Trading Pimp 2007: I’d like to thank the Academy…

Teresa, December 28, 2007 @ 1:19PM ET | Link | RSS | Read via Email | Start a Discussion  

cpc03-greentn1.jpg…or in my case, I would like to thank the guys at MoveTheMarkets.com for bestowing this great honor upon me for contributing to their profitability by writing The Ultimate Trading Course.

While there was a lot of discussion about the course material at their blog, what struck me was the debate about the cost of the course. How does a prospective buyer know that the fee is worth it? The answer is that there is no way to know for sure.

To complicate matters for those seeking knowledge is one inescapable fact: the market for trader education and trading systems is basically a market for lemons. In order to get sales, the vendor must either make incredible performance claims OR price it cheap enough for a potential buyer “to chance”.

I stated that I was willing to do neither, and it would have been the end of it except for this: we know that profitability (as TraderD pointed out) does not hinge on just the buy and sell signals; there are a number of critical elements:

  1. Identify appropriate trading candidates;
  2. Trade a basket of the qualified candidates;
  3. Implement position sizing to limit exposure and risk;
  4. Follow the buy and sell signals;
  5. Avoid countertrend trading; and most of all,
  6. DO NOT USE INSANE LEVERAGE.

Yes, success starts with a good signal or a stop. Given the number of ducks that need to be lined up, I realized that I could try to level the playing field for prospective traders much like Bruce Babcock tried to do once upon a time for my generation. His book, Commodity Futures Trading for Beginners, is still online, free.

Lemon-Aid: Leveling the Playing Field

So, here’s the deal. Think of trading as a very serious hobby. That is the appropriate mindset when you are starting out.

There is no need to pay thousands to vendors. Your money simply funds more glossy ads, mail-drops and telemarketing. They don’t have anything that is worth that, and worse, you will lose your money because even $5,000 trading systems don’t have proper position sizing algorithms built-in.

I would rather you spend money on a good platform such as TradeStation or eSignal, so from this day forward, my InVivo.Stops for TradeStation 8.x and InVivo.Stops for eSignal (coming January 8, 2008) will be available to individual traders BY DONATION. Play with it for a while. Focus on bet size and risk managment. Read Own The Zone.

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