One Last Misadventure

My last misadventure was not of the Meetup variety but rather a Yahoo! Group I started in 2015.

This was an online group called “AmiBroker User’s List.” I was able to find six people who were interested in joining my online group to be focused on learning and using AmiBroker. Locally, I met a seventh who indicated interest in learning to invest directionally with options. I told him about AmiBroker, he said he was interested, and he joined the group in March 2015. I followed up after two months because I didn’t hear from him or anyone else in the group. He said he was studying options a little, but work had gotten busy to the tune of 60-80 hours/week.

Two weeks later, I sent the seventh this message:

     > That group is a bust. I’m about to close it down. I don’t
     > blame you but rather everyone in general (including
     > myself). Bottom line: we’re just not interested enough
     > in it to make things happen.
     >
     > For me, I have my bread and butter trading and the
     > trading I’m trying to learn. Obviously I’m not excited
     > enough about this other trading interest (system
     > development) to make it work because I can’t even
     > put in 15 minutes on a consistent basis to learn the
     > software. That’s been my problem for a long time.
     >
     > In my opinion, trading is hard work. It’s not something
     > that’s intuitive and it’s not something anybody is going
     > to learn by osmosis. Unless there is continued,
     > sustained effort, it’s never going to happen. I’ve gone
     > to a lot of trading group meetings and talked with lots
     > of traders and heard many more. People work at it
     > when it’s convenient and then when things turn sour
     > they turn their backs and walk away. Maybe they return
     > at a later time. I think this feeds directly into how
     > the markets work on a macro level. It will never lead
     > to successful, long-term traders, though, if such
     > a thing is even possible.

Clearly I was frustrated in general and especially frustrated with myself. I have always had a difficult time forcing myself to learn coding. I wish I knew why.

Despite the frustration, I do think my comments on sustained, long-term effort are applicable to aspiring traders.