Hello all. First post here.
Stocks/Equities/Futures/Forex Trading Mentor wanted.
I want to daytrade for a living.
I would love to be able to teach my wife how to trade along side me.
I have studied everything I could over the past 10 years on and off.
I have tried trading stocks, options, forex, and futures.
I have tried swing trading down to scalping a 5 second chart (ES mini) (28 trades today for a $200 loss.) DERP!
I cannot seem to come up with a solid trading plan that I have faith in.
There is too much misleading and contradictory information on the internet.
I try to focus on price action with stochastics to help see the turns in price.
I use Metastock for EOD, Amibroker, Sierra Chart, Interactive Brokers, and IQFeed at the moment.
I am well capitalized (100k).
I am at the point where I need help or I will be searching forums for another 10 years. My confidence in my future success is diminishing.
My 45 year old ADHD brain has a heck of a time remembering what I have learned.
So many strategies in forums but most seem to be full of indicators.
So much information in my head I could put to use If I knew what to use.
I'm in need of a proven strategy, an EDGE, a method, that I can master then possibly tweak to fit my personality. As probabilities of winning trades can be like the flip of a coin. Money management is key.
The search for success is getting exhausting.
I live in La Mirada, California (Border Los Angeles and Orange County)
Should I just keep trading support and resistance areas or pullbacks until I find my own edge?
Any and ALL advice and or suggestions welcome.
Thank you,
Mike
Mike,
Most traders are
not suitable for trading...its a realization that should have occurred
prior to the very first trade they've ever taken. Seriously, after 10 years and you're still struggling...that may be your reality and its a sad reality because someone should have been there with you in person on day one to ensure you got going in the right direction.
The above is not a personal attack on you but it is something you need to seriously think about
without bias.
Now lets go forward because that's the past. If you truly feel that you can be a successful trader and that you've gotten onto the wrong track...that's possible. Yet, you won't know that until your potential mentor has had a chance to visit your home/office trading environment to see how you've been approaching your trading and to see if the problem is your home/office trading environment while you're interacting with the markets. This is absolutely critical before any real mentoring can occur.
The point with the above is that successful trading is a lot more involved than just trade signals. Also, if you're seeking to be mentored...it must only occurred in person. No online stuff, no telephone, no screen sharing or whatever. You need someone to be sitting side by side with you in your trading environment to allow that mentor to see how you typically been approaching your trading day in your home trading environment. That mentor must then make suggestions that must complete prior to any real mentoring. Suggestions involving you making changes to your home trading environment so that its suitable for you to be a trader and to treat your trading like a business. Its during that process you would visit the mentor's home/office trading environment so that you fully understand
your responsibilities to be properly setup to be a trader.
As you can see, a lot of things need to be verified by your mentor prior to getting involved with you. That's the point, mentoring/student relationships is a two way street. The mentor needs to verify you're suitable for trading
prior to attempting to mentor you and such can only be done
in person.
Next, you then verify the mentor is the real deal via watching in person the mentor trading his/her account with real money in front of your own two eyes. This also includes giving you any documentation of any account trading history and the mentoring signs such documentation.
At this time...no money has exchange. Its just a process of discovery to determine if the mentor wants to work with you and for you to determine if you want to work with the mentor and find out how the mentoring will be done and if you're still interested.
The Money Issue ?
That's the tricky part. Lets pretend your mentor is making 15k per month and did such in person in front of your own two eyes during the above discovery process. Mentoring is a big distraction for anyone...that mentor will most likely expect to be fully compensated because nobody is going to mentor you for free without compensation.
Someone here at ET once mentioned that its obvious a trader wanting to be mentored to find someone that's a profitable trader but not someone making too much trading profits because that person will want a pretty penny in compensation for their lost time. Seriously, someone making a few thousand (k) per month as a profitable trader is most likely to mentor you in person with you compensating them for such versus someone making 100k per month.
Another reality, most traders can not teach and trade in person at the same time in front of someone. Seriously, go find a stranger or someone you barely know and invite them into your home for trading sessions in which you're trading live with real money (your hard earned money) on the line while at the same time trying to
teach someone how to trade. That's a very tough gig to do. Simply, you may find someone that's successful/profitable with verification of such but
their ability to teach may suck.
I'm also suggesting via the above that mentoring will last a
minimum of several months of in person trading sessions because its impossible to teach trading in a few days or weeks of mentoring.
Is there a cheap alternative around the above ?
Yeah but it
ain't mentoring. You can continue buying books, attend online seminars, hang out in a chat room, join trading forums, watch Youtube videos, read all the internet information you can but it ain't real mentoring even if the other person
thinks he/she is mentoring you via the cheap alternative. Heck, some traders have even come to ET forum to get mentor here at this forum via someone posting details about their strategy here...it just doesn't work like that to result in success.
I'm not saying you can't learn from the above. I'm saying it ain't mentoring and it will not teach you how to trade.
Another cheap alternative is that someone teaches you their trade strategy in a journal like environment you see here at Elitetrader.com but that's
not teaching you how to trade. Simply, its impossible to share with someone an edge unless its automation trading. Discretionary trading without automation...impossible to teach that edge.
There's an ongoing myth that an edge is one thing. In contrast, an edge involves many things workings together as a team and part of that edge is the trader.
Yet, a trade strategy can be learned online but
not the edge involved in applying that trade strategy mainly due to the fact I mentioned above...there's a lot more to successful trading than just a trade strategy that many traders do not discuss mainly because they do not realize it themselves or they don't discuss the details of such because its just too psychological.
Once again, do not cough up a single penny if you're looking for mentoring until that mentor enters your home/office trading environment to watch you trade and to see if you're the problem, to see if your home/office trading environment is the problem. Most likely the problem with your trading is you because if it was something else that didn't involved you...you would have discovered and fix such in those 10 years of trying to be a successful trader. Therefore, if the issue is you...you'll most likely need more than just a mentor because no matter what trade strategy you're using...
that strategy will not fix you.
That's absolutely critical because some folks just are not suitable for trading no matter how many books they read, no matter how many strategies they learn, no matter how many online seminars they attend and its the mentor's responsibility to discover such
prior to any mentoring instead of you coughing up a single penny.
You need to find someone that lives in the area of La Mirada, California (Border Los Angeles and Orange County)...someone within driving distance to mentor you in person and if he/she is truly profitable...you will need to compensate them a lot because nobody is going to do the above freely for you unless they are old or retired just wanting to give back but still involved and up to date with current market trading conditions.
P.S. You mentioned you had
ADHD. I'm going to assume you're on medication and/or treatment and that its successfully helping you because you see successful impact of the medication or treatment in other areas of your personal life. If not, don't get involved with trading until you're on the right medication or treatment and that you see positive results in other areas of your life due to the medication or medication for a substantial time period. It may involve you trading ONLY during periods when you're completely focus and your home/office environment setup with minimum distractions for someone with ADHD that allows you to maintain focus for longer periods of time.
Many other stories about traders/ADHD like this one @
https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/33620c/i_am_adhd_and_a_trader_in_the_financial_markets/
ADHD isn't bad, for some traders with ADHD it can open the door to creative solutions for traders that other traders without ADHD can not possibly imagine. More information about this involving
neuroeconomics.
Positive article about ADHD and trading @
http://curry.virginia.edu/magazine/fall2012/a-positive-approach-to-adhd/
Did you realize you had ADHD before you got involved in trading 10 years ago ?
P.S.S. Join lots of forums, get the word out on twitter and stocktwits that you live in the area of La Mirada, California (Border Los Angeles and Orange County). Hopefully someone is profitable in that area and willing to mentor you in person via his/her trading account in front of your own two eyes.
P.S.S.S. Leave your wife out of this. Right now you have a ton on your plate involving just yourself. You need
in person mentoring...anything less is not real mentoring and its not suitable for you based upon the brief descriptions you've given.
