systems that work by Thomas Stridsman 3) Portfolio Management Formula by Ralph Vince For the book from Ralph Vince, don't follow the Optimal F exactly as described. In fact, the optimal f concept itself is controversial, but it is an excellent book to understand the importance of betting the right size, and it is very well written. I would recommend you start out with system trading. Backtesting is the cheapest way to make mistakes, and Tradestation is a good platform to start with. This is especially true when you're young and programming should be a skill easy to pick up. Going into the market without serious preparation is asking for disaster. No one can teach you how to trade. They can give you food for thoughts, but you're your only teacher.
start a journal, use this as template http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72958 mentor will appear in no time flat or that was impression I got from reading his jounal, good luck. ps. he started a thread just like yours http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72896
I assume the 2006 copy?, there is another by Tharp that was printed in 98. -- Also I would add Day trading like a pro second edition - It's a good book for a beginner. Nothing advanced, and easy to understand.
I consider my mentors to be X (trader-x.blogspot.com), mao's dummy lessons (maoxian.com), and a bit of mike (tradermike.net) & ugly (uglychart.com). I'm a dummy day trader, of course, and what I did was just read through X & Mao's archives about 7 times (still going, learn something new everyime), take pages & pages of notes, copied down X's setups on graph paper (so I know what to look for), made a trading plan fit for me and am quite close to following that plan 'unemotionally'. although it isn't one on one, i consider their archives and lessons invaluable knowledge, all for free. before them i was just another lemming following strategy to strategy. maybe that'll help? =) best of luck to you.
This implies trading information is normally distributed. I'd argue it's more leptokurtic (much like our friend, the stock market)--a few fat tails on the edges, but the vast majority is MUCH more worthless than you'd expect. I swear there are automated programs which generate financial marketing blurbs like this: http://www.insideoptionsletter.com/ Too much stock market hype is written using the same language, same font styles, and same tone. "Fin-Hype 2K6"?