Professional training

Chuck Krug

Chuck Krug

The post from steve46 about professional training in the 'it is impossible to make money in the markets' thread struck a chord with me.

So if anyone wants to share where or from whom he received his training, and how he rates this experience.

This could be of interest to everyone, imo.
 
That was a good post. It is worth reposting it again:

Quote from steve46:


"The truth is" the markets need amateurs, and when I say "amateurs" I mean most of you who post here, informing us of your significant successes, having congratulatory conversations with your aliases, telling us of your property acquisitions and your flights at 45,000 ft in private jets. Those of you with these massive delusional fantasy lives. Ironically you guys are necessary to keep the markets moving. Without your continued small but steady losses, without your hopeful but net losing excursions into futures trading, without your losing forays into the debt and currencies, we would not be able to continue.
If you doubt me, mouse on over to the CBOE, hop over the bridge to the CBOT. Check out the NYSE, the MERC, and the NYMEX. Every one of these exchanges has a portion of the site dedicated to encouraging you, educating you, enticing you to believe that you can win big money IF you only give it a try. Every one of these exchanges has a business relationship with an author, trader, speculator, whose job it is to make you feel that you are only a eyelash away from MONEY, LOTS OF IT. None of them tell you how important it is to get PROFESSIONAL education. Instead they tell you that you can make big money if you will just master a few simple concepts....

I realize that I am hard on you folks but I have to say thanks. I appreciate your "participation" so that the rest of us can have a nice life....and I hope some do "get it" and beat the odds.


Steve
More...
 
I learned to trade thru an extended period of time starting before personal computers and the internet existed. That made my journey much longer than it should have been, with hard lessons learned retarding my growth along the way.

Typical of most traders in the learning process, I went thru wild equity swings of boom & bust before I figured out how to control the "bust" part.

To accomplish that, I had to figure out exactly which markets and what style of trading suits me best. Fast & furious trading does not work for me at all... it stirs up all of the wrong emotions (chase phase) and causes a breakdown of personal discipline. I'm sure there are many professional scalpers out there, but that is absolutely the wrong approach for me.

I perform much better in a slower pace of swing trading. I made good money swing trading index options, but the periods between trend moves caused too much equity curve gyrations. Too much boom & bust with too much time to agonize in between for me.

Emini futures via intraday swing trading suits my personality best. Two - five trades per day on average, seeking the bigger chunks from directional swings. It took me a long time of sifting thru commodities, stocks, options and FX to realize that. If I had to leave the emini market, I'd probably swing trade FX instead.

Now... what is ideal for me is terrible for others. Some traders do best with individual stocks. Some with currencies. Some with commodities. From there, timeframe of trades held makes a difference. Some traders want to be in & out of a trade within minutes. Some (like me) cannot handle such a rapid-fire pace.

If I had to relearn this profession again, square one would be choosing the style of trading that suits me best, THEN pick the market - symbol(s) that offer solid potential within that style of trading.

For me to pick a mentor who makes six-figures a year scalping stocks for pennies at a time via L2 or whatever else would not work for me. Just because that mentor had settled on stocks and scalping for a professional income does not mean I could mold my personality to it.

*

First things first... know thyself. There is nothing wrong with (and everything right with) mock trading different styles and markets until the best fit is found. If that takes spending money on different lessons, so be it. If I had back every lost dollar <b>to the market itself</b> spent learning on my own thru "free info" and intuitive ideas alone, it would be six figures and well into that amount with ease!

Education costs, in all professions with no exceptions. There is no free ride from beginner to success in our profession, no different than any other which requires some sort of tuition.

Pick a market and style of trading, try it out and make sure it fits your personality. My style of taking emini trades and walking away from the screens (at times) would drive many others insane.

By the same token, forcing me to sit on edge, adrenaline dripping with eyeballs on screens for hours at a time trying to wrest $50 per contract out of a trade would drive me insane... some might say I've already arrived at that destination (laugh).

Hope this helps
Austin
 
I started writing computer programs to test trading methods. Believe it or not, lots of methods work. I think the computerized methods win overall because computers always follow the rules. People lose because they encounter a losing streak and change their rules. Hiring a trainer might just be a way to shift responsibility for trading results to someone else instead of taking full personal responsibility themselves.

I think much of trading is psychological and must be resolved from within.
 
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