A student of one of my trading courses sent an email the other day that touches on a couple of topics which come up periodically.
I really enjoyed your course (he’s referring to the price distribution trading course). It opened up a whole new perspective that makes total since to me.
I am a financial planner that has lost a lot of faith in asset allocation, efficient market theory ect… that was drilled into my head in college and while getting my CFP. There has to be a better way and at this point I am on a quest for it. I have only been trading for a living for myself for about 6 months. Although it is part time, I would like to make it a goal to go full time by my 42nd birthday here in September. That brings me to my question….
Do you still do coaching? If so I would be interested in talking to you about that.
12 Months to Trading Full-Time for a Living?
The first question this email begs is whether someone can learn to trade for a living in something like 10 months time. I would say it’s doable, but probably not for most people. Being able to trade consistently well enough to make it your main source of income generally requires a lot of work, a lot of time in front of the markets doing analysis and/or testing trading systems. It’s the 10,000 hours idea discussed in the Trader’s Narrative article I’ve linked to before. Most people won’t be able to get that kind of work in that quickly as it would mean nearly 200 hours per week for a year.
This is not to say that someone cannot reach a level of trading success within a relatively short period of time. Someone who has director tutoring of a trading system or methodology that suits them can speed things up with that immediate guidance. For most folks, though, that type of one-on-one tutelage just isn’t available, so more self-directed efforts are required. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It just takes longer in most cases.
Looking Over My Shoulder
One of the things that I am working toward is something that is somewhere between direct tutoring and do-it-yourself learning. It’s a kind of “What me as I do this” sort of approach. I know there’s been an interest in that sort of thing and I definitely see a great deal of value in giving new traders the opportunity to following along with my analytic thought process and trade strategy development. I’ve got a couple of things I need to get out of the way before I can get moving on that, but it’s in the works for the near future.
Coaching from Me
I’ve addressed the subject of whether I do coaching at a few different times in this blog, but I’ll do so again here because things may be shifting a bit for me. In the past I have done some one-on-one work in a very limited fashion, but it’s been a while because of my schedule. Since my recent move, though, things have been progressing toward my having more time for that kind of thing. It’s something I will look at more closely once I get past my trip to the Trader’s Expo next month.
That said, coaching is only of any real value if both sides go into it with very specific expectations. The complaints I here from people about how coaching didn’t work for them almost always stemmed from a disconnect over expectations. I don’t just accept anyone for one-on-one work because some people seek teaching or guidance in areas where I cannot help them. For example, I’ve never been a scalper and cannot see myself ever being one. As such, I’m not going to be much help to someone who wants to learn scalping. Also, since my available time is not unlimited I have to keep the number of active coaching relationships to a workable number, which probably means not that many.
If coaching is something you’re interested in, though, feel free to contact me and let me know how you think I can help you. We’ll go from there.
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About the Author
John Forman, author of this blog, has traded for more than 20 years, is a professional market analyst, and authored The Essentials of Trading. He is an active participant in trading forums, consults for trading related businesses, as published literally dozens of trading articles, and has been quoted in a number of books and in the media.
** See John’s full bio.
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