Trader Meetups (Part 9)

In the last post, I mentioned that beginners would not be appropriate for the real trading group.  I want to spent a bit more time today talking about beginners.

Goals for the real trading group include sharing ideas with each other, working together to develop actionable trading plans, and holding members accountable for their trading.  By definition, beginners have few/no ideas available to share.  Beginners do not have actionable trading plans nor may they even know what one is or why it needs to exist.  Beginners are not ready for live trading with real money.  They have yet to do the laborious work previously described.

For all these reasons, beginners have little to offer the real trading group.

In my opinion, the beginner looking to learn is welcomed with open arms by meetup group organizers with commercial interests.  These organizers care most about finding new customers:  the greatest sales potential lies in someone who knows the least.  By focusing on details of making money without mentioning aspects of risk management or potential loss, a trading seminar can be impressive.  If done under the guise of an educational presentation on option basics, the impact may be nothing short of breathtaking.

Unfortunately, this is nowhere near the reality of option trading and is precisely why I feel trader meetups organized by those with commercial interests are optionScam.com.  Conflict of interest cannot be ruled out.

Aside from the misleading presentation, I believe invocation of the “eat, drink, and be merry” atmosphere is another leading sales tactic.  Get people to celebrate before any hard work has been done.  Who wants to do hard work?  Beginners don’t realize hard work is a prerequisite to consistent income.  Beginners want something easy like a newsletter or e-mail service that tells them what to trade.  This is not the road to consistent profits and those who fall prey to such claims will discover themselves optionScammed.com sooner or later.