Trader Meetups (Part 18)

As discussed in the last two posts, the road to trading success is very long and chock-full of laborious work.  Despite what Wall Street and the multitude of trader service entities would have you believe, no shortcut exists to consistent profits over time.

Rather than “breaking my back” to learn what I need to know, human greed urges me to take the easy road.  This is the road targeted by trader service marketing campaigns (e.g. mentorships, trader education programs, trader newsletters, trader psychological services, meetups with commercial organizers, etc.).  All of it is designed to use human greed as a manipulative tool to take my eyes off the difficult road just long enough to give my credit card number or write a check for the dream scenario.

I can only encourage you to keep “time-tested wisdom” in mind:

“Caveat emptor” = “Let the buyer beware”

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch”

“If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

I have found one potential benefit to trader meetups.  I weighed potential pros and cons to one particular networking meetup in part 7 and decided the chance of being useful for me was slim to none.  In general, although I believe most trader meetups organized by those with commercial interests will be loaded with beginners and not useful to me, I may occasionally find a wayward advanced trader like myself venturing out from his/her trading cave in an effort to meet like-minded souls.  This is a person with whom I could work.

Whether reality or fantasy, one can always hope.