My interest in trading started in 2003, before advent of YouTube. Back then, newbies went to the Internet to get information. I remember buying courses and receiving CDs through the mail. Peter Bain's and John Murphy's courses come to mind. From 2003 to 2016, my interest dithered as I wasn't looking to trade full-time and investing in penny stocks was my solid second stream of income.
In 2016, I started taking trading more seriously. Since I was interested in trading interest rate futures, I started searching YouTube. I came across two people offering that specific education. One was legit, the other was questionable. Luckily, I chose the legit offering.
Now, on to my point.
1. When it comes to seeking trading education, a YouTube search helps for those with a clue.
2. One has to use a filter to sift through the BS. The filter is comprised of the following:
Does the trader have professional trading experience (i.e., he/she worked at a prop firm, investment bank, in the pits, etc)? If the trader doesn't have professional trading experience, does he/she have an extensive public archive of live streams of his trades?
Is the trader actually trading?
Is the company that is offering education a subsidiary of a trading firm?
If any of the above is No, then it's a quick pass.
3. Those who can do, those who can't grift.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on futures io?
I am wondering if there is a way around testing renko bars. For example, I could code an indicator, and if "close > previous renko high" then go long etc. I wonder if anybody tried it.
On the topic of this thread. There are literally thousands of systems available for free that consistently make money. We can argue about Heikin Ashi or Renko, but at the end of the day there are two ways top trade, trend or mean reversion, and there are many, many varieties of the poison for any taste, so to speak. So then why the adage of two traders with the same system is holding up for a long time? One guy will be profitable, another losing using the same set of rules. Setting aside the fact that at least half of the Tube gurus' material is garbage and very few of these mentors will show you their trading account, the key to successful trading is mental, not technical, and the only person who can figure it out is the trader himself. Who knows what triggers my anxiety, recklessness, greed, fear? Why do I exit winning trades too early? Why do I move away my stops when the price gets closer? Why do I go nuts with the size on some days? Why am I afraid of losing and why is winning so important to me? These are the questions (and many more, when the can of worms opens up) every trader has to find the answer to in order to become successful.
Ninety nine percent of trading videos are about the technical. Will the video about the best use of RSI or Bollinger Bands prevent me from being reckless and going nuts with the size on the day when I feel invincible? I doubt it. I can learn all that and will still fuck it up, never mind if it's price action, indicators, Heikin Ashi, Ichimoku or astrology.
And then there is a very large elephant in the room: why on earth would you sell a trading system if you can make shitload of money with it yourself? I am not buying all this crap about "helping other traders who are struggling". You want to help - do it for free. Like Tom Hougaard, for example. Most large brokers conduct regular seminars on every possible aspect of trading - for free, because it is in their interest to have clients that make money. If it's not free then your main purpose is to make money, because you can't make this money in the market. I guess everyone is free to sell whatever they want and to charge whatever they want, but at the end of the day it all comes to a simple honesty: doing another course on technical analysis or algo coding is unlikely to get you out of the seventy plus percent that lose money in the market.
I am getting close to the end of the bitching session. There is no way around it: anything worthwhile is hard and simple at the same time. In trading, technical part is easy, and virtually every possible system works from time to time. The hard part is mental, and that requires tremendous work. Youtubers cannot offer help in this area.
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Youtube, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram.....they're all reeling with scammers! Anyone see the fun post Guruleaks posted on Twitter? Well, here u go:
The type of scams these guys were doing is all too common. There's different variations of the scam currently happening all over....but most involve penny stocks. What blew me away was the amount of money they made collectively over a span of only two years! Mama mia!!
But going back to the posters original rant....yes, everyone seems to follow the same modes-operandi. They speak of levels and make outlandish predictions based solely on the circular rotation of the stars. LOL! !
There are exceptions to everything. There's a small handful of guys that actually do stream for the passion of what they do. I found this dude who only trades the NQ but also has a hand in AI as it related to algorithmic strategies: [yt]https://www.youtube.com/@thealgotrader212[/yt]
Then there's also John Carter and Scott Pulcini, both are polar opposites, but each has a unique nitch. The the only thing is they both have products they like to sell, which is fine if you find value in their products. But honestly, I prefer watching someone who doesn't sell product and is really into it for the passion of what they do. Plus, trading is a lonely sport and having a sense of community is important, at least to me.
I do think however, that as the market begins to unravel, you'll see more streamers being sued as their approach begins to fall apart!
I have been listening to the Trading Nut channel. Interesting, until I did some Internet search and realized that most of his guests are vendors rather than traders. I asked the host in the comments if he ever checks his guests' trading account, to which he replied that if he did he would do one episode every two years. I think lots of folks figured out a simple fact; people will pay a lot of money to learn... how to pay a lot of money. This is actually true for lots of businesses. Lots of courses are sold for making money in the real estate, setting up your import/export business, general motivation (Tony Robbins & Co), Amazon affiliate and so on and so forth.
I think the only way to make it in trading is to figure it out for yourself. Sure, a good company helps, but mostly for support. What you see in the charts will be different from what some guru says he sees. Youtube can be useful for ideas, but at the end of the day you are the one to figure out a strategy and risk management.
By the way, the beauty of Internet is that people share things, and I have been told that you can either download most courses for free or for a fraction of the vendor's price. Interesting.