Beware Fake Gurus out there !!!!While searching for some resources online, I came across a video that talks about fake gurus
out there who are making obscene amount of money from the students who bought into their
expensive courses, books, clubs, private coaching.....
Do a search on this Mr Dan XXX guy and be a judge yourself if this is for you... (Disclaimer applies) In the world of trading/investment, there too are fake gurus who proclaimed they can teach you how to make money from stock market, forex, etc easily.
It is a vicious cycle of sort where the students were misled into an illusion of getting rich, mastery of the skills over the weekend. I understand the hype, motivation and energy in that environment are high as students high 5 one another and you get influenced when you see the guy beside you taking money out from his wallet and paying the course on site. ....
You cannot think straight, to be honest. One thing led to another and before you knew it, you are heavily in debt and after 6 months or so, you are still at where you are.........
Now, let's take things in perspective. There are good trainers/coaches out there but you have to do your homework. Ask questions , lots of it what exactly will you be learning from his class. Do not be dazzled by the advertisment, the "only 7 seats left" promotion,etc. Trust me, if you call them the next day and ask to be enrolled, they will take you in with both hands albeit putting on a show on phone or in person.
I have said before that signals, strategies on understanding the market or instruments is only 10-20% of the equation. These are information that are available freely online IF you bother to do some research and be patient sifting the gem from the dirt.
If you are already tight in your finance and spending $3000-10,000 on a course seems exorbitant for you, then you may want to use this money instead as your investment capital.
Here are some steps you can take :
1. Open a LIVE and DEMO account
Practise for a minimum of 3-6 months on your demo accounts and ensure it is profitable before you place a single trade on the LIVE account.
2. LIVE account - Find a broker that charges zero or lowest commission on the instruments that you are buying/selling. Take note that the commissions eat into your profits, this are your operating costs of business.
3. Trade per day - Limit to only 1 trade per day no matter how tempting the market may be. This delay is useful in that it trains you to be patient and not get ahead of yourself and also help you to get you balance in the sense that you are not going to strike it rich with trading over night. So, it is not the quantity of trades that determine your profitability.
4. Use micro or mini accounts - This way, you limit your losses and allows you to participate in live trading that offers you the true experience of trading. You need to go through the roller coaster ride of emotions when you are in a live trade. The loss of $1 or $100 is real and that experience is powerful if you harnessed it to goo use.
5. STOP LOSS - From the start, from demo account to your first live trade, ALWAYS use a stop loss. Don't believe the gurus or anyone that you do not need one as the trend is very bullish and you are sure to make money. Take care of your losses or risks and the profits/rewards will come. Be familiar with the process first, get it engrained, develop a system , repeat and rinse before you scale up.
6. DIVERSIFY - Yes, I love gold and silver but I love stocks, forex, futures as well. No matter how good you think you are, when the market starts to take an abrupt turn due to a black swan or any event (eg. upcoming election), your 100% investment in gold will not be wipe out. If your gold is down 10%, your other asset class should be up so that your total portfolio is pretty balanced. This takes time to widen, for beginners , stick to one class first. For me, I start with EURUSD on a micro account earning cents and losing cents for quite a while. It was frustrating when you see and become more confident that your strategy starts to work but at the end , you only make $1 profit instead of $10 or $100. However, your risks are equally small as well, so understand that equation properly.
7. EMOTION CONTROL - To me, this is a lifetime journey. If you look at your life, most of the problem stems from how you handle your emotions be it anger, frustration, stress, disappointment, resentment, envy, hurt, regrets, etc. If we spend time to blame the external world (people or environment) , in a way , we have outsource the power to them. We absolve ourselves from responsibility. And without accepting responsibility, we never really learn, do we ?
You are too early or too late into the market has to do with your emotions more than the instrument itself. You read the news that Gold has shoot up to 2000 level and you entered 5 lots at one go, hoping to catch the next wave ONLY to be disappointed when it corrects to 1900 or so. Immediately you lost 5 x 100 points per contract and you are staring at the paper losses daily until it stabilised or recovered higher. If not, the pain of losing will be excruciating. Is it your greed to want to make it quick that led you to insert 5 contracts instead of 1? Only you know the answers.
8. Consistent with your strategy - If you are using Bollinger band and it works , then stick to it in both your demo and live accounts. If it suits you or you are very good at interpreting it and it yields you a high winning rate, then I see no reason to add on any new ones. For me, I started with moving average (you can see my charts 5 years ago) but I got confused in interpreting the price actions on different time frame). By God's grace, I stumbled on trend lines and I begin using it. It was much clearer and the more I use, the more familiar I become. You can see from my charts I keep it as clean as possible, NO volume, NO RSI, NO MACD, etc just plain old trend lines, support and resistance (horizontal trend lines really) and basic price action patterns like descending wedge, etc.
I hope this article has been useful for some traders/investors who are still jumping from one indicator to another, unsatisfied with the trainer/coach teaching as it make you pay and pay or feel betrayed/angry/disappointed with the market. Look, the Market will go on with or without our participation. We are merely a tiny cog in the system. Without it, the system will not fail.
The million dollar question is if you are not in trading/investment, can you make money elsewhere ? If the answer is a resounding YES, then hesitate no more. Get out of here and put your heart and soul into what you want to do , be it a online business or selling the next sizzling pizza.
To your success !
