I began my trading career by paying about $25k in todays money to be trained by someone who was making 50 - 100% PA. Most of it was distance learning with a one-on-one every 6 to 8 weeks. The relationship continued for two years and during that time I lost heavily, as did almost all the other students. In fact, the only successful one I knew of made a mistake by his own confession and got into a spike up and held.
The trainer is still trading today and continues to be successful, but the problem is he is one of the worst communicators I have ever encountered. He has the gift of making a small group of traders believe the opposite of what he just said. So to further confound the issue, you might have a star performer that can only train you into total bewilderment.
It is interesting to see that so far the majority have developed their own technique, something frightfully difficult to achieve. I know first hand because I have. But contrary to what has been mentioned as the path of simplicity, my twisted mind decided to break all the rules and reinvent the wheel - and I think mine is rounder and faster lol. Well didn't Andres Segovia break all the rules in the strict world of classical guitar and then his method became the classic method?
ND touches on something interesting - a fantastic sim trader who cannot trade live. Of course winning the sim game is not unusual only to find trading is a different game, but excellent sim trading draws some analogies.
You could find a fantastic trainer who cannot trade - but he still would need to be able to demonstrate winning sim trading. It interests me to find wonderfully gifted soccer players who usually become failed coaches and hopeless players who become gifted coaches. There is something about knowing yourself that is only discovered when you train others. That was part of the reason for my experiment to see what would happen when I trained a group with mixed levels of abilities and experience.
I found that one of the top performers had a tendency to self destruct without close man management, yet he was a gifted trader. Another thing I discovered was I could bring about an almost instant breakthrough when a trader reached a sticking point that had been a major source of frustration. It was so easy to see the problem and solution - how I wish I had received that assistance.
So some trainers can't get over the emotion and distraction of trading live, but they correctly perceive what needs to be done. Other trainers fool themselves because they think they perceive what event is happening, but they are deceived. Sim or live, you have to see it to believe it. There needs to be real proof with live entries and exits.
Many trainers can have a lot in common with confidence tricksters. They might know a bit more than you and that makes them an authority, but what they know best is how to part you from your money. I have never had an Internet business, but I remember a guru saying something like "You don't want to provide the solution. You want to provide the tools that someone believes will take them on to the next step of their dreams, Then you can resell them." A lot of what goes on for trader training is exactly that.
Is it OTA that has franchised their trader training and now losers are buying canned presentations to offer others the steps to their dreams, never mind they have never placed a trade themselves! Says a lot about the originator of this fluff.
Oh and a postscript for RN. Once was enough
