Quote from austinp:
<i>... it is always puzzling as to why someone would sell their secret hard earned methods for a few $$$$.
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This should be a pre-requsite for anyone in the business of selling their trading system, but unfortunately it is not.</i>
If someone offers a system for sale, a true system by definition, that is all absolutely true. A "trading system" by definition is outlined by specific trade entry, trade management and trade exit rules. It is black & white, defined.
A system is objective and able to be replicated by everyone / anyone who follows it. Therefore, a track record should be compiled that follows all objective signals and management rules.
There are numerous courses available that do not profess to teach or disclose any "system" or secret, hard-earned methods which can be legitimately overwhelmed by overuse.
A lot of people market offers that are basically how to read the tape. How to interpret price action. Some are oscillator based, some are volume based, some are price sentiment based (tick, trin, vix, put/call, adv/dec) while others are price action based (trendlines, simple and exotic patterns).
Those offers cannot be quantified in black & white results. There is no black & white rules as a system would require, because a true system is merely price interpretation defined by strict rules.
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Countless times here I've seen posters tout how reading a few books and watching charts for x-amount of time is sufficient to learn this profession. That is true. I agree that approach will work, in time. What is not stated is how much money most aspiring traders will blow out while learning the ropes "cost free".
There are long-standing threads in this very forum where people have tried to follow supposed "methods" and never made one dime in years... some followers have lost real money for years instead. What was the true cost of such "free" education?
No one will ever save any money by learning on their own from square one thru the school of hard knocks. My tuition to that college was easily a steep five-figures while I figured things out. Simple things, now that I look back in hindsight. Funny how none of my own discoveries happened with massive gains as a bonus. It was usually stiff losses that ingrained the lesson, often more than once.
I'm on record for years now saying that attempting to follow live trades in a live room is pure folly, a detriment to learning independence and it never works out for anyone, period. However, some people learn from live room observation, some learn from live room participation, some regress while following live rooms. We're all different.
Some people spend their day inside a live room, others spend their day making 15 - 25 posts inside chatrooms instead. Same amount of energy and focus on topics that (usually) pertain to trading, applied in different manners. No difference there.
The truth? There are no secrets in our profession. There are no super-traders who fire up the screens and kill it every day, emotionless and machine efficient.
Traders either play the counter-trend game and skew their trade management to that, or they play the trend following game and skew management accordingly. In either case, tape reading skill is mandatory. "Skill" is defined by learned experience over the course of time... lots of time in most cases.
Anyone who has the ability to read charts via any semblence of method and desire to teach others is free to do so. The ES alone traded 3+ million contracts on Friday between the bells. I don't think anyone teaching market profile (for example) while someone else teaches channel breaks and a third teaches MACD zero-line cross that all happen to overlap signals at 1300.50 are going to overwhelm the market.
No opinion on what TZ here or anyone else does myself. Nor do I personally care. I have enough to worry about and focus on when the tapes are running for real. I do recall visiting this thread several months ago, thought it rang a bell but had forgotten all about it. Guess the topic has a half-life here.
Bottom line is, we all pay a $$ price to get good at this profession. Mine was painfully steep, but I was a slow learner inhibited by my own pitfalls. I found that the more open-minded and less judgemental I forced myself to be, the better my results soon followed.
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Learn to read the charts, time price turns deftly or catch pullbacks with directional moves. Cut losses short, let winners run. Stop trading "too soon" while you're comfortably ahead. Don't give it all back once you made it.
Those are the secrets to trading. It really is that simple in the end. Have a great weekend
Austin,
That's a damn good post. There are legitimate vendors out there who can help you in your journey....it is just that the OVERWHELMING majority of vendors are only out to prey upon the hopes and ignorance of others.
A true teacher outlines the concepts you mentioned. But the long toll road to success is not the one that attracts many travelers.
Great post.