Good, Free Trading Resources
March 27, 2008
If you're a first time visitor, I encourage you to subscribe to the RSS feed so you don't miss anything. Thanks for visiting!
John Forman - The Essentials of Trading author
Today’s trader question is in regards to trading resources:
I am just trying to be involved in FX trading. And I shall sincerely appreciate any help you can render, in terms of genuie and good free resources.
Over the years I’ve been exposed to a great many trading resources of all different types. That includes information and tools for use in the trade decision making process and items focused on educating traders and investors. I try to post regular reviews of books and other things here to provide my thoughts on the ones I come across.
The questioner in this case brings up a very interesting subject – that of free resources.
I have written on this subject before in the post When Free Isn’t and Paying Makes Much More Sense. There are certainly many free resources out there. To my mind discussion boards like Trade2Win and BabyPips are great sources for new traders. Not only do they provide information, but they also allow traders to ask specific questions. You can’t do that to a free ebook.
The question is one of value, though. The old saying “You get what you pay for” holds true in trading resources as it does in everything else. Keep very much in mind that there is a reason things are free. The most common one is that they provide only general information. Another is that the creator put the resource together relatively quickly without spending much time on making it a really good presentation.
Consider this. Are you likely to give away something you spent weeks or months of your precious spare time putting together? Probably not. If you only put in a couple of hours, though, you’d likely be more inclined to do so.
Also, what you get out of something must come into consideration when determining what you pay for it. Businessess understand this very well. If I can spend $100 on something that’s going to make me $200 in profits, or save me $200 in expenses, I’m most certainly going to do that.
I work on a analytic service which has a price tag of about $300/month per user. That might sound like an a lot of money, but think about it for a minute. If what my colleagues and I present to you makes you $1000/month in net profits, doesn’t that $300 sound extremely reasonable? The guy I consider my markets mentor runs a service with a monthly price tag of $1000+. The institutional customers who subscribe to his service happily pay that because they know they can use what he tells them to affect much bigger improvements in their returns.
There’s the difference between institutional/professional traders and individuals. The former understand they are investing their money with the expectation of a positive return. The latter think instead of cost and expense without considering the value of what they receive in return.
If you find yourself thinking about a book, or data feed, or trading tool, or whatever as an expense, then change your thinking. I’m not saying you should spend more than you can afford, but prudent investments can really the make a great deal of difference in your development and performance.
Hi John,
I beg to differ on one aspect of your post. These guys who develop free resources might not make any money from the end users, but they certainly do not do it for free. In fact, they are compensated quite well for their time through the advertiser banners you see proliferating their sites. That is why they do it. They figure they can get some decent information out there to the masses of newbies who are looking for it for free while getting paid quite handsomely by the advertisers who ultimately end up with the newbies cash.
Hi Jake. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
You’re right. The advertising model does present opportunities for folks to provide free content while earning money. That advertising, however, is one of the reasons why websites are very inefficient for the presentation of lengthy educational pieces. There are too many distractions on websites – too many things to click on or look at which aren’t part of the main material.
..Personally,I regard THIS site as a GREAT free trading resource,just wanted to mention another: thinkorswim.com
..I would really like to learn more about different indicators,especially using those which are NOT based on the same premise (ie trends,volume,sentiment)
..People will laugh,(I did),after spending much time trying to set indicators to suit a short time frame,I put them all on top of one another,and they were basically ALL ALIKE!
..Now using short term average on short term TSV, seems to work for me.
…..Any help appreciated,DJ
Thanks DJ. I do my best.
I’m thinking about doing a series of posts on the different categories and types of indicators.