mentoring-- a waste of time ??

Discussion in 'Professional Trading' started by marketsurfer, Apr 29, 2004.

  1. greetings,

    hypothesis---- mentoring will only assist succesful traders, those who want to take their already good performance to the next level. if you are a losing trader, no amount of mentoring can help you consistently win. furthermore, those who seek the typical mentor who teaches basic chart reading, psych, etc. are setting themselves up to fail--- although somewhat inately dubious in value-- this material can only be self taught.


    top traders who seek mentors do not seek the help of the bottom feeders who troll for lost souls, selling broken dreams to the unsophisticated. rather, they seek proven, highly educated experts in sometimes esoteric fields ( not related to trading ) to guide them to the next level of world class performance.


    A CHALLENGE---- can you find me one example of someone who rose to the top of the trading profession after being a losing traders by paying a mentor who overtly advertises in trading magazines , the web or direct mail ?? try to prove the above hypothesis wrong.


    surfer
     
    CSEtrader likes this.
  2. im sure prop firms could tell stories of new people coming in and making friends with good traders who helped them become good.. this proves little.. i agree with your other statements about traders having to learn many things on their own.. its one thing to discuss psychology and another thing to work out your own personal issues.. its also one thing to look at a chart pattern and point out patterns as opposed to recognizing and trading those patterns in real time.. the "hard right edge" as Alan Farley likes to call it.. anyway

    -qwik
     
  3. dbphoenix

    dbphoenix

    You dart around among several different concepts, set up a questionable premise, then issue a challenge that has little to do with your premise.

    If in fact everyone who seeks a mentor wants to rise to the top and limits himself to those who advertise in trading magazines, etc., then, probably, no. But that's a very limited hypothesis.
     
  4. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

    Marketsurfer& Hunter;

    With 80% of any businesses failing & trading surely being one of the more diffficult businesses;
    I like to compare some mentors [counselor] price for fragments
    compared to the free top trader mentor fragments.

    Good public library will have all 3 Jack Schwager books free but even the well written plan is
    easier said than done.









    :cool:
    If one likes free Top trading mentoring [counsel] fragments ;

    investors.com [William O Neil, nickname 'bullet'']

    turtletradingsoftware.com [Curtis Faith ,nickname ''inflector'']

    lbrcapital.com [ LBR]
     
  5. Surf;
    Has Hunter shared any more
    tek analysis insights like ''squiggly lines & numbers '',
    I added in blue ink that quote in a Schwager book with my own hand.
     


  6. ok, i'll change the statement. if you don't have the will, or inate ability--no amount of mentoring will help you succeed. unfortunatly, many people attracted to trading / markets are inately programed to fail and will fail regardless of mentoring.

    surfer
     

  7. Hmmm. "Innately programmed to fail." That's a rather broad brush you're using. I'm never comfortable when sweeping statements are made about people's "fate." I read somewhere years ago that the market tends to attract a lot of people who feel that the world owes them a living. Perhaps that is a better way of putting it. These are the people who feel that they do not need to put in the work that everyone else has to. Perhaps these are the folks that go to "mentors" in a misguided attempt to bypass the grunt work. And the "mentors" that they go to are invariably hacks, poseurs and salesmen. I imagine that legitimate "mentors" (whoever they may be) would avoid such people. I agree that such people will likely fail until they commit to seriously undertake the task of learning to trade.

    However, declaring that certain people are "innately programmed to fail" is a bit too deterministic and messianic for my tastes. On the other hand, ET's chat room has a number of such visionaries who will gladly volunteer, at no cost and with absolute certainty, the "fate" of others.
     
  8. jem

    jem

    The stonger the edge being taught the less talent and a capital trader needs. the weaker the edge the more intangibles like psychology and capital and time come into play.

    I was a losing to breakeven trader before I paid an 1/8 a cent of a share for a year in 1997. I went on have 300 percent plus years for about 4 years. The guys who trained me made about 20 gs off of me and millions off of others as they developed their program. That edge dissappeared.
     
  9. dbphoenix

    dbphoenix

    It is absolutely astonishing, and either depressing or gratifying, depending on one's view of the human race, that so remarkably few people are willing to put forth the effort required to learn how to trade. Even the most fundamental task of writing down a plan seems to be beyond the capabilities of all but a handful.

    Which is why the "mentors" these people attract are exactly what you describe.
     
  10. then Louis Borsellino comes to mind. He was mentored by either the famous cattle trader, Maury Kravitz who almost blew out after 4 limit down days or the gold trader who's name escapes me.

    Tom Baldwin, the bond trader, was mentored by a "friend" who arrived at the CBOT shortly before Baldwin quit his job in a meat packing plant.

    I guess mentoring works best on the "floor"?
     
    #10     Apr 29, 2004