Teaching a teenager to trade
- Thread starter Yannis
- Start date
Yannis,
What is your reason that you want to teach your kid to trade? And then the next question is, what sort of trader do you want him to be?
Most traders appear to be discretionary or technical traders. To my way of thinking this is akin to acquiring skill playing video games, as someone already mentioned above. In this sense I would encourage him to "play" the stock market rather than video games. But I would certainly not use any real money until he has proven himself.
If it was my kid, I would also introduce him to strategy trading. This could also introduce him to other more technical areas, such as computer programing and further down the road, signal processing and time series analysis. These may be areas he may wish to pursue in college.
Richard
What is your reason that you want to teach your kid to trade? And then the next question is, what sort of trader do you want him to be?
Most traders appear to be discretionary or technical traders. To my way of thinking this is akin to acquiring skill playing video games, as someone already mentioned above. In this sense I would encourage him to "play" the stock market rather than video games. But I would certainly not use any real money until he has proven himself.
If it was my kid, I would also introduce him to strategy trading. This could also introduce him to other more technical areas, such as computer programing and further down the road, signal processing and time series analysis. These may be areas he may wish to pursue in college.
Richard
One subject is enough.
Let him read a lot of philosophy books. Then talk over it, discuss and learn from each other's thoughts about the subject.
Communicating family is good and also let's the kid start thinking at a early age.
One thing to watch out is... not to force an opinion on the kid. Letting him figure what the thoughts are from himself....
Let him read a lot of philosophy books. Then talk over it, discuss and learn from each other's thoughts about the subject.
Communicating family is good and also let's the kid start thinking at a early age.
One thing to watch out is... not to force an opinion on the kid. Letting him figure what the thoughts are from himself....
Richard,
Yes, I agree, these are the things I see him doing.
My motivation is twofold: first, he's interested; second, if all goes well and we pick things up next year where we left off this summer, etc, by the time he's ready to go to college he may have an excellent skill under his belt. By the time I finished highschool, I was a pretty good salesman and that helped me a lot on many occasions in my life, especially in the coprporate world.
People have made great points here and I agree with most of it, even those opposed. However, what an opportunity to share knowledge and experience, and present them in a way that makes the business more accessible. I don't think anyone is talking about forcing your kid to get up early and trade Bunds, and after dinner get back on the screen and spread out of some Euro's on the Simex! I understand the exercise to be introducing some serious, real life experiences with money and related decisions. How much better might we be if we All had a proper introduction to the markets at a very young age? Hard to say, but they would not look the same to those of us who went to college and got in the business then or later even. They might not be nearly as intimidating. Overall, isn't it a good idea to put your kids in front of as much as possible? Look at it from an exposure standpoint only, and looking to balance their experiences? Oh yeah...balance, something none of us grown up traders need in our lives!!!
Quote from Yannis:
Thanks Pretzel,
Good suggestion, great reference.
Btw, I am not sure if you are the right person, but Bracket Trader is excellent.
If you are not, try it
Hi Yannis,
Yes I am. And I'm reviving the project. I just uploaded a version which uses the API 7.1 at the enthios yahoo group.
pretzel
I am an exchange member, (CBOT) and I know lots of folks whose began hanging out on the floor as little kids, began clerking as soon as legal, and are now successful traders. (The new CBOT president is a third generation trader) I think that the psychological aspects of losing (and winning) will be challenging, but no more so than the rest of adolescence. And frankly, I would love to have the video game reflexes and aptitude of most 14 year olds. As trading moves from floor to screen, we are finding that those skills are in high demand! Good luck!
Jessie
Jessie
Quote from bobcathy1:
My parents told me that the stock market was a place to lose lots of money and encouraged me instead to be an artist.
Boy were they wrong.......
Cathy, I am not so sure if your parents were really so wrong because 80% of traders do lose in the markets, but the idea of exposing someone to the markets at this age is certainly good. The sooner he finds out that he cannot beat the market the more time he will have to do other things in life.
OK, I am not completely serious here... Seriously though, I do believe that as long as he genuinely wants to learn about this stuff, one should only help him out.