In some hobbit hole you have created in your abode with anywhere from 1 -10 monitors sucking the electrical gridline of your neighborhood each day, you are trying to squeeze out a menagerie of trades on any given day… yes, this is the typical life of a day trader.
It is a lonely business for the crumb traders of the world. You are just craving to etch out a “OH, WHAT A TRADE”… or in bad times, “WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING?” You turn to the right and left, and all that’s there is the dog who will love you either way and the house cat who doesn’t even care.
Try telling your mate, if one is around, and the response is…”oh., that is nice” or “oh, try again, you’ll get it.”
Yet, that is not what you need when your zoned in. You want to be around like-minded traders who are going through the same manure you do each day. A place to vent. A place to celebrate. A virtual world to actually feel you are going to the office but can leave at any time and wear whatever you want. Even down to the bare budonkadunks.
Many begin your search by talking with your friends at the local meeting investment group where the majority of them are content hiding in their hobbit hole and have no interest in coming out anytime soon. And many are afraid to share any of their so-called market secrets. The next best place in your search starts in Google with the words “trading rooms”… up comes a plethora of sites. They all look great and the search is on.
You want to see transparency.
You want to know that the traders in the room will be just like you.
You want to know the price of the room.
You don’t want to have to pay a fortune for a room that will cost more than your monthly profits.
You seek a balance of value and professionalism.
The time has come and now you have found a room that you are willing to try out. You seek an initial trial offer to get a taste. It looks great all up front. You decide to hunker down over the weekend to think about it and by Sunday afternoon, you’re welcome email in the inbox and you are ready to roll come Monday AM. This is it. You have a decent account size to start and are familiar with the platform that will be used in the trading room or at least are comfortable with the one you have been using for some time now.
Monday AM comes. Monday PM goes. One week gone.
It wasn’t what you thought it would be. You try it again for another week and it just doesn’t seem to be a right fit. You re-assess. Do you really need to be in a trading room? Perhaps you really are comfortable in your trading hole and are willing to spend your remaining days on your own. Nothing wrong with that.
If however you are willing to sit down for a moment and re-evaluate some essentials when it comes to trading rooms, you may be more open to finding what may work for you down the road when you do decide to be part of a bigger community.
Bare bones, No holds barred, No sugar coated reality check to being part of a trading room.
- Start by leaving the emotion at the door regardless of whatever room you may join. You need to harness the emotion of placing live trades.
- Don’t bring your trading “baggage” to a trading room.
- Sim it live until it is second nature and profitable.
- You trade 5 days a week? Join a room that is open 5 days a week. Open to close.
- Seek a room that offers a free trial for a day or up to a week.
- Don’t spend more than $100 a month without some end date for a reasonable full paid membership.
- Seek a room that has some personalization to it where the mentor/organizer actually notices if you are gone and contacts you.
- Join a room were questions and free speech is allowed with knowing that you need to be respectable to other traders.
- If seeking to developing a trading strategy with the trading room, take the time to actually learn the strategy, read the manual, watch the videos and WRITE down your trading plan.
- Focus on the process. Live it. Breath it. Observe the mentor’s process and learn to react to your setup versus simply clicking when the mentor clicks.
- Any supplemental templates or programs should be reasonably priced or part of your membership.
- You will lose money in the market. Don’t blame it on the market. Don’t blame it on the room. Don’t blame the mentor/organizer of the room. You pushed the button.
- You will make money in the market. Don’t blame it on the room. Don’t blame the mentor/organizer of the room. You pushed the button.
- Ask yourself this. If the mentor/organizer is not in the room or stepped out, did you hesitate in taking a trade? If you didn’t, you are a shadow trader. You don’t belong in a trading room. (I know someone may jump on this point and tell me they are successful shadow traders, but there will always be the what if…. and now you are back on your own.)
- You will fail if you want to shadow trade.
Jesse Livermore said it best.
“The average man doesn’t wish to be told that it is a bull or a bear market. What he desires is to be told specifically which particular stock to buy or sell. He wants to get something for nothing. He does not wish to work. He does not even wish to have to think.”
- Learn the strategy. Implement any part of it you wish to use. Stop trying to follow someone else as opposed to learning how to do it on your own. Learn to become the independent trader.
- Trade the charts in front of you, not on the screen share. Data feed may be different. Charts may be slightly off.
- The mentor/organizer may win the lottery the next day and close shop. Now you are on your own. Have you become the independent trader or you off to seek another mentor to shadow off of.
- Join a room where the mentor/organizer trades at a minimum a reasonable number of contracts that you would trade as well. In other words, don’t be in a room where 4 contracts are traded if you will never trade that amount.
- Not every room is going to work for you and you need to be able to walk away and find what works for you.
Many of you may remember a typical math class growing up was all shadow learning. When it came time to problem solving, many of us failed because we didn’t have the necessary tools after having for so long wanting to be told every single step along the way. Today’s math classroom has moved most of it’s core teaching to problem solving from the start.
Any good trading room may provide the essentials to learning a particular strategy. Most likely they provided those materials for a fee or nominal cost. You decided to take a short cut and simply want to be told what to do. Yes, even just waiting for that trade alert on your twitter feed.
Just like the old math classroom.
If you want to progress as an independent trader within a trading room, learn to problem solve within the context of the classroom and not ask for just the answers.
As there are a plethora of sites out there to join, just like any substantial purchase, do your diligence and homework to find the place that works best for you. Thanks for reading.
In full disclosure: David Katz runs a daily live trading room. Check out his website of twitter feed for more information.
Twitter: @TradingFibz
Any opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author, and do not in any way represent the views or opinions of any other person or entity.
