Paying for a mentor vs. Elite Trader Forum

[Visaria]

I paid for a mentor early last year. Less than a few thousand bucks. Totally worth it, he helped me make 25% (6 figures) last year.

I will not mention who he is, but he is relatively well known, has an excellent trading record for decades (no, he is not a super trader who's made tens of millions, but so what). He does have contacts with a number of the the trading legends out there though and also with allocators of capital.

We were supposed to talk (via phone) once a week, but it turned out to be once or twice a month. Amongst other things, he introduced me to certain technical concepts which i was not previously aware, the importance of position sizing, how to add to trades that are working out and demonstrated very convincingly as to why day trading is a not only a losing proposition (for 99% of traders), but a waste of time and life. It must be noted strongly that much of the mentoring process was to remind and reinforce knowledge that i already had.

We still speak regularly, there is no real time limit for the mentoring service afaik.

 

[EPrado]

The best thing to do is join a real prop firm that will teach you working edges in the market. A real prop firm is one that profits from your profits not a churn and burn shop that just gives you leverage and makes$ from fees and commissions.

I see you haven't read the altucher mentor advice piece. Or you wouldnt be asking this question.

surf

I agree to join a prop firm that does offer some type of training (preferably one that backs people, not the churn and burn type that you mention). But to be honest those days seem long gone. 10-15 years ago there were a lot of them around. Ones with a lot of capital. The real firms that back people these days seem to only want guys with experience/track records. One might get lucky and find a trading assistant job and work for an experienced guy for 1-2 years.

Going to one of these prop firms that want you to put money down and then learn their magical strategies are a mistake in my opinion. Like you said their main goal is to get you to actively trade and churn commissions. If their strategies were that good they would teach guys, back them with firm capital, then profit when you profit.

 

[EPrado]

Self moderation of threads will never happen. If it does, et will be closed down within 6 months

surf

It almost became a reality on here because of you. LOL

 

[marketsurfer]

It almost became a reality on here because of you. LOL

I am also one reason this site is a success---

 

[EPrado]

I laugh when I see these guys whine that day trading is a waste. Most likely they failed at it and now must become haters because they couldn't hack it. I know plenty of day traders who still do very very well. Have been for a long time. The ones who failed most likely failed because their strategy was flawed, they had no concept of risk management or position sizing, no discipline.

You take that same trader who failed as a day trader and make him a swing trader/longer term trader he will fail miserably again. Nothing to do with "day trading". Too many people fail at it and use their failure as a crutch and say "it doesn't work".

As far as paying for a mentor? I think that's a waste of time. There are mentors out there who make a lot of money trading and really don't need a fee. They offer advice/help because most likely when they started someone helped them out. They are just continuing with that.

Then there are the ones who charge a fee and have some magical trading strategy. If they are that good then why do they need to charge for the advice ? Most likely they aren't good traders. Like someone else just said.....those who can trade...trade......those who can't ......teach.

I can see paying someone for more of a psychological standpoint. Like if you are going through a bad draw down and need to be talked off the ledge.....or in a rut. But to pay someone to teach you ? Too many con artists out there.

There are guys out there who will offer help out of the kindness of their hearts. My early ones were real nice guys. Were big fans of throwing phones at me and other new guys...the receiver at times...and if I really didn't understand something the whole damn phone.

 

[EPrado]

I am also one reason this site is a success---

If you judge success on the number of posts then I agree......I will stop there and leave it at that. Your content......................well..............................

How about them Mets?

 

[EPrado]

Hello everyone,

So I have been attempting to find a mentor here on cyberspace, getting a complete stranger from a faraway land who I will probably never meet to mentor me in my full time trading career (since I have been unprofitable for the past two years ).

I have been debating within myself whether there is any additional value of paying for a mentor.

So here is my question to the Elite Trader Community:

"What can a personal mentor (receiving compensation) offer, that the various members on the Elite Trader forum cannot?"

-or to rephrase the question-

" If I simply post here on ET, will I be receiving the same guidance or advice that a paid mentor will be providing? "

Thanks to everyone who replies and answers the poll.

IWDI

Would stay away from paying someone. Too many con artists out there who can't trade at all but claim they can.

My advice as far as on ET? Find the posters on here you believe have something valuable to say and ask them. If they are decent guys they will respond. If they are pricks you will know right away and pretty much ignore them.

I agree there are a lot of trolls/wannabes/blowhards on here. You just have to weed through them.

 

[zdreg]

That is easy to answer:

Given you choose wisely, and given you even ever find a mentor that can teach you to profitably trade at rates you can afford to pay, the advantage is that you are taught a straight forward, probabilistic process vs all the crap you read here at ET. A good mentor will be profitable him/herself. Do not believe what some idiots claim on this site, which is that some mentors are great teachers but are bad at implementing their own teachings. That is crap. I have never met or heard of a great teacher who cannot trade him/herself well. I would, for example, never ever consider taking advice from Victor Niederhoffer, someone who blew through all his clients' investments several times. In fact I take the opposing approach to his thought process and believe he will never succeed with the way he approaches markets. And I am pretty sure anyone who learned under VN and makes money will have adjusted his/her own process which most likely significantly differs from what VN preaches.

In summary, you will read a lot of crap here on this site in terms of "advice", and of course you could end up with a bad mentor. But if you take the time to choose wisely then I believe a mentor is of much more worth than stuff you read here.

P.S.: And yes, as the previous poster mentioned, you CANNOT buy success. You may not be cut out for trading. Maybe you do not have the right mental make up or can't put into practice what you learn. That is entirely up to you.

it is true what you say about neiderhoffer. however, you will never have as much fun as neiderhoffer has had while blowing up his accounts . this man knows how to have a good time and people around him don't care about their losses that he has created for them. investing with him is like being a partner in an restaurant or in a theatre production. it is just for bragging rights with your acquaintances.

 

[zdreg]

Yes it is a strange phenomenon. My theory is that they have spent such a long time studying their own field that they can be very naive in other endeavours. Of course this is a generalisation. They also seem to take instruction well from a supposed expert in the finance field. Then of course they often have large savings and disposable income.

maybe they feel guilty for burying their mistakes.

 

[barcadia]

Best advice I got was from someone called hitchslap who advised me to find someone in real life. Someone who could prove they made lots of money daytrading.

At the time I was wasting time with the ET gurus who seemed scared of posting a realtime call or a statement ect. It should have been obvious that they weren't actually profitable and just had some mental health issues. There are still a few around, but a few seem to have ceased posting in recent months.

I found someone in real life through a friend of a friend, and I now trade with that person both in-person, but usually via skype. No money exchanged.
Admittedly, they haven't shared much info with me that will enable me to replicate their success, but at the moment i'm happy to copy their trades and watch my account grow in a way that I didn't think would be possible.
Small stops (2 ES points?) Targets typically of around 5 points, and a very high success rate. Crystal ball stuff at times.

I've posted a number of realtime calls myself in recent weeks off of the back of this guys skype calls, and you can see the difference between them results and my previous calls!

If you have to rely on finding someone on a forum, I don't like the odds. I can think of 2 posters on trade2win who appear to have an edge. I can't think of any elitetrader posters off the top of my head.

Hopefully in time, he'll start to share more of the reasoning for his trades.
I can tell you that it doesn't *seem* to have much to do with chart and TA, though!