Frequently Asked Questions
First,
please read the
disclaimer to understand that the information provided on this website does
NOT take into account your individual circumstances, and should NOT be considered
advice. It's general comment only, for the purposes of
information and education. Please seek professional advice with regard to
whether or not it is appropriate to your own particular financial circumstances,
needs and objectives.
Then, click on
the links to be taken to the appropriate Q&A.
Technical FAQ
About
www.YourTradingCoach.com
Learning
to Trade
Not So
Frequently-Asked Questions that I thought were pretty cool...
If your
question is not answered here, please feel free to contact me via the
Contact
Page.
Technical Stuff:
Email Q&A Policy
Effective 27 August 2012:
(a) All
administrative, technical and sales enquiries will
be responded to as soon as possible. I aim to
respond to these no later than the end of the next
business day.
(b) "Free
coaching" questions will no longer be answered.
However they will be read and may form the basis for
a YTC newsletter article if I feel they offer value
to the wider YTC community.
Explanation:
For four and a half
years now I've answered almost every email sent to YTC. While no one
person has been abusing the privilege, collectively this has led to
a daily email burden that has burnt me out and has stalled any
further growth of YTC. This has now reached the point at which it's unsustainable and the options are to either shut down YTC or halt
all free coaching.
This newsletter has
been (and will remain) a one-man part-time endeavour. Trading and
family time will always remain my priority. But I enjoy writing as
well so have allocated two hours a day towards this project.
Currently, I spend greater than this two hours every day in
answering email. As a result, no new product development has
occurred since April 2011.
Email Q&A benefits
only a very small percentage of readers (<1%) but greatly reduces
the value I can provide to the 100%.
Investigations into
blogging sites which have closed down blog comments for similar
reasons shows that, while perhaps counter-intuitive, it actually
greatly improves the service provided to the readership.
See here for one example!
I have for quite a
while wanted to commence work on some video or webinar based
training. Removal of my daily email burden will allow this work to
commence. So once again I can look forward to each day where I can
be involved in a creative educational process, rather than waking up
and dreading entering my office and seeing yet another full inbox.
Beyond the initial video and
webinar trading, I will investigate options for individual or small-group
coaching for those who learn better from the more personalised attention. It
will no longer be free though!
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How can I subscribe to the newsletter?
This newsletter uses a double-opt-in
subscription process, to ensure that no-one else is entering your details to
subscribe you to newsletters you don't necessarily want. It makes it a little
more complicated, but it's worth the effort to minimise spam. The process is as
follows:
Simply enter your name and email
address into the boxes above the Main Menu at the top left of this page. Within
a couple of minutes you should receive a confirmation email in your inbox. This
email contains a confirmation link (just to be sure you want it). Click on this
link. Your web browser should then show a confirmation page, confirming that
everything has worked. You'll then receive your welcome email in your inbox.
That's it. Not too difficult
hopefully.
Please don't email me though asking
to be subscribed. I can't do it. You need to go through this double-opt-in
confirmation process. It's just the way the system works.
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How do I change my email address?
At the very bottom of each of the
newsletters you'll find the following message:
To unsubscribe or change subscriber
options visit: (link)
Click on this link and you'll be
taken to a page where you can change your email address. Click on the link
'edit contact information' to change your email address.
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How do I unsubscribe?
At the very bottom of each of the
newsletters you'll find the following message:
To unsubscribe or change subscriber
options visit: (link)
Click on this link and you'll be
taken to a page where you can unsubscribe from the newsletter. Simply check the
little round button under the heading 'Unsubscribed' and then click save. You
should see a confirmation page. (Depending on your browser you may not have to
click save - sometimes you get the confirmation automatically).
Please don't email me - I can't
unsubscribe you. I need you to follow the above procedure (apologies if that's
an inconvenience - it's just the way the system works). :-)
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How do I search the YTC Website Article Archives?
For a general browse through the list
of articles and videos, click on Site Map in the top menu.
Or for a more targeted approach, where you search for a particular keyword, see
this page for instructions:
http://www.yourtradingcoach.com/Website/Searching-the-YTC-Website-Article-Archives.html
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About
www.YourTradingCoach.com
Who are you?
-
Lance
Beggs, trader, trading educator, ex-military helicopter pilot, husband,
father.
-
See
my About Me page for more details
-
Or
for another way of answering the question, here's a bio that was submitted
with an article recently published in The Traders Journal:
Lance Beggs is a full time
day-trader with a current preference for both forex and
emini-futures. His style of trading is discretionary,
operating in the direction of short-term sentiment within a
framework of support and resistance.
As an ex-military helicopter pilot and
Aviation Safety Officer, Lance has an interest in applying the lessons
and philosophy of aviation safety to the trading
environment, through study in human factors, risk management
and crew resource management.
He is the founder and chief contributor to
http://www.YourTradingCoach.com,
which aims to provide quality trading education and
resources with an emphasis on the ‘less sexy’ but more
important aspects of trading – business management, risk
management, money management and trading psychology.
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How do you personally trade?
-
Short timeframe (1
minute charts and lower) discretionary trading, operating in the direction of
short-term sentiment within a framework of support and resistance.
-
Current preferred markets are the Euro fx futures (6E), the E-mini
Russell futures (TF) and the Hang Seng (HSI).
-
For a
full description of how I trade:
-
The
YTC Price
Action Trader outlines the trading strategy that I used up until
mid-2010 on slightly higher timeframes (3 minute charts) in the forex, fx
futures and e-mini futures markets.
-
The
YTC Scalper is the trading method used since mid-2010. This is not a new
strategy, but rather a variation of the YTC Price Action Trader designed to
simplify processes and procedures, allowing application on faster scalping
timeframes. This is applicable to the fx futures and emini-futures markets.
Please note that YTC Price Action Trader is a prerequisite (if you choose to
learn through YTC), as the YTC Scalper ebook assumes a thorough
understanding of the YTC Price Action Trader theory of markets and analysis
processes.
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If
you're so good at trading, why are you teaching?
-
Yeah, right. I see this all the time in forums. Trading seems to be the
only business in the world (that I know of) in which the public are totally
skeptical of anyone who teaches, or shares their methods. Perhaps that is
very much deserved, given all the rubbish and the hype that exists in the
marketplace. It's unfortunate though. The fact is that there is some real
quality information out there amongst the rubbish. Hopefully I can help
provide some quality. Not all trading educators are a fake. Yes, I'm sure
many are - I know a few educators personally and seriously doubt some of
them trade. However there are others who do trade.
-
So why do I do this? Firstly, I enjoy teaching. When I was involved with Aviation Safety, one
of my primary roles was education. I enjoyed it. I also consulted for another
company a couple of years ago teaching options trading. I enjoyed it. So,
it's quite natural now that I'm trading for myself that I'd want to also
teach other people. Ok!!!!
-
And yes, it does make me money. Well, at least that's the plan. I
subscribe to the theory of multiple streams of income. I suggest you
seriously research this topic as well. Trading should not be your only
source of income. Build other income streams - both active and passive.
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There
is so much rubbish on the internet? How can I trust you?
-
Easy answer -
don't trust me. In fact, don't trust any trading educator, until they've
proven themselves worthy of trust.
-
Learn as much as
you can from the site and from my newsletter, but don't put anything into
use in a live market until you've thoroughly tested it in a demo setting
and proven to yourself that it works for you. Take what you like from my teachings, and
discard the rest. The interesting thing with trading is that what works for
me won't necessarily work for you; but that's cool. We all trade
differently.
-
That being said,
I'd like to think that the fact that my site is not filled with hype or
outrageous promises, allows me to start off with a little credibility. In
fact, I'll go so far as to say that trading is possibly going to be the
hardest thing you've ever tried in your life, and you'll probably fail. Only
a small minority have the patience, courage and determination required to
make it.
-
Refer
to the
SiteMap for an archive of previous articles and videos to confirm the
quality of work meets your standards, and the content meets your needs.
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Can
you teach me to trade?
-
If you're after
one-on-one coaching, unfortunately I don't do that at the moment. (See
the coaching page here for more information.) The only teaching I currently do is through the website and
newsletter, which provides general information on a wide range of trading
topics, and through my self-study PDF ebook series at
YTC Price
Action Trader and
YTC Scalper.
-
If or when I start
up individual coaching, I'll be sure to announce it through the
newsletter. If you haven't already subscribed to the newsletter, you can do
so through the subscription boxes on the top of the left-hand side menu.
-
To be honest
though (and to get a little more Zen), I don't think anyone can be taught to
trade, at least not the way I trade. Instead it's something you learn for
yourself through experience and immersion in the markets. My role in this is
to perhaps provide some guidance along the way, keeping you on the right
path and minimizing the distractions and false turns. More of a mentor or
coach, than teacher. I can point you in the right direction. Success or failure though, is
up to you.
-
An important
factor is whether or not you relate to both my style of teaching and my
style of trading. Read some of my articles, watch some of my videos,
subscribe to my newsletter. If you like the way I work and if my trading
style seems compatible with yours, then perhaps there's a chance we could
work together one day. If you can't understand my accent or if I speak too
quickly, it's probably not going to work. If your underlying beliefs about
how markets operate are different from mine, then once again you may be
better seeking guidance elsewhere.
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Do you have a course that I can buy?
-
If
you're interested in a swing trading strategy (Demonstrated on short
timeframes ... 3 minute charts... but able to be adapted to any market and
any higher timeframe provided sufficiently liquid):
YTC Price
Action Trader
-
Then
if you're interested in adapting the above strategy to faster scalping
timeframes:
YTC Scalper
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Can
you provide private mentoring?
-
At the moment I'm
not interested. My trading is very time intensive (day-trading involving
hours of watching screens) plus I have a young family and some other
business interests as well. My priorities are my family, my trading, other
personal interests and business interests. These do not leave me sufficient
time to devote to you. Sure, I could offer some mentoring program for sale,
take your money, and give you an inferior product, but that's not the way I
want to operate and I'm sure it's not what you want. Until my life allows me
to give serious attention to mentoring, and deliver a quality product, I
just can't (or won't) do it. I hope you understand.
See
the coaching page here for more information.
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Can you please set up a live trading room?
-
This is unlikely
to ever happen. Firstly, my trading environment is a calm, relaxing
environment. Usually with some nice background meditation-style music
(although sometimes when I'm in a different mood I'll trade to Radiohead,
cranked up nice and loud). The last thing I imagine I'll ever want is to be
trading with the distractions that come from a live trading room - questions
from participants, negativity from the one or two people who seem to be
always present in these rooms, disputing or second guessing setups or trade
entry or management calls. Not to mention the distraction to my trading
psychology due to the fact that I'd feel I had to make a profit that
session. Trading rooms are not conducive to good trading, at least not for
me.
-
Secondly, it'd be
really boring. I can sit for two hours waiting for the right setup.
-
But then you never
know what the future may bring. While I am not personally a fan of trading
rooms, I do recognize that live trading is a great learning environment. So
I will be looking for ways in future to take advantage of these benefits.
Perhaps a live classroom or online setting, where you trade and I provide
coaching???? Don't know! More thought required here.
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Do
you do speaking engagements?
-
Sorry - not at the
moment. My current priorities are my family, and my own trading and other
personal interests. When my lifestyle changes and my kids have grown up,
maybe then I'll have time to do the speaking or trading expo circuit.
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Why so much information for free? Are you going to be
charging for services later?
-
I
intend to continue to offer quality information to all readers, regardless
of whether they become paying customers or clients, or not.
-
The free
information allows us to build a relationship; allows you to confirm the
quality of my writing and teaching; and to confirm whether or not my style
of teaching and trading suit your needs. If you then decide to seek further
information through the
paid products or courses, that's great. If not,
that's fine as well. I hope the free information continues to provide you
with great value and assists you on your trader development journey.
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Are you just going to be promoting all the latest forex
courses, ebooks or robots, like every other internet marketer?
-
I
hope not. If I ever start crossing the boundary, let me know & I'll quit
this business.
-
The
site does have a small number of Google ads (providing a small contribution
for all my time). Ignore them if you don't like that.
-
The
resources page and my email newsletter will promote various products and
resources. However these are currently (and will always be) products,
courses or resources which I either use myself and have found to be of
value, or which are used and recommended by others who I trust. There are
very few products that meet this standard.
-
You
will NOT find me joining the ranks of
the internet marketers (most of who don't trade) in flooding your inbox with
a never-ending stream of 'last system you'll ever need' trading ebooks,
courses or robots. That's not my game.
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Learning to Trade:
What's the easiest way to learn to trade?
There is no easy way.
Like any performance based activity, trading requires considerable work in order
to achieve professional levels of competency.
What is the best way
then?
Unfortunately, there's
also no best way to learn. The best way for you will depend on your individual
personality. Different people learn better through different teaching methods.
Some will prefer classroom settings, others will prefer a live trading room.
Others will be better just working at their own pace through self-directed
learning. This is something I can't help with - you'll need to find your own
way.
The Traders
Checklist - Steps to Trading Success,
posted here, may be of assistance in guiding you through the various stages
of trader development, regardless of whether you learn with a teacher or mentor,
or are self-taught. A link is included on that page to a pdf download of the
checklist, so you can save it on your computer and print it out.
If you're interested
in discovering how I trade, check out
YTC Price Action
Trader and
YTC Scalper.
The
Resources Page lists may also assist, listing the courses and books that
I've found useful, as well as those recommended by others I trust.
And be sure to check
out all my articles and videos. The quickest way to access them is via the
Site Map.
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How
long does it take to learn to trade?
You can learn
technical analysis and money management within a few months if you devote
sufficient time to the task. However, while that might help you to analyze the
market, it doesn't teach you to trade. Learning to trade is a different matter
entirely.
Learning to trade
involves so much more which can't be taught by any course or book. In
particular, the big challenge most traders have is learning to operate in an
environment of uncertainty, where your hard earned money is on the line and loss
of funds are a very real possibility. You will lose money - losses are a normal
occurrence in trading. It takes considerable time to truly learn to accept this
risk of loss. A lesson which can only be learnt through experience in the
markets.
It's impossible to say
how long this might take you. It varies from person to person. Typically though,
most day-traders take several years. And that's just the one's who make it.
Given that 95% of people who attempt to trade never actually achieve consistent
profitability, then there's a good chance you'll never make it. If you want to
be part of the 5%, you need to be realistic about the challenges ahead, and
prepared to devote several years of your life.
This is no different
to mastering any other performance field. How long would it take you to become a
professional athlete? How long would it take you to become a chess master? How
long would it take you to become a professional poker player?
Here's another
perspective, via a great blog post from by Babak at
http://www.tradersnarrative.com/the-definitive-guide-to-trading-mastery-success-2460.html.
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How
much money can I make as a trader?
There's
actually a higher probability that you'll lose money, rather than make any. This
article can probably explain it best, in which I answer a readers question
regarding
'What rate of return can I expect?' Just click on the link and it'll open a
new page.
I also
like this quote which I was passed by one of my readers, "If you told a student
to spend 3-5 years minimum to qualify in a profession (full time incurring debt
along the way) and then flip a coin at the end of it to see if he will be
paid a salary on passing - that's trading!"
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How
can I get started?
The Traders
Checklist - Steps to Trading Success,
posted here, may be of assistance in guiding you through the various stages
of trader development, regardless of whether you learn with a teacher or mentor,
or are self-taught. A link is included on that page to a PDF download of the
checklist, so you can save it on your computer and print it out.
If you're interested
in discovering how I trade, check out
YTC Price Action
Trader and
YTC Scalper.
The
Resources Page lists may also assist, listing the courses and books that
I've found useful, as well as those recommended by others I trust.
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What
market should I trade?
This article here,
Which Market Should I be Trading
, should hopefully help you with some of
the factors you need to consider in making this decision. Clicking on the link
will open the article in a new window.
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What
timeframe should I trade?
This article here,
Which Market Should I be Trading, addresses timeframe as well as market
selection. It should hopefully help you with some of the factors you need to
consider in deciding on a timeframe. Clicking on the link will open the article
in a new window.
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What
strategy should I trade?
Should I buy a course or develop my own strategy?
Should I use a mechanical system or a discretionary system?
Which
indicators should I use?
Ok, this one I can't
answer. It's something you'll develop an understanding for over time. Everyone
is different, and every trader discovers their niche market, style, timeframe,
strategy and preferred tools over the many years of learning.
The articles and
videos on my site may help. Check out the
Site Map for links to them.
If you're interested
in discovering how I trade, check out
YTC Price Action
Trader and
YTC Scalper.
If you're interested
in a basic 'system', check out this article:
http://www.yourtradingcoach.com/Articles-Strategy/Great-Beginners-Trading-Strategy.html
Also check out the
Resources Page for recommended education providers. Consider reviewing their
material and seeing if their style appeals to you.
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Which
broker should I use?
Which
platform should I use?
As I'm not a licensed
financial advisor, I cannot recommend a broker. A simple internet search will
provide you with more recommendations than you ever need. Some of the key
considerations in my opinion are:
-
Appropriate
licencing and regulation (eg. here in Australia brokers are registered and
licenced with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC))
-
Security of funds
(kept separate from business funds and appropriately insured)
-
Customer service
available immediately by phone (there's nothing worse than the internet
going down, and you needing to speak to your broker to exit a trade, and
then having to work through the computer answering machine system only to be
placed on hold. Insist on speaking to a person - immediately)
As to the platform,
once again it's largely personal preference. There's no 'perfect' platform,
otherwise we'd all use it. You need to find the one that works best for you,
with the features you need, at a price that you consider great value. An
internet search is once again a reasonable starting point.
The good news is that
most platforms these days come with a free demo for at least 14 or 30 days. This
gives you ample opportunity to try it out in a simulation environment, without
risking your money.
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Not So Frequently-Asked Questions
That I Thought Were Pretty Cool:
Why do I keep doing dumb trades?
Here's a
great email I received from one of the Your Trading Coach newsletter readers. I
love it! The response is below the question as well.
I am writing to you because I got my butt handed to me today, but thank GOD for
stop losses. I waited all month for this economic report day. I practiced my
strategy over and over and had it down. Got up feeling super confident, but the
market did the unexpected, and started up. Some how I couldn't get my head
around it, so I checked past chart on this great Friday for anything that looked
like this morning. I saw price hit the upper trend line of my trend channel and
all of the evidence that price was bearish was staring me in the face. When I
got it after my first stop loss, I could see a strong bearish pattern and
shorted. Price went against me 11 pips saw the neg -$60.00 and panicked to hell
close the trade out at a loss and cost me $355.00 of potential profit plus of
course the real -$.60.00. Then after my panic, I bought again, that lesson cost
me $460.00 total. Ouch!
I have one question at this point, when do we stop being so dumb as traders? At
what point will I trade what is in front of me instead of fantasy trading. All
that signs were there and logic flew out of the window. I did recover some of
my losses though, but I just want to know when the dumbness ends. I realized
that I was trading my memory of past 1st Friday's and not what was actually
staring me in the face.
Do you have any advice for this kind of super dumb trading. I know this is
long, but I have made another decision, I keep trying to make my trading way to
complicated. I think I have an overload of info and theories. From this point
I plan to shut all of that off for a while and learn to master candlestick
formations along with trend lines. I figure since none of these things are
perfect any way, I may as well keep it simple, the way that I'd decided before
and stick to what seems to work for me, candlestick reading with trend line
channels. I know way to much, but I haven't mastered anything.
Of course you know I will be studying the charts over the weekend, and I'll be
right back at it Monday. Poor traders, what can we do???? The market has us.
Response:
Sorry, I shouldn't laugh but I just love your question - when do we stop being
so dumb?
Certainly with experience we learn to prevent some of the basic dumb things, but
I think that human capacity to invent new ways to do dumb things is almost
limitless. At least I keep finding new ways to repeat old mistakes.
Have a look at an E-mini Dow chart (YMH9) if you can get one. I went long on
Friday at 10:34 ET at the 8550 double bottom only to be stopped out on the 10:35
spike down, and then missed all re-entry opportunity due to my frustrations. So I
had to watch it move on to my target without me. The risk was really small, so
it's not a big deal. I didn't lose much cash at all. And in fact this happens
often - it's just part of trading. What was wrong though was the way I allowed
myself to get really frustrated - very amateur emotions. Not only did that cause
me to miss the re-entry, but it stuffed me up for a good 10 mins or so, before I
realised I needed to get away from the screen for a bit of a 'clearing'
exercise.
Thursday, my journal records a period of hesitation at entry that led to missing
a few trades. On reflection, it came after a really good trade - well managed
with a good profit. For some reason though I then fell into a period of 'outcome
focus', in which I didn't want to lose the earlier profits. Stupid. I know much
better than that.
Order entry errors are my favourite, especially entering long when I meant to go
short (or vice versa) - it's been a while since I've done that - it's probably
due to reoccur soon.
Basically, I don't think the dumb stuff ever stops. If it does, it's only
temporary while our subconscious is busy plotting more evil and clever ways to
be dumb.
Simplification is a great idea and should help. As you say, none of this stuff
is perfect anyway. No matter how many indicators you look at, you'll still come
up with an answer that is not guaranteed. So you still have to manage the risk
carefully and take your stops when the market says you got it wrong. So, why not
make the job easier. (Reminds me of the saying, 'if you have one clock you
always know exactly what the time is. If you have two clocks, you'll never
really know what the exact time is.). KISS is a great principle for trading.
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FAQ 
