Finding community and a mentor in Baltimore or DC

Beginner Questions
1

Hello Fellow Traders,
I got turned onto forex trading back in February and have been putting in 30-40 hours a week studying, trading in 1k lots, and trying to wrap my arms around the related-market side of things, and how I can best use live data from other instruments (e.g. dollar and yen indices, the VIX, Oil and gold, bond yields, etc.) to give me perspective as I trade currency pairs. It has at times been incredibly tedious, but at the same time, fascinating, so I’m not too concerned about burnout, because the many “aha” moments keep me going. Also, I’ve gotten to the point where I am mostly breaking even between wins and losses, so I am hopeful that with a bit more time and practice reading the charts, the scales will begin to tip more in the direction of wins.

I would love to connect with other traders locally with whom I could discuss what we are learning, what’s working, what isn’t, and just commiserate together. I don’t think my non-trading friends want to hear much more about my trading than I’ve already told them!

Also, it would be so amazing to find a mentor. Even if there were only an opportunity to talk live once a month…what an incredible help that would be to get direction with some of the many complicated questions that come up in this learning process. In my other career as a professional musician of 20 years, I still will consult with more seasoned professionals and pay them a fee to hear me play and give valued feedback, so how much more for something at which I am a total novice??

Does anybody have suggestions on connecting with the local trading community? I live on the southwest side of Baltimore, by the way, and am thus not far from DC.
Thanks so much for your thoughts!
Michael

3

Most professionals you meet will typically come from 1 of 2 camps:

  1. They worked on the floor of an exchange somewhere (CHI, NYC or Europe) and had to “down-size” due to pit trading evaporation. They now trade their own funds.
  2. Never had any formal training and figured it out on their own.

Not to discourage you at all, but you need to dedicate a very large chunk of your life (free time, money, emotions) for years to even take a step in the direction of belonging to the second camp.

What worked for me- exposing myself to as much as possible and eventually putting it all together (FX, Equities, Futures, Options). You’ll need to figure out what speaks to you as an individual.

Here’s the key to survival: Don’t over-leverage yourself.

4

How did your search go?