DAYTRADINGCOACH.COM

FIGURE 1: THE HOMEPAGE OF DAYTRADINGCOACH.COM

Which recommendation haunts fledgling traders the most? Is it the notion of having to raise tens of thousands of dollars in starting capital? Is it the thought of having to spend hundreds of dollars on complicated computer hardware and software in order to be competitive with other dedicated, high-tech traders? Maybe it's the invocation to find a singular method and stick with it. ... Maybe it's learning to take small losses early - even if it means not making a dime for months. ...

I suspect the answer is different for every beginning trader. But the one recommendation that has always stymied people like me is the one that veteran traders have insisted on for years: "Find yourself a mentor." I can't tell you how many interviews and articles about "Market Wizards" describe how a trader's father/cousin/uncle/brother/neighbor just happened to be a 20-year veteran of the pits, and how key that relationship was to turning yesterday's "wet-behind-the-ears" trader into today's Market Wizard.

While this certainly isn't always the case -- and many great traders have succeeded without the assistance of a knowledgeable guide -- what wannabe trader hasn't felt his or her heart sink just a bit when reading trader biographies with lines like this, from an interview with trader and author Jeff Cooper:

Interviewer: How did you first become interested in the stock market, Jeff?
Jeff Cooper: My initial experience was in 1962. My dad had one of the first private hedge funds in the country. ...

I mean to take nothing away from Cooper, who by all accounts has been a tremendously successful trader. But for those of us who are the first person in their family to own a stock, let alone trade one, I think my point remains.

PUT ME IN, COACH!

So what is an aspiring trader to do? One option is to find a trading mentor on the Internet. No doubt there are any number of people who will tell you that they hold the secret to trading riches and -- for a fee -- they will be more than happy to impart them to you, one expensive drop at a time. This is not to suggest that most would-be mentors offering their services are not to be trusted, but simply to remind that the Internet continues to provide opportunities for great swindles as well as great insights.

One Internet mentor positioning himself on the latter end of that divide is Jens Clever of DayTradingCoach.com. Clever is not necessarily widely known in big-time trading circles. But he appears to represent the sort of post-stock market bubble entrepreneur who, having made a decent chunk of change while daytrading the markets of the 1990s, has decided to refocus that experience toward helping others learn how to daytrade the markets of the first decade of the 21st century.

Clever's site, DayTradingCoach.com, is geared toward providing those interested in daytrading with experienced counsel and more than a few words of wisdom. Whether you are a complete novice to daytrading or have some experience in investing and/or longer-term trading and have been thinking about shortening up your time horizon, Clever's advice and coaching is apparently fully scalable (note: DayTradingCoach is geared toward daytrading stocks, as opposed to currencies or futures).

As a website reviewer, the fact that DayTradingCoach.com provides a wealth of free educational material is a promising sign. This includes daytrading articles (36 different articles as of this writing [May 2004], with the most recent posted earlier this month) on topics ranging from trading psychology, time and periodicity, daytrading indicators, money management, and trend analysis. One thing that impressed me about the article selection is that many of the articles are written by traders other than Clever, and a few actually argue against some of Clever's own ideas about trading. For example, as a preface to one article entitled "Why Paper Trading Is Counter-Productive," Clever notes:
 

While I do think paper trading is essential in order to prepare yourself for the first live trades and to understand price moves and patterns, I found this article interesting.


So why not include it and let you decide for yourself, Clever seems to say -- and for that he should be commended. Often, it seems as if -- being better traders than teachers -- many would-be mentors merely create trading "clones" of their own techniques and biases. Mentoring traders can be forgiven for this, of course: The trader who has made millions of dollars trend-trading is not about to start teaching a novice how to pick tops and bottoms. But it nevertheless creates a problem for the aspiring trader. Clever's approach to providing educational materials seems to reflect an understanding of this potential dilemma.

RESOURCES IN THE COACH'S CORNER

In addition to the free articles on daytrading, DayTradingCoach.com provides a number of other free resources. These include real-time stock quotes (provided by INET, formerly The Island ECN [electronic communications network]), charts (provided by Portals.WallStreetTape.com - see page 90), a candlestick course, a chart pattern course, and a general education center.

This education center is sponsored by the Online Trading Academy, and the material is essentially the same as that available from www.TradingAcademy.com (which is also free, but requires registration). This material is significant, especially for newer traders or traders looking to move from one instrument (like stocks) to another (like options), and broadens what DayTradingCoach.com delivers in terms of education and information for traders.

DayTradingCoach.com also provides links to other daytrading resources, including book and product lists, guides for those interested in foreign exchange and/or futures trading, samples of past daytrades, subscription opportunities for newsletters, and a link for Clever's ebook, MasterTrader.

What can those who decide to take Clever up on his offer to become their DayTradingCoach expect from the experience? DayTradingCoach.com offers four distinct levels of service: in-office coaching, full-time Internet coaching, at-your-home coaching, and part-time Internet or phone consultations. Prices for these services range from approximately $700 per day for the most intimate, intensive sessions to $95 per hour for the part-time sessions.

While both "in-office" and "at-home" options require travel (you to him or him to you) so expenses will vary, the website cuts costs by conducting phone consultations over the Internet. In addition, it uses Microsoft NetMeeting to allow traders to see exactly what is happening on Clever's trading screen in real time. According to Clever, his consultations are not necessarily a one-shot deal; those coached by DayTradingCoach.com are free to ask follow-up questions by phone or email.

Will a few hours or a few sessions with Jens Clever turn you into a Market Wizard? I spend a great deal of time looking at the sort of material that is offered to beginning or wannabe traders -- from the tiny-but-reputable individuals and organizations you'll run into in STOCKS & COMMODITIES' classified section to the professional, stylized, educational programs offered by the stock and futures exchanges themselves. And what is clear is that while there are a number of ways to run a railroad, there are a few general outlines that will help divide the successful railroads from the failures.

It is true that the generality of these outlines tends to lend itself to redundancy, but that only narrows the problem for the aspiring trader. In other words, if most knowledgeable traders are saying the same basic things about trading, then "learning" boils down to two issues: Who does the best job of explaining the concepts you need to know, and whose methodologies are most compatible with your sense of self as a trader?

Outside of pointing out a few highlights, a website review can only partially answer the first question and is mute on the second. Fortunately, a little time browsing through the pages of websites like DayTradingCoach.com can go a long way toward fully answering both.

-David Penn, Technical Writer


SUGGESTED READING
Marder, Kevin N., and Marc Dupee [2000]. The Best: Conversations With Top Traders, M. Gordon Publishing Group.


PORTALS.WALLSTREETTAPE.COM

FIGURE 2: PORTALS.WALLSTREETTAPE.COM homepage

Portals.WallStreetTape.com -- as you may have guessed -- is a portal, but something that financial market junkies will benefit from. It is not a site that provides buy/sell signals, nor is it one that particularly focuses on technical analysis. As with many other portals, you can customize the financial content, creating as many as five custom pages. Registration is free and the site is easy to navigate. All you have to do is supply some information about yourself, submit a username and password, and you're ready to go.

SETTING UP

The first step is to select a page layout, for which you have three options. The next step is to select the content that will be displayed in each window. The number of available windows depends on which layout you select. You can select from news, market data, market movers, stock charts, stock data, stock screeners, message boards, and portal community. There are several choices within each of these categories, giving you plenty of options. If you are looking for specific technical analysis-related information, all you'll find is a few basic indicators when you bring up your charts.

For specific stock symbols, you can customize source sites for quotes, charts, and news. A list of the popular sources is provided, but you can also cut and paste the URL of your source choice into one of the provided boxes. You can choose to set this as a frame or popup window. Other choices involve color schemes and the auto-refresh page.

Once you log in, you'll notice several tabs located across the top of the page. If you click on the "100 Hot" tab, it displays the top recommended financial sites. You may just find one among them that you'll really like. You can participate in a number of forums in the community by clicking on the "Forums" tab. This is where you'll find topics ranging from someone publicizing a company providing funds for startups to discussions about support and resistance levels. To reduce the time you may spend looking through all these forums, there is a list of the latest forum postings divided into different categories, as well as a list of the most popular forums.

If you click on "Markets," a chart of the DJIA, along with quotes for the major indexes, is displayed. You'll also see the Nasdaq, NYSE, and AMEX volume leaders listed. You can select to view more details on each of the indexes, and you'll find a list of the volume leaders, percent gainers, and percent losers. As a member of the Portals.WallStreetTape.com community, you can create your own email account, which is a service much like any other web-hosted email.

Does the idea of seeing financial news when you first log on to the Internet each day sound appealing? Try using https://Portals.WallStreetTape.com as your browser's homepage for a while, and see how it works for you.

- Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan, Editor

Originally published in the July 2004 issue of Technical Analysis of STOCKS & COMMODITIES magazine. All rights reserved. © Copyright 2004, Technical Analysis, Inc.
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