Beginners and seminars/coaches

shadowninja

shadowninja

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This is specific to retail trading, not prop shops or investment banks.

Is it actually possible for a complete beginner to make a living from trading by just attending seminars or being coached?

Or will they still need to gain experience and learn from the market ie put in the screen time just like others?

Do you know anyone who has gone from never taking a live trade to signing up to some sort of service to trading live and immediately making a living (no matter how meagre) from trading?

Note: I am not asking if you have gone down this route as we won't know if you're telling the truth or not. Coaches/seminar hosts, please don't reply, either; feel free to start your own thread saying how great your students are doing. ;)

The reason I ask is that I've tried to impart my own experience of trading to save newbies from themselves. My conclusion is that despite everything I tell them, they will still make the exact same mistakes I made. Thus, the only true teacher is the market.

Your thoughts, please?
 
With your permission, I will take a small liberty here as I am not yet a "professional" (for money) educator, trainer or coach. I am, however, working toward that direction.

I do not believe it is likely, with the possible exception of an extraordinary student. Like any other area in life, making a living at something requires more than education, training and coaching. It requires experience. It requires time. And it requires skills not necessarily teachable in typical seminars; will, focus and discipline.

Of the family and friends that I have taught, "some" generate income consistently. "None" make a living at it.

I have taught lots of stuff in my career, and never has it been my expectation that my student would be able to make a living from my efforts in the classroom or as a coach without significant effort, study and time on the students part.
 
Personally, I don't know a single person that learnt the way you mention. This is only including people I know in real life, not people I have met on the internet as I have no way of verifying their claims.

I know a few full timers but they were all taught on the job - working for traders, not on their own.

Note that none of the people I know were taught to trade and then went on to be immediately profitable. They all got taught the basics and were then expected to be unprofitable for a period.
 
Best case scenario is that it would give you a basic grounding from which you could go off and learn for yourself. The chances of being a profitable trader after attending a weekend course at the Holiday Inn in Luton with 'millionaires are us' is about zero. Strange how many of those companies insisted you had a live SB account funded to trade from the next Monday morning.
 
the only true teacher is the market.

dont waste your time trying save others from themselves and the mistakes you made.

regardless of what you say, there is only one reason under high heaven why people do the things they do.

its because, they want to do it.
 
jiggly said:
the only true teacher is the market.

dont waste your time trying save others from themselves and the mistakes you made.

regardless of what you say, there is only one reason under high heaven why people do the things they do.

its because, they want to do it.
Click to expand...



Mostly true, people have this notion in their head that it's easy money and they prefer to believe what they want to believe and ignore anything to the contrary. However it's also true that people are sometimes convinced to change their minds by what is written here.
 
jiggly said:
the only true teacher is the market.

dont waste your time trying save others from themselves and the mistakes you made.

regardless of what you say, there is only one reason under high heaven why people do the things they do.

its because, they want to do it.
Click to expand...

Strange opinion.

All of the professional traders I know got taught. None of them were told 'go look at the market' as training.
 
shadowninja said:
This is specific to retail trading, not prop shops or investment banks.

Is it actually possible for a complete beginner to make a living from trading by just attending seminars or being coached?
Click to expand...

I doubt it can happen unless the coaching is full time one on one and lasts several months, and before that the mentor would need to filter out potential traders who not be suitable for teaching their method too.

When advising retail newbies i think the aim is to shorten their learn curve a bit, you cant really stop them from making the same mistakes and losing money in the begining not unless you going to be handing holding/risk managing them full time for most of the first year.
 
DionysusToast said:
Strange opinion.

All of the professional traders I know got taught. None of them were told 'go look at the market' as training.
Click to expand...

Yes I both your post and the one you commented on. Training + screen time. If you do it in your own you have a significantly reduced potential to succeed
 
I learned from books and articles, back-testing, paper trading and small money trading. Then I entered serious money trading and learned even more. In this business one is a perpetual student.

I only attended one seminar. I did it because I was not successful in teaching my wife my methods. The seminar I chose permitted the student to bring a companion at no additional charge. I wanted my wife to have a skill that would provide for her should anything happen to me. My methods are somewhat different from the ones taught in the seminar, but it gave my wife a good grounding in the fundamentals.

I learned some interesting technique in the seminar, but put it through my qualification process before adopting any of it. Some worked. Some didn't.
 
HowardCohodas said:
I learned from books and articles, back-testing, paper trading and small money trading. Then I entered serious money trading and learned even more. In this business one is a perpetual student.

I only attended one seminar. I did it because I was not successful in teaching my wife my methods. The seminar I chose permitted the student to bring a companion at no additional charge. I wanted my wife to have a skill that would provide for her should anything happen to me. My methods are somewhat different from the ones taught in the seminar, but it gave my wife a good grounding in the fundamentals.

I learned some interesting technique in the seminar, but put it through my qualification process before adopting any of it. Some worked. Some didn't.
Click to expand...

Are you for real
 
donaldduke said:
When advising retail newbies i think the aim is to shorten their learn curve a bit, you cant really stop them from making the same mistakes and losing money in the begining not unless you going to be handing holding/risk managing them full time for most of the first year.
Click to expand...

That was kinda the plan - stop people unnecessarily losing money.
 
shadowninja said:
How is your wife getting on with trading, then, may I ask?
Click to expand...

She has not soloed yet. But we now review the trades together and she participate in the management review process. We agreed that when we return from our holiday visit to our Granddaughter (and her mother and father) we are opening up an account for her to trade small money as her solo experience.

Between spouses, these things take longer than I wish. I suspect she would offer more oversight if I were not successful at it.
 
DionysusToast said:
Strange opinion.

All of the professional traders I know got taught. None of them were told 'go look at the market' as training.
Click to expand...

I would not tell any other to just 'go look at the markets' as training either.

but something as simple as ' only trade in the direction of the trend ' gets persistently violated by beginners, even though they are persistently told 'by many' not to do it.

its basic phsycology, if you tell someone not to do something, what do they go and do........

each have to make the same mistakes to learn and reinforce what has been said to them.

we are no different from other animals when in training, we learn through positive reinforcement.
 
shadowninja said:
Thanks for the replies. Pretty much as I thought, then. Hmph.



Hands up if you can't read.





:D
Click to expand...

Feeling a bit anal today are we ?

Maybe better if you made the thread multiple choice, then we could adhere strictly to replies you feel are acceptable. :whistling
 
DionysusToast said:
Note that none of the people I know were taught to trade and then went on to be immediately profitable. They all got taught the basics and were then expected to be unprofitable for a period.
Click to expand...

So it took more than a few weeks to master the art of trading did it Disney?

You're starting to contradict yourself a bit. Last week you laughed at me when I said it takes time........
 
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