Here's my 2 cents, chaps and chapettes.
I've read my way through this thread and gotten annoyed enough to actually sign up for the sole purpose of responding and hopefully teaching the readers (and possibly writers a few home truths).
Before I get aggressively shot down as being some sort of plant or puppet for TI solely based a paranoid appraisal of my user profile, be aware in advance that I'm NOT here to fill in my user profile for you to wonder at and pore over... just to provide hopefully useful feedback on this single thread.
I'm a private trader. I live in New Zealand. I am not associated with the old, defunct TI (other than as a student/member), nor the US company. I simply had an excellent experience with Lachy and the team, and was vastly offended by the drivel in this thread.
I joined TI in May 2012. I can't speak at all for any experiences people have had prior to that, and I'm not going to try.
I joined for two purposes:
1) Assistance in getting accounts/software etc set up (as I knew nothing much about what was required)
2) To learn the components, and skills so I could trade as private trader
Throughout my experience up to the end of TI in Australia (during Lachlan Elsworth's tenure):
- From an Admin/Offce perspective: They were unfailingly helpful, responsive, and gave me the support I required to set up and understand the various components I needed.
- From a eCourse perspective: (Starting from knowing nothing) It seemed a little simplistic, but gave a good base level of knowledge. The US voice talent was a tad annoying though.
- From a Moderator/Trainer/Advice Perspective: I spent months in both the classroom and the trading room. They were great. Both the mods I talked/listened to took time to explain things slowly and clearly. The mental modeling available by listening and watching (and eventually following along) was very useful. And their advice tallied with the numerous books I was also absorbing from multiple other sources. Their basic strategies became the foundation of my own strategies that I evolved later.
All-in-all I got precisely what I expected and wanted from my experience. After 4-5 months I was busy designing and extensively testing my own strategies and was no longer taking Trading room calls as they did not fit my trading plan.
So that was my experience.
I was constantly on the alert for hypocrisy, lying, fakery or any dissonance at all, as it was important to me to learn through people I felt were honest and had integrity. All I found were people seemingly dedicated to passing on a skill I wanted and open about what they knew, what they did, and how they did it.
Perhaps the worst I could say was there was some hyperbole at times, but I didn't mind that personally as I felt it contributed to a positive mental attitude.
Some final thoughts:
I've noticed that this career is awesome for one very important reason (which is one of the many reasons I chose this career): It self-filters for the morons, the delusional, the illogical and the emotionally unstable.
In my brief time as a journeyman in this curious trade, I've noticed that the successful private traders I have met all have several key things in common:
- They are emotionally stable
- They have a strong psychology, at least partly including a strong belief in their own ability to create opportunity
- They absorb knowledge easily and quickly
- They are always willing to question themselves, their methods, their results, and their reasons
- They strive to face reality bluntly, and be unfailingly honest with themselves
- They build their own strategies
- They extensively and exhaustively test their own strategies
- They focus on themselves, their own failings, their own strategy, and, at the core, understand that everything they do in the market is their own specific, personal responsibility and no-one else's.
In contrast I've noticed the following about failed traders, or those in the process of failing:
- They often have poor emotional control, erratic thinking, and/or other mental issues (big or small) that they cannot see, or simply refuse to face
- Their psychology can be weak, they do not stick to even their own plan. Much less someone else's
- They typically don't create their own strategies that suit their own psychology.
- They expect someone to "lay the golden egg" for them and continually tell them when to enter and when to exit. In fact in some cases with the really irate ones mainly they seem pissed off because the ONLY way they can trade is if someone else tells them what to do.
- They avoid personal responsibility. It's always someone else's fault. Rarely do they realise that once they grasp the basics of trading, the onus is purely on them from that point.
- They either don't think testing is important, don't do enough of it, or simply just don't do it whether they think it is important or not.
- They typically do not keep exhaustive statistics on their own performance, and, if asked, can't provide their own metrics around the system they use
- They spend the time they should be building and testing their own systems sitting on forums whining like little bitches to each other about how hard done by they were by X trading company, or Y trading room.
95% of traders fail. Those are the widely known statistics.
The reasons they fail are also widely known. My selection above is only a subset.
If you take a bunch of pissed off people with those failing qualities who aren't busy testing, or working on their own issues... what do you get? This bull**** thread.
The sad truth is:
If you have these poor qualities and can't face them or control them or are unwilling to work on them then you deserve your failure.
I like this career (so far) because the successful people seem to be humble, honest, personally responsible, and self-aware. This is a minor miracle to me as my experience is in the IT industry where the exact opposite is the rule... the biggest assholee gets the biggest office.
I notice there's a thread on these forums on random entry trading systems... if a case can be made for random entry trading plans that actually work, even a little bit... do you think your lack of success is more the fault of the trading plan, or the person executing it?
Next time you feel like a giant whine to the Internet on some forum somewhere... just remember: If it's a monument to blame for someone other than yourself, all you are doing is progressing further and further from the attitude and beliefs you need to actually trade successfully.
Also to FCOH-2: I like Trent. He's a very nice guy. Same with Lachy. You, sir, in my humble opinion, are a giant tool. And I've formed that opinion just reading what you wrote here... god knows how the people in real life stand you.
Let the paranoid retard-jabber commence! *cheer*
P.S. I've said my piece for whatever it's worth. I won't be back as I have no interest in how this is received, or in your beliefs or opinions.
Make of that whatever you wish.
:!: and Traders International . Please stay away, warning to all possible traders stay away from this MOB..
