I understand one of Dan's veteran traders is very successfully trading one strategy. I recently read an article written by a World Champion Poker Player. One of his learning strategies was to focus on one champion player -- learn his moves to the point that he could predict what the player would do in certain situations. He would then move on to another player and do the same thing. I focus on one strategy, and get to know the fine details of its personality. Learning one strategy, for me, is better than "mixing it up". That's just me.
The idea of what you're saying is very good. The reality of it is quite flawed. I've never met a mentor charging $5K that is worth the money. In my opinion there are two types of mentors that are worth it. 1) Free 2) Those who you couldn't really pay enough to make them willing to teach. The interesting part is that the latter type are often free because they realize that there isn't a monetary compensation that is worth the hassle. Anyone worth learning from on a personal basis already makes enough money from trading. The notion of a measly $5K making it worth the hassle is ridiculous, and this only applies to someone who is more interested in making money from subscribers than trading. I belong to the first group. I have a small group of people that I guide through the process too, but I don't charge them anything. I like charity, and it is fun to watch them progress. They know exactly what they are getting. Them paying $5K would only hurt the relationship. They'd need every moment to be worth the money; I'd feel pressure to make it worth it. A good trader accepts that idea that there are frequent losses. A novice with $5K in sunk cost expects the mentor to eliminate those losses. The novice tells himself that he can lose money on his own and wonders why he paid money for someone else to show him how. The fact still remains, a person who has what it takes to be a successful trader, also has what it takes not to need a mentor. The vast majority of people who must have a mentor, will need that mentor throughout their entire trading career. It's like learning a foreign language. If you sign up for classes and have someone teach you in an isolated environment, you'll eventually be able to get by. Conversely, if you grab a couple books/tapes and move to the applicable country you'll be fluent in a few months. Will you make a bunch of mistakes durning that first few months? Sure, but the mistakes are worth it. You simply must make sure that the errors are of little consequence. I'm just saying that none of the "professional" mentors mentioned are any better than a few people here. Only the people here (or on other forums) are offering the same advice for free.
Like you I've worked my way through a tonne of books. Only one author I have come across has any books that actually detail the strategy (each book only focuses on one strategy) in such a way that you can practically trade it. I have them all and found them to be very good and have more than recouped my cost by applying them, so I'm pretty satisfied - my only complaint is that he doesn't have more books covering other strategies that I'm also interested in. If you're interested they can be found at www.randomwalk.com and are a lot cheaper than any mentoring course. I find all the different methods of learning useful, it's just that some are more expensive than others. db
Those books by JL Lord are the biggest rip off in the trading book industry. If anyone wants to learn how to trade collars and ratio spreads, I'll give you the info for free. Save the $500 per book. That guy should be in jail for charging that much.
There is no edge in paying someone to teach you how to trade ops whether through mentorship or expensive books and seminars. Learning theory is one thing, pulling money out of the market is something else. The less money you spent on the former, the better your chances with the latter. And i am yet to see someone make a statement that dan sheridan is actually profitable.
This statement is spot on. The benefit of having someone to guide you around initially is that they might prevent you from making a few incredibly stupid elementary mistakes. This in no way implies that they will help you in making correct trading choices, only in avoidance of obviously bad ones. This service is not worth much money as every book written and every free forum contain the same error avoidance content.
Maverick, I am not sure I agree with what you are saying from a practical standpoint. While that may not work on the option, why not just use the underlying to hedge until you work your way out of the spread? I am not commenting on the rest of this thread. I have no idea about that guy one way or another. nitro