Disrupting Trading Education

“At the level I play, it becomes more psychological than mathematical”,  Phil Ivey, arguably the World’s best poker player

Conventional trading education needs a disrupter.    I see hundreds of educators and brokers basically providing the same technical content (Elliot Wave counts, 3:1 reward/risk ratio’s, Fibonacci numbers, etc, etc, etc) just in different formats while grazing over the psychological aspect of trading by kindly telling you how important it is, and if you’re lucky suggesting you read Mark Douglas’s “Trading In the Zone”.

Guest post by Matthew Carstens.  Founder of Rogue Red, Creator of    TradingWheels

Well that’s not good enough.    I don’t think it’s the broker or educators fault. They simply have not had the tools before to address this aspect of trading properly.    I believe this can change and have outlined a new concept below that can help.

Educational Tool #1:   The Demo Account Environment

My previous article,  “3 Reasons Why Demo Trading is Killing You”, offers more detail, but to bottom-line it; Demo Accounts have no emotional component attached to them whatsoever, so how do you prepare for something you don’t understand?

Educational Tool #2: The Mini Account Environment

The  “Mini Accounts – A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”  article gives a few good examples on my thoughts of Mini Accounts, but basically Mini Accounts are slippery slopes that are tough to get right.   Traders often have so little capital at risk that they don’t feel anything (similar  to a demo), or they tend to pile mini lots up to a point where they are basically trading standard sizes anyway.

Alternative Tool: The TradingWheels  Environment

(Full Disclosure I own this Intellectual Property)

What if, while you were learning how to trade, you had a choice of a trading environment where you  FEEL  like you are trading a standard live account, but you are actually in your demo account?   In this type of environment you could learn any trading methodology you like while ALSO addressing your trading psyche at the same time.   Wouldn’t you want to be able to adequately practice both the technical and psychological side of trading before risking too much of your capital?   Let me explain.

(By the way, I don’t like getting sold things either so let’s address this now – I want TradingWheels to be a seamless experience and completely FREE for any trader.    Just an alternative to the conventional demo and mini account.)

Simple TradingWheels explanation:   At its core, TradingWheels is just a randomizer built with your existing trading software (like MetaTrader 4, NinjaTrader, or eSignal) between your live and demo accounts, where you would have a 5% chance of logging into your live account and a 95% chance you’d log into your demo account.   (Notice the trades themselves are not randomized, only you logging into your live or demo account).   So when you login to trade, you do not know if you are trading your live or demo funds.    This forces you to treat each and every trading decision you make as if you have live funds on the line  (even when there is only a 5% chance) – something demo accounts cannot do, and mini accounts struggle with.

There is much more explanation of this on the  TradingWheels  site, as these articles are just to get the conversation started.   Hopefully brokers and software firms will build TradingWheels into their existing platforms, and educators will embrace its strengths to enhance their current education, so we can disrupt trading education and get better tools in your hands.