TLDR:- First job out of college was for a large oil trading company.

Longer Version :- As a child I always wanted to be a stockbroker. (I'm old, this is pre big bang). When I wrote/applied to a bunch of stockbrokers I was told I had to have a degree. (This is back when <5% of people in the UK went to college). So off to college I went - first person in my family ever. Coming out of college I Interviewed for a bunch of stockbroker/stuffy UK investment banks and a couple of currency trading jobs. Quickly realized I didn't want to be a stockbroker or work for a company like that, but that I did want to be a trader. Refocused my search and interviewed for a bunch of trading jobs (mostly currency and interest rate swaps) and eventually got a job as a Traders Assistant on a gasoline trading desk of a large oil trading company. Did twenty years working for large energy trading companies (trading oil, natgas and power over the years), before going out on my own about 14 years ago.

Damn. You're so old even JWST can't see you

Nerd joke. Anyone get it?

Further discussion on "How did you learn what you know about trading?" As of a moment ago the poll showing 68 percent of traders are self taught, with 23 percent learning from internet guru's. I put myself in both those categories and truthfully in all the years I've been studying to become a better trader I have felt intimidated by all the conversations and questions asked here at NexusFI. I have always felt like my knowledge was so little compared to the majority of other NexusFI traders. Where did all these other traders get their trading knowledge, I thought? I was so intimated by it all that I didn't even want to ask questions that would show my stupidity. Now it looks like according to the poll most have learned this skill just like me.

Here's another thought. Roughly 90 percent are self taught or internet taught, could that be why some say 99% of all traders fail? Could it be because we all as traders, work alone or with one of the hundreds of internet trading guru's who mostly are making a living off our ignorance? Another question, what will it take to become one of the one percenters for the majority of wanna be traders who are self taught/internet trained. We are trading against a very sophisticated "Man behind the curtain" and we are just cannon fodder, possibly by design. One last question, is there a institution of higher learning that actually teaches futures trading?

I think you've touched a very important point. I personally believe the answer to your question is in the question iteslf:
if 90% try to learn on their own (and internet gurus are the same thing as a book - becaue you're still on your own), and everyone fails, the answer for thosw whou want to be the 1% would be - DON'T LEARN ON YOUR OWN.
Nobody learns any profession on their own, and that includes trading (even the few "self-inventors" usually had a father figure/mentor).
Most winning traders I know combined a lot of hard self work with meaningful mentorship. And by mentorship I mean someone that really helps you over time work on YOUR trading, not just teach you his rules. Someone committed to help you figure out how to dig yourself out of the holes you fall into, over time.

This was my own path as well.
Yes, personal mentorship costs. But not nearly as much as years of wasted losses and missed profits while struggling alone in the dark.

(P.S. Despite my username, no conflict of interest here - I don't teach nowadays :-)

I would agree with both thoughts. I have tried to learn on my own, but have only gotten so far. So according to my logic, if I was trying to get to the airport and the cab driver let me out 5 miles too early, I didnt make my goal. And that is what many Vendors do. They get you started toward the airport, but you never arrive.

One of the common clichés is when you hear "you have got to learn your own trading strategy". Maybe strategy is not the best word, but you get the point.


Why is it most every other occupation has a set of standards; an SOP? Most skills in life require rules. and the rules have commonality for each person to embrace depending upon the craft. I always hear "trade it the way you think."

When you go to flight school can you imagine hearing "now develop your own strategy." But I hear this sort of instruction all the time. Yes, of course the individual determines what amount of Risk to Reward, but I am talking about raw trading. Like a doctor, it is safe to say we "practice" our trade. We find there are many ways to stop bleeding, but they all follow the same bottom line; apply pressure. And before you can practice you must put in class time. My point being that trading is not subjective and telling others to apply your own experience into the craft is not the solution. Hand holding is the solution.


Like most crafts there should be mentorship and on the job training. However, I would also argue that in my experience many of those education Vendors do not provide this. They sell you an indicator or a strategy and say "now you need our trade room." And from anywhere between 45 to 500 a month, you go inside and watch others trade while you remain lost and more broke. Not even able to make money to pay toward the room.

And even as I type this message, I am reading a conversation in a trade room where I watched a simple question get slammed. Apparently the indicator is helping a trader. He is up 4000 dollars on the first day. So he asks about his/her Apex account in the chat. The response is- "may be ask in their community as they have many location where you can connect with their team of people. not everyone trades with funded accounts here and this is not a funded account community. these kinds of talks take away from the priceaction reading we are trying to do here in this community. Creates noise."


This is ironic since a majority of Vendors are trying to get you on the Apex bandwagon. But, a "no soup for you" nastygram for being in the trade room and trying to learn. It is 0825 hrs and not like most are trading at the moment. I wish there were better standards for trade rooms. Simple mentorship and a bit of hand holding can go a long way.

Really great questions, every single one of them.

I would ask another: if you're going to buy something lower now that will be higher soon, how can you do that unless you buy when most others don't want to? Their buying, which you hope will happen but which may not, has to come in after yours, or you won't be making any money, and may lose. If there were a standard SOP or a standard strategy that everyone followed, and if you did too, then you would never be ahead of anyone else in your buying decision and you would not be making much or any money. This is a big difference between trading and flying an airplane, or doing almost everything else.

I would love it if there were a standard right way to make a trading decision that always or at least usually worked. But if I knew it, so would you, and so would everyone else, and you, and they, would be in there buying along with me, not after me. Who would then be boosting the price for me to profit after I bought? Who would buy when I want to sell, if the SOP said it was time to sell?

Of course, it's not exactly that simple, and I think there are many good ways to trade, but trading is fundamentally competitive, and you have to do something that is not the known, relied-upon, standard way to do things. Someone has to disagree with you for you to even trade with them.

This helps explain why it is hard, and why the statistics on the number of profitable traders are so low. It's also why there is a huge appetite for solutions from vendors who will promise anything, usually without being able to deliver.

Someone may be giving good mentoring, and I think some vendors are selling good products, but either way, they can only take you so far. Hopefully, by being exposed to a variety of approaches a person can form their own conclusions about what to pursue and whom to rely on, but it will always come down to how an individual puts it together, maybe drawing on many totally different sources and their own experience and experimentation.

I think we can help each other, and learn from each other, or I wouldn't be on this forum (where we try to do just that, or create the environment for it), but I'm afraid I think that after a certain point, it is individual and that we learn on our own. There can be some of both.

I really liked your questions. Maybe you won't like my answer, but it's what I've got. I think it gives some leeway for a trader to pull ahead, but I think there's only so much anyone is going to get from someone else.

Bob.

I think there are standard ways to trade that work, it's just that they are not easy to do.

Where i agree with you is that trading is more of a competitive sport and this is what makes trading hard.
Most people in general do not engage in seriously competitive activities and then come into the market without realizing that what you are doing is competing for the margin that the commercials are willing to pay to manage their risk.

I think this is where good mentors come in but unfortunately as in all human activities given the rewards available there are always people willing to take advantage