The "gurus" do tend to be awfully touchy about the subject of verification, though I tend to agree with the proposition that a verified record of trades may not be necessary if one has the opportunity to watch the trader in real time and knows what to look for.
I've had the opportunity to watch just about everybody that has a for-fee chatroom and have been impressed primarily with how sloppy they all are. One of our more well-known members guessed on most of his/her entries, and his stops at best were what one might charitably call "fuzzy" (one stop was so fuzzy it might as well not have been there at all). His "setups" were nothing more than variations on the same old tired setups that everybody from O'Neil to Pristine uses. There was a lot of feeling, a lot of belief, a lot of maybe and might and ought to and should, but not an ounce of discipline anywhere. And this over the course of a week.
Granted, he/she said that it was an unusually bad week for him, but I could see why. Based on what I had seen, whatever success he claimed to have was most likely the result of guessing right. This is a skill that can be taught? I was also less than impressed by his consistency, or should I say lack of consistency. Though he contends that "real traders" stick to it throughout the day and don't bail just because it's slow, he often did just that when bored.
My point being that audited trading records may not be the great leveler that everyone seems to assume they'd be. Certainly anyone with an ounce of ability can turn in an excellent record during strongly-trending periods. And whoever may not be using the same techniques in his/her chatroom that he uses in his own trading (why give it away for peanuts?).
If you can filter out all the "oh you're so wonderful" that are a common element of these chatrooms and focus on what the trader is doing and why he's doing it, the trading record may become superfluous.
--Db
I've had the opportunity to watch just about everybody that has a for-fee chatroom and have been impressed primarily with how sloppy they all are. One of our more well-known members guessed on most of his/her entries, and his stops at best were what one might charitably call "fuzzy" (one stop was so fuzzy it might as well not have been there at all). His "setups" were nothing more than variations on the same old tired setups that everybody from O'Neil to Pristine uses. There was a lot of feeling, a lot of belief, a lot of maybe and might and ought to and should, but not an ounce of discipline anywhere. And this over the course of a week.
Granted, he/she said that it was an unusually bad week for him, but I could see why. Based on what I had seen, whatever success he claimed to have was most likely the result of guessing right. This is a skill that can be taught? I was also less than impressed by his consistency, or should I say lack of consistency. Though he contends that "real traders" stick to it throughout the day and don't bail just because it's slow, he often did just that when bored.
My point being that audited trading records may not be the great leveler that everyone seems to assume they'd be. Certainly anyone with an ounce of ability can turn in an excellent record during strongly-trending periods. And whoever may not be using the same techniques in his/her chatroom that he uses in his own trading (why give it away for peanuts?).
If you can filter out all the "oh you're so wonderful" that are a common element of these chatrooms and focus on what the trader is doing and why he's doing it, the trading record may become superfluous.
--Db