'Holy grail' - Is 300% a month good? Thats all i can do.

[zupcon]

Sounds like a very good way of dealing with one or two people on this thread, although I'd substitute a plastic bag.

Hard but fair.

 

[megamuel]

Hi Bramble,

Interesting post. Why do you say trading can't trading taught? Are you saying nobody can be taught how to trade? Or, only certain people can be taught to trade? Surely someone with the right skills and attributes can be taught to trade? I am not disagreeing with you, I am genuinly curious...

Sam.

 

[TheBramble]

So would you say that great traders are born .... not made?

My position is that you can throw the same high-quality, relatively narrowly focused (trading, medicine, architecture, law, engineering) education at any random subset of humanity and the distribution of capability within that group at the end of the process will be fairly similar. And it wont be your beloved Bell curve. There will be an incredibly small minority that are excellent. A small, but slightly larger group that aren’t too bad. (There’s no such thing as average in the hard skill professions. You don’t get an average surgeon or doctor or architect. They’re either good to excellent – or struck off – the process handles things this way - mostly). And the vast majority at the smelly end of the stick – poor to awful.

But here’s the thing – that was on a random subset of humanity. The fact is, the professions requiring hard skills attract almost as a vocation those that are inherently suited to it. That’s why, amazingly, such a proportionally large number of those entering those professions actually succeed. The few that aren’t made for their ‘chosen’ profession get weeded out, mostly fairly quickly before they can do any damage.

This isn’t the case with trading.

Every man and his dog think they can trade.

Not sure why. Few would assume they could pick up a violin and make more money than 99.99% of the population by playing it. Pick any job or individual (outside of trading) who makes as much money as you’d be comfortable with spending and managing and I can guarantee there are few of them, if any, who are engaged in any endeavour which you feel you could easily and confidently commence upon yourself this very day.

Trading doesn’t appear to put up the same psychological or physical barriers to commencement let alone unfounded expectations of imminent and total success as do other disciplines where large amounts of money are made. The commonsense that says you don’t make large amounts of money without special skills and hard work (and luck) and an inherent ability and aptitude seem to be missing.

So yes, a lot of blather to answer your question. But I’m convinced traders are born not made, as are doctors, surgeons, lawyers etc.

Do people with the right aforementioned attributes discover their abilities over time, or would you say that the skill is apparent from the get go?

Both.

As a struggling trader still searching for consistency, I find your comments a bit disheartening

If my comments alone put you off I’ve saved you from having to face that 10th loser in a row and finding out if you have what it takes. If you’re easily put of by another’s opinions or words then you’ll definitely unlikely to make the grade.

To finish the paradox, of those who will not be put off and still have absolute faith in their skills and abilities, the vast majority of them will not make it either. No one attribute is sufficient in and of itself.

 

[Lord Flasheart]

Bramble you make some excellent points, but to imply traders are born and cannot be taught is not neccessarily true. If for example I employed someone and gave him a set of exact instructions and he traded according to what I told him, providing what i told him worked then you have a successful trader. In principle i could teach anyone of average iq to trade inside bars for example, add in a few other basic parameters etc and there we go. If he knew nothing of the markets value or what each point meant then he would have no fears or beliefs other than a set of instructions which pays his wages.

 

[foredog]

Most TRADERS in the City know naff all, and most of the analysts too. What most traders do is follow the price and when it's going down sell it etc.

No myths no alchemey nothing like that.

So how they are more capable of commenting/teaching just becasue they push around £50m rather than a home traders £50k I don't know.

As for trading being taught, we had a trainee come to us who had a 2:1 from some university where they had a trading simulator and all that.....and he was a cretin. Couldn't even make tea. If you told him that something was going up then rather than listen to a more experienced trader he'd come out with all this fundamentals nonsense and by the time he'd finished his little speech the price would be 1% higher!

 

[rathcoole_exile]

BIf for example I employed someone and gave him a set of exact instructions and he traded according to what I told him, providing what i told him worked then you have a successful trader.

didn't guarantee 100% success even for students of Richard Dennis and Eckhardt

Some were hugely successful, others far less so .....all had the same instructions didn't they, so how did their results differ ?

 

[Stu0898]

Bramble you make some excellent points, but to imply traders are born and cannot be taught is not neccessarily true. If for example I employed someone and gave him a set of exact instructions and he traded according to what I told him, providing what i told him worked then you have a successful trader. In principle i could teach anyone of average iq to trade inside bars for example, add in a few other basic parameters etc and there we go. If he knew nothing of the markets value or what each point meant then he would have no fears or beliefs other than a set of instructions which pays his wages.

IMHO great traders are born and successful traders can learn... I wasn't a born trader but a book called 'Trading For A Living' by Dr. Alexander Elder helped me to understand the mind set of these 'born traders'.

It taught me to cope with the inevitable loosing trades/days that trading full time brings. If you can discipline your mind then you can become a successful trader, but the truly great traders have this mind set naturally. Lucky bast*rds!

 

[Charlton]

Every man and his dog think they can trade.

Not sure why.

Trading doesn’t appear to put up the same psychological or physical barriers to commencement let alone unfounded expectations of imminent and total success as do other disciplines where large amounts of money are made. The commonsense that says you don’t make large amounts of money without special skills and hard work (and luck) and an inherent ability and aptitude seem to be missing.

I think the reasons why this thought prevails is because, apart from a little money to fund an account, there are no barriers to trading one's own account.

There is no interview process, no exam process and no credentials needed to be provided to impress another person who would in all other walks of life provide such a barrier.

Only later is the self-interview carried out, the self-examination made and the credentials provided by the broker's account statement.

Trading education and time spent in front of a chart will assist in the development of a trader, but I agree with your assertion that the right mind-set must pre-exist for this to happen.

Charlton

 

[bigsy]

Your holy grail

Hi i think you must have a good sytem there coz at thos percentages you should be happy.I would like to knoiw more about this system if you care to share it with me that is give me shout.

cheers

Bigsy

 

[TheBramble]

If for example I employed someone and gave him a set of exact instructions and he traded according to what I told him, providing what i told him worked ...

...and providing he carried on doing exctly what you told him to do....and providing YOU knew exactly what is was you did even though some of it you may not know you know...and....

 

[foredog]

Hi i think you must have a good sytem there coz at thos percentages you should be happy.I would like to knoiw more about this system if you care to share it with me that is give me shout.

cheers

Bigsy

AAAAHHH It's a wind up.

 

[TheBramble]

Hi i think you must have a good sytem there coz at thos percentages you should be happy.I would like to knoiw more about this system if you care to share it with me that is give me shout.

cheers

Bigsy

QED.

 

[gooseman]

Most TRADERS in the City know naff all, and most of the analysts too. What most traders do is follow the price and when it's going down sell it etc.

No myths no alchemey nothing like that.

So how they are more capable of commenting/teaching just becasue they push around £50m rather than a home traders £50k I don't know.

I disagree with this. People forget that trading goes much deper than simply price goes up, price goes down on a ladder. (I appreciate that this is the case in P&L terms but you forget the subtlties)

Take for example the treasury trader who looks at hedging cash flow. He may indeed lose on one or many of his positions but if he is trading against cash flows then overall he may win. There are the finer subtleties such as getting a trade on for better than value or managing the hedge on the trade that can never be taught. Things like timing/entry points. These things can not be taught. On a day trading basis your candles may be fine to job into and out of but trading runs much, much deeper than this.

Expanding my thoughts-I think that certain things can, of course, be taught but thre are skills which very successful traders possess that one simply has or does not have. I can think of one particular example whom I am not willing to name who excels at risk management-his decision making and timing are so decisive it is frightening.

 

[foredog]

I disagree with this. People forget that trading goes much deper than simply price goes up, price goes down on a ladder. (I appreciate that this is the case in P&L terms but you forget the subtlties)

Take for example the treasury trader who looks at hedging cash flow. He may indeed lose on one or many of his positions but if he is trading against cash flows then overall he may win. There are the finer subtleties such as getting a trade on for better than value or managing the hedge on the trade that can never be taught. Things like timing/entry points. These things can not be taught. On a day trading basis your candles may be fine to job into and out of but trading runs much, much deeper than this.

I agree that with some traders there is more than just price to it.

I just meant in the context of this sort of thread and most on this forum.

When they mention CITY TRADERS I take that to mean more the Prop desk etc as rather than execution desk or desk that hedge etc as most of this is much more complicated than most on here choose to get into, prefering "punting".

 

[gooseman]

I think you can probably boil that down so simply futures/fx trading to be honest. I mean there are so many prop desks (institutional) trading in differnt styles, arbing, relative vale trades, curve trading, dividend trading etc.

 

[Hoggums]

Well from such moronic beginnings I see that this has now turned into a truely interesting thread.

Who on here said T2W was going downhill?

 

[Lord Flasheart]

I cant believe Halotrader has been on the site 3 months, has a bigger rep than me, started what turns out to be a great thread, and yet talks B%4^54S

 

[Citizen2007]

The same old argument, can trading be taught ?

I believe it can be. The problem is the tutors, not many know what they teach, and how to teach it. They themselves have developed a system that they can relate to but still fail to understand why their system works.

The real fact is that the markets are purely technical. If there is an element of this that you cannot and do not understand then you will continue to second guess yourself.

As i have said before the markets are very structured and follow a strict order. There is far too much at stake for the whole thing to be random. The S/R levels are very clearly defined, price reading clearly indicates which way the market is going. A combination of understanding these two will guide you clearly on which way the market is going.

But how many tutors/mentors know PRECISELY how to define a support resistance level. Yes there are many ways of drawing these lines, but how many can define a precise and clear, step by step process of doing so. Very few. It is these indiscretions that allow the trader to form some discretion, without any solid base for doing so. This becomes guesswork and the education a failure.

I remember when i first started trading, i was drawing trendlines using previous H?l or whatever, sometimes price was there, othertimes it wasn't , i found i could not trade it because i did not understand what was outside of this, so i was constantly quetioning myself.

I also remember a colleague of mine going on about reading the tape, i just wanted to know (he never showed me) how the hell it was done and thought that it was the Holy Grail.

When someone showed me how to define S/R levels, read the price and understand how to put them together it all made sense. The missing element throughout was the uncertain parts, once they became clear all the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place.

So from a personal perspective, it can be taught, it is just finding someone who REALLY understand how the market moves, it is all there, but not readily available.

 

[Technically Fundamental]

I disagree with this. People forget that trading goes much deper than simply price goes up, price goes down on a ladder. (I appreciate that this is the case in P&L terms but you forget the subtlties)

Take for example the treasury trader who looks at hedging cash flow. He may indeed lose on one or many of his positions but if he is trading against cash flows then overall he may win. There are the finer subtleties such as getting a trade on for better than value or managing the hedge on the trade that can never be taught. Things like timing/entry points. These things can not be taught. On a day trading basis your candles may be fine to job into and out of but trading runs much, much deeper than this.

Expanding my thoughts-I think that certain things can, of course, be taught but there are skills which very successful traders possess that one simply has or does not have. I can think of one particular example whom I am not willing to name who excels at risk management-his decision making and timing are so decisive it is frightening.

This is what I mean. You cant sustitute trading at home for working in an organisation that has seen 100 years of market action. You would be around people with years of professional experience who will have seen a lot of action themselves. You would have access to data we don't see and everything. Its a different ball game. It's like saying football is football but everyone knows how different the Champions Leage is from a Sunday League.

 

[Lord Flasheart]

can you explain how you get your s/r levels as it appears you may have a different angle
This thread has seriously deviated