In Finding a Mentor

[dalentar]

"Now if you are really good you will get 50% right,down the road maybe 70% max...Now if you have recorded all these stats coming from your brain,your trades, you will see in black and white how often you are right/ wrong, without spending a dime."

You know what would probably happen? This person would likely get blown out of the water because they wouldn't understand risk, once they thoiught they could predict the markets, they woulud put a huge trade on, and blow out. I can almost guarantee it. There is so much more to it than what you just described.

 

[ammo]

.....okay 8 months have passed,how you doing with the charts and market profile, got a feel for how the market moves and when its gonna move big and not at all. Did you hold all calls that were right until we got to the other side .support or resistance,of course you did,there was no money on the line. Thats okay, you are supposed to lesrn to trade like there is no money on the line. Now open an acct,with only 20 % of what you can afford, just in case you fall into the 95% fail on their first ,2nd and 3rd try. .. Now allow yourself 2 trades a day,that's it, just 2. These are like gold and you have to be very careful ,they are very valuable because they represent your ability to succeed, not the money. Wait for a setup and get in with a 1 lot, give yourself room to be wrong, no one enters a trade that goes immediately there way,it happens once in a while, but we are sticking with those black and white percentages u drilled on earlier. Most trades will go against you, for the simple reason that picking an exact top or bottom happens so seldom that it's just luck when it happens.

 

[dalentar]

ammo, that all makes sense and it's easy to look back and say yeah that's the way it should be done. But I doubt without some information from others, they would follow that (have the dicipline to wait that time, put on paper trades, and so forth). Again, getting the basics down charts, swings, pivots, volume, an dputting that together real time and whatching someone trade and mimicing that are 100% more effective than trying to figure it out yourself.

Is that how you got started? Why did you learn market profile? What got you interested in that?

 

[ammo]

...okay now you are in a trade , you sold 15 as a resistance and the chart says it's got support at 13.5. It goes to 14.75 and you have a profit,you want to get out, you tell your self all kinds of what if's to justify getting out and back on the sidelines where it is safe. This goes back to where i could tell you where the market was going and where to buy and sell and you would still lose money. This is harder than all the work you did so far. Go back to your chart of your b/w percentage and see that you were only right so often,put in a stop and wait for your trade to pan out, if you are wrong ,your stop is something you can afford and it's part of trading. Man up and sit thru this,you have to see it thru to 13'5 to cover all the stops when your wrong,and after a a few hundred trades with your one lots, and if you stick with your plan and use your stops and ride your convictions, you made it thru basic training camp and have learned how to trade.

 

[dalentar]

"you made it thru basic training camp and have learned how to trade."

Exactly, and I will have you to thank for being my mentor.

 

[ammo]

Quote from dalentar:

I doubt they would follow that (have the dicipline to wait that time, put on paper trades, and so forth). Again, getting the basics down charts, ... You have to want it, no doubt, be sure

Is that how you got started? Why market profile? [/B]

just go to office suppl and get a $5 graph paper notebook, hand chart and you will force yourself to not miss a move, you will learn to pay attention, eventually you will see holes in the chart that will be flll'ed by the end of the day, you will see how the previous day's provide starts and stops for today here is a whole library of info, enough to confuse the sh out of you , rome wasnt built in a day, mentors are like lotto tickets, it's very hard to pick a winner,go here and look up the basics on market profile, forget the 80% rule for now,just learn how to draw one and start , trendlines just connect 3 highs and 3 lows,until you do this for a while, you wont understand much more ,even if you did have a mentor,he is not gonna do the work for you,there is no ride to school or cleaning lady, it's all on you http://www.trading-naked.com/Articles_and_Reprints.htm

 

[Bolimomo]

Quote from dalentar:


..... A comprehensive course would be much more valuable to cover the basics, how they've traded in the past then from there find some good guys aroundme to trade with and take it from there. That's what I mean by a mentor.

That's the whole issue, isn't it?

How many people can you find to teach you to brew a cup of coffee? No brainer, right?

How many people can you find to teach you how to play tennis? Fewer, but still plenty.

Now how many people can you find to teach you how to play really good tennis because they have been winners themselves? Well... the number is much smaller.

Now... you need to find someone who actually knows about trading. And he/she should be (or have been) successful at the game. You don't want to learn from a loser, right? And given all that, he/she is willing to spend the time to mentor you.

As others stated, those who trade (still) and are successful would rather spend the time in making money from trading a lot more than they will spend the time in mentoring you.

There are professional trading mentors out there for hire. As forementioned. For whatever reason (they can make more money from mentoring than trading, or retired from trading, or ...). Then it's back to my point that they can mentor you most effectively on how they trade, which is not necessarily be how you want to trade.

 

[ammo]

Quote from dalentar:

"you made it thru basic training camp and have learned how to trade."

Exactly, and I will have you to thank for being my mentor.

very few of us have a clue as to whats going on, myself included, but i know more than you ,so i could easily get you to pay for the basics ,take your money and you wouldn't be much further along, be careful about signing up for anything

 

[dalentar]

"he/she should be (or have been) successful at the game"

Even some of the stories on this board will answer these questions. But moverover the argument that no one will teach if they are truly succesfull is flawed. Why do banks have successful traders? If those traders are so succesful why don't they go out and trade on their own? There are other factors aside from self interest. Mark Douglas wrote a book because he blew out his account and he wrote it (according to him) to help himself understand what he did wrong (and at the same time make some $$ and help others). Does that make him bad to learn from . Probably not. And that's the point. People can be effective at teaching the basics of a system and market structure without being full time traders themselves. Why do you assume that peole that teach say at an SMB or a T3 or some place like that are bad traders? Just because they choose to leverage that knowledge differently with perhaps less risk while still getting to teach it and be around a throng of trading energy each day might be incentive enough? Perhaps they're trading while they work. Again, I think the assumption all people who are good or can trade don't teach and visa versa is not entirely valid. Remember..WARREN BUFFET HAD A MENTOR!

 

[dalentar]

"so i could easily get you to pay for the basics "

I see your point but I think for a business that makes money when people are successful like some prop shops and some educational places (SMB, T3) and so on that they have an incentive to provide good information. Just like a college. There';s an incentive to provide a good product so that word of mouth brings more people through the door. And the more succesfull your graduates are the more succesfull you will be. That model works. Win win works and is what any good business should be based on. In trading that outcome is harder to control but not because the customer was given a shoddy set of goods. As a business owner I want my students to be tops int heir field because then I will be more succesfull. Win/Win.