Trading Without a Mentor is Like Flying Blind
Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, often talks about his mentor Warren Buffet, who just happens to be the world's most successful investor. It is well documented that Buffet was mentored by famed investor Benjamin Graham who is known as the father of value investing. Many businesses have formal mentor programs as its benefits have been proven over and over. Successful people often mention that a prime reason of their achievement was having a mentor. So, if the Gates and the Buffets of world have mentors, so shouldn't you have one? I would like to suggest that trading without a mentor is like flying blind. I can imagine the reaction of many readers. They are saying, "That sounds good, but where in the h..... am I, an individual trader, going to find a mentor - smart a...." I can understand that response. If you worked on Wall Street, I imagine that it wouldn't be much of a problem. There you will find many like-minded traders that could be called upon to serve as your mentor, but how about on Main Street? How many successful traders do you know? I know a few who have tried, but I don't know of many that have been able to survive for more than a couple of years. The market is brutal and it takes no prisoners. Also I believe a successful mentorship requires a like-minded trading philosophy. There are some aspects that transcend trading styles, but how much can a day trader learn from a value investor? So, the probabilities of personally knowing a like-mind successful trader that could serve as your mentor are pretty slim. So, what are your alternatives? If you know Warren Buffet well enough to ask him to be your mentor - you probably wouldn't be reading this article. However, he has written numerous books. So, by studying his works you could develop a rather one-sided mentorship. I am willing to bet that even if you purchased all of his books; he still wouldn't take your phone calls. I have heard of trading coaches that you can hire. At least since you are paying them, they will take your phone calls - but probably not before 4:30 PM. I can't imagine a trader being distracted during market hours with your problems. Your distraction could cost them much more than they could charge you. I have never looked into such programs, but I would think that they could be valuable. The ideal trading mentor is probably not practical for most. I have settled for a pseudo-mentor approach. So, what does that mean? I believe that there are three criteria for a trading mentor. He or she must be successful, must have a like trading philosophy and be "somewhat-available." The "somewhat-available" is why I call it a pseudo-mentor relationship. Over the past 5 or 6 years I have tried to force-fit different trading services into this concept of a pseudo-mentor. It is quite easy to find newsletter writers that claim to be successful. Matter of fact, I have never heard one claim to not be. The beauty of the market is that it is measurable. If the newsletter is claiming to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, it won't take long to determine if they are only blowing smoke. Also like-minded services are easy to find. There are newsletters for day traders, trend traders, momentum traders, fundamental investors, contrarian investors, all styles are covered. The difficulty is availability. Most aren’t available. Most won’t return your emails. Most only want a one-way street. That’s almost like reading Buffet’s books. However, the newsletters are more frequent, weekly or monthly, thus having a higher impact on your daily trading. To addresses the availability, you can try an online trading room. No, I am not talking about Yahoo message boards. Online trading rooms are legitimate trading services where the leaders exchange ideas and provide assistance to others. It is not like having a personal mentor that is available only for you, but you can bounce ideas off of someone before making the plunge. For the past two years, I have been using Jack Chan’s trading service that fits between a newsletter and on-line trading room. He provides almost daily updates as well as email support. For me, this is perfect. I don’t need much hand holding, but I do have questions on occasion that he answers quite promptly. These questions are typically quite focused, so he is not going to help you develop a trading philosophy. He is also not a financial advisor so he won’t help with portfolio allocations and such. However, if you are thinking about shorting and his cycle indicators have just turned up – he will advise against doing that. So, how does Jack stack up versus my three requirements? First, he is successful. I have used his service for two years and can attest to his success. Secondly his trading philosophy is consistent with mine. He is a trend trader and only trades Gold, Oil and Technology stocks. I trade those as well as Base Metals and Water stocks. Finally, he is "somewhat available." His email service serves me well. This is not the classic mentoring relationship, but it beats flying blind. About the Author Michael Dawson recently said goodbye to a 20 year career in Engineering, Marketing and Sales to focus on living his dream of financial independence. He has since founded The Time and Money Group as vehicle to encourage others to do the same. The company's mantra is "Why trade time for money ... when you can have both." Sign up for their free weekly newsletter, where he and others discuss the different paths to financial freedom and offer insights for your successful navigation.
http://www.thetimeandmoneygroup.com
Make sure to read one of Dawson's most popular articles: "Saying Good-Bye to the Time for Money Swap" |
Other Online Trading Articles
Forex Trading Guide- How to Deal With Forex Trading Buying and selling of different currencies of the world is known as forex trading. Forex or foreign exchange market is the largest trading market in the world. Forex trading market deals with more than US$2 trillion everyday. It has become favorite option for currency traders. Foreign exchange market is extremely different from stock exchange ma ...Predict Stock Market Tops and Bottoms With The NH-NL Ratio The new high/new low ratio (NH-NL) ratio has been around for many years but different investors use this indicator in different ways. Some investors plot the ratio on a chart using the number zero as a neutral designation with positive numbers equaling more new highs than new lows and a negative number equaling more new lows than new highs base ...Peer Groups Whenever I see mutual fund comparisons in the trade publications and in the financial section of the newspaper they almost always mention a specific fund and tell you how good it is in relation to its peer group. A peer group is a specialized sector of mutual funds that all invest in about the same type of stocks or areas of the world or size of ...5 Kick-Arse Tactics To Seize Favorable Probabilities at Forex As you ponder how to balance your forex portfolio, it is important to map out sure-fire strategies beforehand.With your plan, you optimize your reward with respect to the expected risk, and tweak probabilities to your favor. Forex strategies must be disciplined and limit risk; simultaneously, it positions you at the most favorable advant ...Online Currency Trading – Why It's Harder Today than Ever Before There are many who believe that the markets today, require the same skills as 30 years ago - but today’s markets are actually much harder to trade.It may surprise you, but markets have changed and are now harder to trade - but if you know why, you can increase your profits dramatically.If you don’t already understand why online cur ...Stocks - Getting Started in the Market Hollywood loves the stock market. The chaos of the stock exchange floor, the tension of boiler room day-trading, devious power brokers making back room deals; it all makes for great drama. Then you have the true-to-life stock market stories in the news: insider trading, big money IPOs, the dot com bust. All of it is enough to make you steer clea ...Online Stock Trading: Freedom of Trade I remember the first time I started to trade online. It was just before the tech bubble of the late 1990’s and the internet was still something new for most people. Purchasing the now forgotten company was easy, and I made a few dollars on that trade. It was so excitingly simple.Flash forward a couple of years and I have made and lost my ...6 Reasons Why Exchange Traded Funds Are Better Than Mutual Funds Exchange traded funds (or ETFs) are better for most investors than mutual funds. The mutual fund industry has experienced tremendous growth over that last twenty-five years or so. But it's a new era now. It's the era of the ETF.What are exchange traded funds? ETFs are similar to index mutual funds. Essentially, an ETF is a portfolio of s ...Barnes and Noble: A Buy or Sell? As Amazon recently reported its quarterly results, which, not only did I predict right on, but surprised many other experts and analysts awaiting a more negative outcome, one of its competitors, Barnes and Noble (BKS), which typically utilizes similar methods in achieving its respective businesses will be reporting earnings shortly as well. With ...Electronic Day Trading The computer age and the Internet revolution are the foundation for electronic day trading. It is through the Internet that you can have direct communication with the various traders and the stock exchange to facilitate easy day trading. With electronic day trading, it is possible to interact with the service-oriented computer systems that are b ...Futures Trading Firms Futures trading can turn out to be a profitable deal if proper research is conducted. It is therefore necessary to approach the right broker who considers the best interests of the trader, before actually going into futures trading. Research has shown that there are almost half a dozen firms operating. They offer an array of services ranging fro ...What to look for in FOREX Trading Software With the growth of the Internet and its accessibility to the general masses, every FOREX broker maintains a software package for his clients to transact and get information about market prices online. With the increasing popularity of online trading with traders, the FOREX brokers are improvising their tools keeping in mind the clients ...What Every Newbie Needs To Know About Forex Trading Forex trading has fast become one of the hottest topics around these days as a way for people to invest and get rich. But is forex trading really an easy and surefire way to grow rich or is it just another risky venture? Undoubtedly, there are key fundamentals that anyone interested in forex trading should know before even attempting it.F ...Passive Income Online From e-Currency Exchange Building passive income is something that everyone wishes they could do, some people will spend countless hours and thousands of dollars searching for that one passive income opportunity.Sadly most people never find it. In the end they get know where fast, and think everyone and everything is out to get them and their money. Well t ...Automatic Link Exchange Factors Automatic link exchange is the method of links being instantaneously switched over with other Internet websites. There are assorted ways of arranging an automatic link exchange with webmasters. The quickest and most effective way to forward emails to another website owner is to perform an automatic link exchange. Many computer users visit web ...Futures Trading Online Analysis All sites that offer futures trading services also have extensive analysis available for market players as well. These services are offered along with the downloadable trading platforms available to subscribers to the site.Analysis of futures gives information to hedgers and speculators regarding the world markets. Analysis is synthesized ...My 7 Most Important Business Lessons Millions of people start new small businesses in the United States every day. Many fail at running a small business every day. What causes one business owner to succeed where another fails? There are seven key areas to focus your efforts for a successful small business. It starts with knowing oneself and ends with not being afraid to ask for hel ...Oil Stocks As A Long Term Investment The demand for world oil is increasing while world reserves are decreasing. This is a known fact. The current price of oil can certainly confirm this statement. Consensus also agrees that we will never see $25.00 oil again. The logical conclusion to our above statement is oil stocks should be a good long term investment. However, the location of ...Why Buy Stocks on Margin? Buying on margin means that you are buying your stocks with borrowed money.If you are buying stocks outright, you pay $5,000 for 100 shares of a stock that costs $50 a share. They are yours. You've paid for them free and clear.But when you buy on margin, you are borrowing the money to purchase the stock. For example, you don't have ...eBay Online Strategy #4 - Organize Your eBay Business For Success - Pt 1 Now that the major decisions associated with starting your ebay business are behind you, it’s time to concentrate on how to organize your business for maximum efficiency. No where is the statement “time is money” truer than with the person who works for herself.So you want to set up your ebay business, right from the start, with systems t ...How Buying on Margin Works If you pay attention to finance and investment news, you might hear something from time to time about buying on margin. It may sound intriguing, being able to purchase large amounts of stocks or other securities without having to pay the full cost of them… in most cases, though, that's all of the information that is given and it leaves you to wo ...Online Stock Trading Games The best way to learn online stock trading is to actually do it - in a game, that is. Before you invest top dollar in the real deal, try online stock trading games first. These games simulate the stock market very realistically. You can develop a lot of investor insight and tactics just from losing and winning.Benefits of Online Stock Tra ...New to Investing? Simple Guidelines for Success A financial advisor and friend once told me, “It doesn’t matter how good of job someone has, if they want to acquire wealth in this life, at some point they are going to have to invest in something.” Investing is something most people will do during their lifetime. They may invest in real estate, life insurance, stocks, bonds, mutual funds or a ...Forex Currency Trading - Is It Right For You While in some ways currency trading is easy, many people who enter the market do not make money. Online Currency Trading is not a difficult process if you take your time, do your research and understand the market. Over three trillion dollars worth of transactions take place everyday in the currency market and online currency trading is now avai ...Online FX Trading In online FX trading, traders look for a currency that offers the highest return with the lowest risk. For example, if a nation’s financial instruments, such as stocks and bonds, offer high rates of return with relatively low risk, then traders who are foreign to that nation want to buy that currency, thus increasing the demand. Currency is also ...Simulated Forex Trading Uses Simulators As A Guide For Traders (Part I) There are plenty of people trading in the forex, and why not, there are so many reasons to do it. By trading in the forex demo you are able to start by using a free demo on real time, you have a leverage of 400:1, or another simple reason is just getting into the action and trading with international currency. However, even when you pra ...The Different Types of Stock Markets There are many different stock markets in the US. In most circumstances, the main markets that you will hear of are the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) and the NASDAQ.The markets are basically where people and companies trade securities. The market is the arena in which the players gather to trade. ...
|
