Learning Trading from Books, Courses, and Websites

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John Forman - The Essentials of Trading author

I frequently come across traders in websites and on their blogs talking about the value or uselessness (usually the latter) of formal trader training. A recent example is Trader Gav, who clearly expresses the view that it’s all worthless - that trading courses and trading books and trading websites basically all say the same old thing.

The funny thing to me is how quickly many traders forget what it was like to be new to trading. They don’t remember that empty late feeling of someone just starting in trading when everything is new. They have spent months (or years) learning the ins and outs of it all through various means.  Inevitably, they get to the point where there’s not much new out there in the trading books, forums, and websites.

How do you think I feel? I’ve been in the markets for more than 20 years! Talk about reading and hearing just about everything!

Here’s the difference for me, though. I am reading new books, checking out new sites, and things like that with two primary objectives. The first is so I can share them with new traders here - to let them know what they might find helpful in their trading development. The second is to get different perspectives on things. I know my own view is based on my own experience and that others have different experiences and thus different perspectives.

These new perspectives don’t necessarily alter my trading strategies, but they do help me continue to improve my abilities to communicate trading concepts to people with whom I speak and who read what I write. That, to me, is extremely valuable.

I go understand Trader Gav’s and others’ points of view, though. At a certain point, the only way forward is experience. You have to do it. That’s why I recommend in The Essentials of Trading that one get their feet wet in the market as quickly as possible to start the experience developing process. Doing so helps the new trader understand what they need to work on in terms of their trading skills and knowledge, making their progress toward effective trading that much smoother and faster.

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