Yep. Good point, also there is no guarantee whatsoever that you can succeed or make a living as a trader or in any other business related venture. If you train to become a draftsmen, get the necessary skills/certificates, etc. Then get a job, turn up for work everyday, you'll get paid, that's virtually a guarantee (well, almost). Not the case with trading, its akin to becoming a great athlete or musician. Some (or most) simply don't have it in them. You could spend years trying to aquire "it", but in the end its basically a coin toss. Those years might have been best used learning a more conventional trade or profession.
I believe the only true edge in trading is experience .... SUCCESSFUL experience. Sure you could teach someone to trade a system that's working at the time (a temporary "edge"), but I believe that to be profitable in the long run one needs to be able to learn how to adapt and change as individual "edges" die and new ones emerge. That cannot be taught to someone in a week, I don't believe.
Many good responses in here. The huge efforts in distilling out a quantifiable edge would make someone wonder why they would give it to others, because the revelation of such an edge can render it useless, in the hands of a high-volume trader. It is called the "dilemma of discovery"
Only true for mechanical or automated systems. Simply, discretionary traders (those not using automated systems) do not trade alike even when using the exact same trade strategy due to so many obvious reasons. Mark
imo.... Can I train somebody what I know? Yes. Would the person, after a few days training, be able to apply whatever knowledge I have just transferred effectively? Guess that isn't entirely impossible.
Do you think you could teach someone? I can answer this question in a corporate/professional capacity. Assuming a professional trading system which requires only an operator, it will be specific in its user requirements. You will still want an intelligent committed employee. Assume daytrading in a liquid futures market. Here the operater is not devising anything; you are training him or her. Your system will have specific buy and sell triggers; it may have conditions where a condition may be needed before a buy or sell signal is accepted. You train a person in a week. His or her intelligence and experience using your system will also produce better performance over time by the individual. However your system will not be of the various sorts frequently discussed at ET. There is no vagueness; no discretionary role. You only want a job well down where you can reward the employee on a base plus bonus.