Mentorship (4th year still not profitable)

[777]

Their coaches are either retired (too old to compete) or mediocre players but good coaches. When it comes to trading, you want someone who is still active (who cares about learning how trading was in say 1980s?) but also outperforming everyone else. A sports equivalency of having Michael Jordan coach you while he's competing in the NBA finals.

Absolutely correct. My analoges were only meant to highlight that most big winners in life seek out mentors.

In trading you want a coach who has meanigful positive expectation right now.

Trading edges often evaporate over time and many who used to win are now solid losers or have quit trading.

Trading is full of gurus-for-hire who had an edge years ago but are now losers who no longer have an edge.

Trading is even more full of complete lying hustlers posing as winning traders who never once in their lives figured to beat the game.

 

[themickey]

Absolutely correct. My analoges were only meant to highlight that most big winners in life seek out mentors.

In trading you want a coach who has meanigful positive expectation right now.

Trading haa many gurus for hire who had an edge years ago but are now losers who no longer have an edge.

Trading is even more full of complete lying hustlers posing as winning traders.

Yes and lying husksters would never have been succesful in the first place.
For some reason it seems, the best traders long term have self integrity.
Self deception carries over into trading self deception which carries over into trading losses.

 

[ironchef]

If one knows his stuff, and if the student has the ability to learn, it's not that hard to teach the basics. That fork in the road is the application. I've found that while not wanting to clone myself, too often leaving the student to go his own way, leads to disaster. So initially you have to clone yourself to a certain extent and let the student develop himself later after years of experience.

Other than reading books, lots of books, I obtained most of my options trading skills from you folks here and I have no way of knowing if you all are good traders. Perhaps most of you are.

 

[lawrence-lugar]

Other than reading books, lots of books, I obtained most of my options trading skills from you folks here

I have no way of knowing if you all are good traders. Perhaps most of you are.

The second sentence made me smile;

Take that "most" sample, and divide that by 99.5%...that very tiny group are the profitable/successful traders.

I'm not being arrogant or anything...but that's just reality of any select grouping. Creme of the Crop...Select the Best, forget the rest.

From my experience, or observations, the best traders in the world are not the most highly educated or have the most experience.
Education and experience are important, don't get me wrong -- but only to a certain point or extent.
Too much education makes you stale and stuffy and close-minded, and too much experience makes you stale as well and dry and tired.

 

[tomorton]

For poor traders (and that's most, of course - nobody's disputing it) you're right; for real traders, d08's right ... (is my perspective).

Well, there's not really any argument here. Why would I recommend a profitable day-trader give up day-trading? - I wouldn't and I didn't. But d08 likes to set up adversarial conversations, even when I wasn't talking to him (and don't like to generally).

 

[Humpy]

I used to close out all my open trades at the end of the day. Mainly not to worry about over night glitches.
Now I am experimenting with position building from day to day and only closing on the stop loss or take profit.

 

[timdug]

I am only laughing because it's one of the more ridiculous claims made on this forum (having worked at one of the firms mentioned and having been working in finance for many years). What probably happens is that outfit had some people that took their course and later happen to find a job with a fund/bank. Alternatively, they might do corporate training courses for operations/sales staff or provide FSA test prep courses. This gives them an opportunity to say with all honesty "we train staff for VS" and such.



It's not "coaching", it's "apprenticeship". It's very different from coaching - you learn by doing things and looking over someones shoulder.

they train in-house staff and have alumni that go on to work in finance as analysts, traders and portfolio managers etc.
I don’t really give a shit, I was merely just saying they provide good base education for trading intraday.
I’m not really interested in what people think it may or may not be.

 

[d08]

From what I read he was not a good coach either while competing or retired. Phil Jackson was the good coach during Jordan's time.

Turned out his teammate Steve Kerr, not as talented, is a better coach.

I think a good trader may not be a good coach and vice versa.

That was the point I was actually making for basketball, see the same paragraph. In sports you can understand the game well but are lacking the athletic ability, I see no such problems when clicking the mouse is involved. You can be 80 years old and still actively trading.
Maybe it's true for trading as well, having a trading coach that barely makes the average wage is better as a coach. I personally find it hard to believe but I haven't had any coaching either.

If one knows his stuff, and if the student has the ability to learn, it's not that hard to teach the basics. That fork in the road is the application. I've found that while not wanting to clone myself, too often leaving the student to go his own way, leads to disaster. So initially you have to clone yourself to a certain extent and let the student develop himself later after years of experience.

Won't cloning yourself limit their creativity? The same applies to schooling, by enforcing the same rules upon everyone, you limit the creativity of some at the benefit of the majority. Methods and discipline are important but not absolutely everything.

Not so!
There are plenty of old timers around with years of experience but these days lack the quick reflexes and energy of up coming younger guys and gals.
You don't want a Michael Jordan training you, he us too busy with his own game plan to be able to put quality time into training others, while an old timer has both the time and the nous to do that. But finding such people is like finding gold in a river bed, not easy.

If quick reflexes are needed, why not just hire someone to automate the approach or someone to just trade your method if automation is out of the question?
Some might even say "if they are that good and been doing it for so long, why aren't they retired yet?". The only explanation is that they are old, wealthy, still trading actively AND are eager to teach just for the sake of teaching (money doesn't matter). Seems like the criteria is too strict to find anyone.

 

[d08]

Well, there's not really any argument here. Why would I recommend a profitable day-trader give up day-trading? - I wouldn't and I didn't. But d08 likes to set up adversarial conversations, even when I wasn't talking to him (and don't like to generally).

It's called having a discussion. Anyone can join in if they feel they have something to contribute.

Maybe its illogical but the statistics are with my argument. Most new traders are day-traders and most get wiped out.

What statistics suggest most new traders are daytraders? I'm sincerely curious.
Most new traders get wiped out, period. Daytrading or not.
With daytrading, your equity gain or decline can accelerate as you're dealing with more data and therefore more opportunities. Then again, you can trade options over a longer period and lose everything within days or put on oversized futures positions. On the flipside you can daytrade conservatively - low volatility ETFs, very large cap stocks etc, not that risky in any sense.

I suppose you're suggesting everyone who are relatively new to trading don't know what they are doing and therefore their accounts will be depleted too fast, before they can learn anything. Fair point if that's what you meant.

 

[learner2007]

Won't cloning yourself limit their creativity?

Yes, I think it would if you were to do so 100%. That's why I said 'to a certain extent'. That 'certain extent' is needed to keep them from going too far out on the limb, which without sufficient experience will result in problems. I've found too often that those who are smart enough to learn the basics, tend to just jump into the application phase. As you know, it should take considerable time to find what's best for them in that respect.