Mentoring may be excessive, I simply attended a very good seminar of Larry Williams back in 2004 (it was a Million Dollar Challenge), it showed me how he worked which is different from how I work, what I learned is that "it can be done" and that it requires study, Larry is great, he is always curious about new ideas and his attidute is extremely positive. I can't tell much about other seminars as that was the only one I attended. Bye Andrea Unger
Hi, I tried to answer last night but my answer went lost . I wanted to say that "mentoring" is perhaps too big a word in my case, I did attend a seminar of Larry Williams, it was October 2004, a Million Dollar Challenge, the seminar was great and Larry is even greater, but that was all, I saw how he works which is different from the way I work, what I got from that participation was the consciousness that "it can be done". I did not participate to any other program or seminar, but I have been cooperating with Domenico Foti who I consider the best trader in Italy and from him I learned really very much, someone called that mentoring, it was cooperation but it helped enormously to my growth in this business. Andrea Unger
I have rules taught to me from dudes with about 20 years of experience. You can follow my trades i trade cl and gc. IM NOT TRYING TO SELL SHIT. IM PROVING TO MYSELF I CAN TRADE AND POST LIVE TRADES AS WELL.
there are 2 groups of traders. group 1 trade other peoples money (they work in the financial industry) and group 2 trade their own money. g1 is normally educated in line with academic subjects that relate to the financial industry while g2 has absolutely no idea of how the intricate workings of finance interact on a daily basis. this leaves a big market for so called educators to sell numerous courses to g2 as they have had no formal education like g1. the ironic part is that neither educational approaches are required in order to make money trading. this is a common trait of academic teaching (not just in the financial industry teachings) which can result in a lot of time wasting and unnecessary work and effort by people. of course a lot of the information is relevant but it is also true that a lot of it is not of any real use in the real world. likewise our g2 educators are no different to the many academic offshoots that will gladly provide expert advice to any company or organization that seeks to improve on how they carry out their daily tasks. of course nobody works for nothing so money will have to change hands first. if a person wants to improve on what they have (be it trading or any other endeavor) then a good place to start is to acknowledge the facts as they really are and not rely on hearsay and stories. so to answer the question posed. people pay for trading courses/training because they lack the knowledge and experience that is required to be profitable in the financial markets. they think that other people are going to be able to show them how to make money. there are a few that will make money from such endeavors but most will not (much in the same way that the best job can not go to everyone in the organization).
More client feedback from the live markets: "By the way - I'm hanging in there - had a great day on monday - +$1800 (I forget how many trades I had). Today and yesterday were slow. Had a couple of losers (small) and just couldn't get a feel for things, so I hung back. ($500) between the two days. "
it is all in the mind. if people think that they have to do things a certain way then they are placing limitations on themselves. the markets do not care one little bit if you conform to recognized standards or not. to make money trading you have to know what you are doing. to know what you are doing you have to have acquired some knowledge about what does and what does not work best. there is no rocket science required when it comes to trading and even options trading can be broken down into simple understandable steps. many traders seem to forget that the purpose of trading is to make money and not to know everything there is to know about fundamental and technical analysis (which is most of what is sold to those who want to learn from others). of course there is another way to learn but as it involves some hard and personal decisions many will shy away and look for others to comfort them and help them shift the blame on to other things (of which there are many to pick from). those who accommodate people who look to others for guidance are but providing another service that is required in today's information age. this will not change and the cycles will continue to attract and consume those who are exposed to the lure of the financial markets. how big your words are will not make any difference to your results as a trader but what will is how big your bank account is.
I realised if I was gonna succeed at this trading business I would have to find a profitable trader to mentor me. I had naively thought I was clever enough to master this business on my own. It cost me a ton of cash in stupid trades. I found a mentor by using forums and looking for guys that could seemingly talk the talk and walk the walk. A few of us got together and virtually begged the trader to teach us. That was back in late 2006, even after spending a year in a live room with him, watching him call trades live in front of us I would say most still couldn't trade his method profitably. What it did do for me however was convince me that his method worked and was pretty much bullet proof I was the reason I couldn't trade it profitably, I was missing a critical part of the puzzle (it did in fact turn out I HAD missed the particular rule to his method that made all the difference). It took me two years and 1000's of hours more study to work it out and prove his method was better than everything else I had tried, EW, fibs, bollingers, channels, fundis etc I had his benchmark nothing else touched it. It was an ass backwards way to learn what is best but I got there in the end. Find a method or a pattern you like, work out why it wins when it wins then why it fails when it fails, eventually you will stop taking the failures. I hope that makes some sense.
With what you know now and if your method stopped working, what would you do? ES P.S. By the way...Congrats. (You give all of the blind, hope to see)
Because many people find it unbearable to read a book; they'd rather watch a movie. They lead entire lives which are characterized by the careful avoidance of a most dreaded thing : thinking for yourself. But they want to be traders. Why? Because it looks like even more of the same ease : traders make money, and don't have to work hard, right?? These people, 85% to 90% of the population, even though you may not believe it, and trading instructors == match made in heaven. The lazy and their messiahs.