Excellent question. Much of this depends on the extent of help you will be getting. If you were going enter into some sort of paid mentorship, then I think its absolutely legitimate to ask for proof of some sort. You will hear people say that anything can be faked, and this is true. Some ways to fake things would of course be photoshop. A person can easily add entries onto a chart that aren't there, and they can just as easily remove exits. They can also show all their trades while SIM trading, and it would be easy to hide this fact with some platforms. Statements can be just as easily faked, along with time stamps of trades, etc. At the same time though, if someone goes to the trouble to do this, you are at least dealing with someone who is very motivated, and most people on ET probably aren't that motivated, so simply asking for a bit of proof is enough to scare most away. Now if what you are getting is just help online from those that claim to know what they are doing, then asking for financial type proof might be a stretch. It certainly makes sense though to ask for some sort demonstration that their trading help or method would prove to be useful. There are some common ways to get around this that in a way makes the teacher sound smarter and in some ways makes it sound legitimate to the student, but one must remember that this is simply side stepping the question. What I have come across are answers such as: 1. "It doesn't matter what I can extract out of the market, what matters is what you can." On the surface, this sounds fair. Some guys are happy to get 5 points out of a move, others might not bother unless they can see getting at least 20 points. But this answer doesn't really help all that much. 2. "My tolerance for risk is different than yours". This one also sounds fair on the surface. To someone trading an hourly chart, risking 10 points might not seem like much, but if you're only using 1 min bars, 10 points might be quite a large stop. The problem of course is that if someone is trying to help someone along with how to trade, then it makes sense that what they do themselves and what they teach should in some ways match up. Therefore, showing someone how to trade shouldn't be so much different from how they trade themselves. If the teacher is teaching a supposed easy method, then why wouldn't the teacher use this same method? Likewise, if there is a better method that the teacher uses themselves, then why wouldn't they be teaching this same method to the student? I think much more could be learned from watching what a trader is doing and seeing everything they are looking at, rather than listening to them go on and on about how they trade. What they tell you to do and how to do it pales in comparison to seeing what they actually do themselves with their own money on the line. Its a classic case of "do as I say not as I do". Every successful trader could have a firm set of rules, and every single one of them will break their own rules because of some subset of rules they forget to mention. This subset of rules often comes from intuition gained by lots of screen time and this is difficult to teach. But at the very least, if you can see what the trader is doing, you stand a much better chance than just following what he tells you to do. Take this an an example. Handle123 posts lots of charts here in some of the journal threads. They are a little difficult to read sometimes (I have yet to figure out where the entry and exit is exactly.. LOL), but the idea behind them is sound. He is buying or selling based on price in relation to a moving average and bollinger bands. He keeps tight stops and it seems like tight targets. But you can't just buy or sell every time price touches a line, and you can see him add lots of other info such as triple tops or double bottoms, or time factors or, etc. The devil is in the details and hence weighs heavily on lots of experience. My main point though is that at the very least, he is showing what he is doing and how he does it, and even then who knows what else he is looking at, what other time frames, and perhaps other instruments to gauge the market as a whole, etc. So a teacher might say that you can test the method out for yourself to evaluate it, and this is yet another valid excuse to not show any proof, but I think a demonstration of how they themselves trade via their own method would be the best proof of all. Good luck seeing any of this.
Kp, That's section I quoted above is exactly my point. That's not mentoring although you didn't imply such and the ONLY way you can truly "demonstrate" how someone is using a method is to actually be sitting in the same office in person. That gives the student and mentor the opportunity to see all those other things that a trader does that has no association with a entry/exit shown on a chart. As you said yourself...its just a trader (e.g. Handle123) sharing snippets here at ET even the ones with the best coherent annotated hindsight or before the fact charts. Real mentoring occurs in person...not at a forum called Elitetrader.com that doesn't even have the proper format for mentoring unless Baron (ET owner) opens a huge trading room where ET members can rent office space and trade together. Unfortunately, many traders will attempt to use ET as if such existed here via text messages and posted charts. At best one can do here at ET is just collect tips and snippets and then keep what they think is useful and continue self-taught. Yet, if self-taught isn't good enough, in person mentoring is the real next step. Mentoring in person is tough to find unless in some kind'uv professional background (e.g. institutional, prop or university program)... If truly serious for a career in trading, one may need to temporary relocate to get that mentoring in person, return to university offering such or get a job at a prop or institutional firm. The other option is to find a professional private trader that trades at home of rents an office space. Finding such is almost impossible because most of these folks are very private and even if you find one...you're going to need to temporarily relocate or pay tons in hotel expenses because these traders aren't going to let someone live in their home.
"iwilldoit" As you have been trading for more than 2 years, why not open a trading thread, and start listing 10 things that you know would improve your trading. Then find out why you do not manage to do these 10 things over a 4 months period of trading for instance. I am sure you might get some interesting insights adapted to your situation.
Keep a personal trading journal if you truly believe in your existing trading system but can't seem to take it to the next level. You don't need to hire a mentor if in your heart of hearts you believe that it's the five inches between your ears that's keeping you from making a well back tested and carefully developed system perform. I know it sounds hokie and outdated, but it works like magic if you have the courage and conviction to be brutally honest with yourself. Correcting mistakes should be equated to positive account equity. Examples that I can think of are: 1. Making impulsive trades outside the bounds of your system out of boredom, 2. Introducing your own discretion into a mechanical trading system designed to avoid discretion, 3. Ignoring or minimizing the importance of trade position management ( from my experience, many new clients come to me having spent 95% of their energy and focus on trade entry. They think that these ultimate trade entries take care of themselves, which is of course nonsensical ). If you are an experienced trader with pure introspection, likewise you might conclude that your system design is flawed in some way or not suited to your personality or situational requirements. In any event, keep at it and the best of success to you !
Agreed on all points. I do think skype in some ways does provide the next best thing to being right there in person. What's nice about skype is that the mentor is not wasting time typing and can focus on his own trading while answering questions or making comments at his discretion, but finding the right mentor is key of course. So getting back to the original question from the OP, someone willing to at least skype with you one on one would be a bare minimum in my opinion, and also in many ways I think quite sufficient as well if you're dealing with an honest mentor.
Oh, and I have watched this series you link to as well. This was a while back though, and from what I can remember, the stuff that these guys were doing was just far too much work. I don't even remember what they were trading, but it reminds me of the session I went to here in my local town from Online Trading Academy. Every day the guys said they would look at just about every single metric out there from interest rates to the dollar to you name it. If I had so much info in my head, I'm not even sure how I could put it all together to put on a trade. When I was chatting after the info session with one of the "traders" he was very hesitant to show me his charts, and my impression of him was that of a washed up car salesman. His income was very clearly derived from singing up students and "teaching".
Things is how do I know what is blocking me is 1) my trading behaviour? or 2) my backtested model? 0r 3) my lack of knowledge? @bone
If they can't produce current statements showing multiple years of > $1M/year then you shouldn't bother.
1) you hire a very good psy 2) you hire a programmer 3) you hire a very experienced "traider" , as you want to philosophy as much as you can.