You’re Driving a Ferrari, But Have You Learned How To Drive?
I was in Dubai, UAE last week and as usual, while sitting outside having lunch in Jumeirah Beach, I noticed all the fancy cars driving by. There were Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and even a McLaren, which you don’t see too often. One of the Ferraris stood out to me. Not because of the car itself but because of the driver. I noticed the two gentleman in the car were very young, they looked like teenagers. The driver seemed to have trouble driving the car and that reminded me of something in trading that I think will help you if I explain. And, after all, thats why I write these articles so let me begin…
A few days ago I was speaking with a woman who is a student of OTA and I asked her how she was doing. She replied that she is trading Forex and struggling a bit. I asked her what classes she had taken and she said she took the Forex class and was trying to make that work. Around that same time I was also speaking with another student/trader from Kenya and asked him how he was doing. He said he was trading Futures and was not losing money but was not making money either. I dove deeper with both these individuals and asked some questions because them not being successful was not acceptable to me. I had to figure out what the issue was and what we could do to help them. After a few questions, I realized exactly what the issue was for both of them, they had not learned how to trade yet. They had never taken our Pro Trader course. One of them actually bought the course in a package years ago and had still never taken it. Instead, he just went right into trading Futures and struggled.
You see, Pro Trader is our foundation course where our core Supply and Demand market timing strategy is taught in detail and practiced with an instructor looking over your shoulder for a full week. Furthermore, some of our key Odds Enhancers are taught in that class. Don’t get me wrong, core strategy is taught and practiced in all our major courses but the fullest deepest version is clearly in the 7-day Professional Trader course and we always let people know that up front before they commit to any education. I explained to them that no matter how much they knew about the asset class they were trading, they had to learn how to actually trade first in order to be successful. The Forex market is great and the Futures markets are fantastic but they don’t make you any money, your trading strategy does.
What is alarming to me is how many of these conversations I have with students/traders around the world. People want to open a Forex account because it’s a cheap market to get into and has other benefits as well but they skip the most important piece of this puzzle which is to first learn how to make money trading anything! Core strategy is everything. Once you have it you can then trade whatever market makes sense for you. For me, I trade the futures market for short term income and the options market for long term wealth. However, while futures and options are very different, I use the same core strategy for both. And, this happens to be the same core strategy we teach in our 7 – day Pro Trader course.
Don’t get me wrong, my objective is not to push you to trade or even push you to take a trading course. What I am strongly suggesting is this… If you are going to chose to risk your hard earned money in the markets, make sure your first learn how to trade and that means a rule based strategy that has you buying low and selling higher. This sounds so obvious I know but you would be surprised how many people skip this obvious step.
Do you think you could drive a Ferrari before going to driving school? If not, then why would you think you could make money trading before learning how to trade. Learn a successful strategy, build a simple trading plan around it, practice executing that plan in a demo account. Once you have consistent strong results, move to real money but very small position size. Once you see the results you’re looking for, then move to a leveraged asset class if you want to but this is step number five. As I said, I see more and more people skipping the first four steps and that is unbelievable to me. Like driving the Ferrari, trading requires skill and to attain any skill, you must learn and practice. If you chose to skip the first four critical steps in the process I just mentioned, you will likely lose your money in the market to someone who didn’t.
Hope this was helpful. Have a great day.
Sam Seiden
sseiden@tradingacademy.com
