Hi gentlemen,
I’ve always wondered if it was really possible to find some good material on trading books or even on the forums.
If someone is a good cooker, he can of course write a book on cooking to win some money.
And it is the same for a lot of things.
But not in the financial field.
Because if someone is good at making money, why would he write a book ?
Why would he share his wisdom for free on a board ?
Please enlight me.
I guess the two main reasons are:
1.) More money … authors receive royalties. And most probably they won’t reveal [B]all[/B] their methods and systems, keeping the most profitable ones to themselves for further use.
2.) Vanity … being a celebrity on grounds of being able to make vast amounts of money in a field that 90% or more of the population know nothing about is probably pretty cool. Makes you feel special. 
Everybody likes to be applauded and respected for her/his exploits.
For a small minority there might be a third reason: the desire to show people that it is indeed possible to make a good living from (or even to become rich by) trading … so that others may profit from her/his acquired knowledge.
Some people genuinely like and enjoy teaching; seeing other people make progress and leading them to success gives them satisfaction … look at ICT.
Cheers,
O.
In addition to Oliver’s 2 excellent points:
3.) Seminars… A successful author will either run seminars explaining what they wrote in their book, or be invited to speak at such events
So where do I fit in here??? LOL!!!
Regards,
Dale.
Yes, true.
Seminars are always good for some extra cash (it’s amazing what a ‘guru’ is being paid for a few hours of spouting facts everybody knows anyway) and some extra fame, hehe.
O.
lol … as soon as you’ve made your first 20 or 50 million bucks, we’ll fit you in there.
As Oliver1968’s said an author may not reveal all profitable methods but can share some techniques in his books. If his books help traders and they recommends it then he will get more sale means more money and name as well. He can be invited in forex Webinars, seminars, TV programs etc. I think these are some advantages to write a book and including profitable methods.
Once you have the fortune, you go for the fame. :59:
But I’ve already got the fame so where’s the fortune???
That’s why I probably deleted your L2 post Oliver1968. You know: when you’re a celebrity trader you get loads of spam mail and stuff (not to mention DUPLICATE INSTANT EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS of IMPORTANT posts made by your friends)!!! LOL!!!
Regards,
Dale.
This I don’t agree with (and not directed at you Haley12 or Oliver1968 or anybody else) i.e. this business of professional traders not giving away all of their ‘secrets’. It’s the professional traders that HAVE ‘secrets’ (that of course will only be revealed to you IF YOU PAY THEM) that are the lousy traders and need the money. I don’t think anyone here has any idea how much money it takes to move the S&P by one point. And that’s JUST the S&P i.e. not this HUGE disjointed Spot FOREX Market. As a matter of fact: there’s an article on this VERY topic in this month’s issue of FuturesMag (which I’m going to upload to my forums now anyway so I’ll post a link here with details for those interested in what I’m saying). The point is: Goldman Sachs (for example) WILL have ‘secrets’. Of course they will. Because they CAN ACTUALLY move markets. But individual traders like all of us??? Sorry. And by ‘us’ I INCLUDE the likes of Larry Williams, John F. Carter, Bill Williams, Dale Paterson etc. LOL!!! You get the picture.
And speaking of Larry Williams: he addresses this very issue very clearly in one of his books (why he writes books and holds seminars etc.). He calls it ‘Christmas Money’ if memory serves me correctly. I’ll try to find the text in the particular book if you like and post it here when I have some time. But basically: the money he makes ‘on the side’ means that he doesn’t have to touch the money in his trading account and can just keep building it up and up. If memory serves me correctly he even goes so far as to say that trading, no matter how proficient your are, is by no means a ‘sure thing’. I’d say Jesse Livemore, for example, is DEAD proof of that.
Anybody that tells you they’ve got a ‘trading secret’ cannot trade their way out of a paper bag. That’s my opinion.
Regards,
Dale.
Trading is a risk business. Writing books is a chance business. You can lose money by trading, but not by writing. So it’s a little like diversification.
There are secrets, tho. It depends on the people and their beliefs. Take a simple example: You walk to the local supermarket and see a bargain price of 20 cents per 2 litre coke bottle. What will you do? Some may tell it their friends and they will also join the line and buy the bottles. Some may keep it as secret and try to buy it all one after another. They fear if they tell it that all the friends buy the bottles and price will go up. Which is completely sound. Plus which will happen anyways, because if you have a bunch of hundred people, some don’t think that far and tell it to their friends, at least to brag.
What happens in the end? This bargain shopping will come to an end one way or another. The early birds get the best price and the late comers will find no bottles anymore. Now if that with the bargain events happens regularly some may write books about it or tell it at the web. Demand rises and what happens if demand rises? Price goes up! What was a former great deal becomes a boring one.
So, that was an example, but it is the same imo in the trading business. The best thing you can do to make money is to hide it if you find something special. Don’t think it will be hidden for eternity, tho. Some may find the same thing and talk or write about it. Plus if somebody already got rich and his methods lose power he might become interested in bragging, too, and even more money if he comes up with his trading “secrets” in a book.
Or take another example: You find a new invention. For instance a rectangle wheel for cars. If you are the first inventor, you may try to get a patent. Or/and to keep it secret. So, when will the time start to have books written about rectangle wheels? If there is already a patent or if everybody drives with rectangle wheels! Which manufacturer earned probably the most money? Those who manufactured rectangle wheels the first time! The late comers may still make money with it, but it get’s harder.
Bottom line: Markets are everywhere. There is even a market for trading strategies. What will we find in those market? A lot of intermediate strategies, a lot of losers and a very few brilliant strategies which are typically either expensive or not revealed til they lose their edge!
The best books are imo not those who give you a detailed strat, but those where you can learn to assemble your own strategies! I’ve read hundreds of books and what I can say 95% of all books don’t even reveal why a strat should work. If I read a book and they tell something about a strat and can’t explain why it works, why would I trade such a black box with old charts and some good looking trades of the past? In hindsight it’s easy, isn’t it?
Same thing goes for robots. Why would I buy a black box everybody can buy? If it’s good, everybody trades with it til the edge is no edge anymore. While most anyways have no edge from the beginning. Ridiculous how many give you a pay back warranty for some days, lol. If a bot trades for peanut profits of a few pips just to lose it in a big loss after some months you can bet there is not even an edge! This is just bait and switch. It doesn’t even need trading knowledge to create a bot which has hundreds of winners one after another in some months to make it looking good for the buyer, just to lose it all in a few big losers afterwards!
So, take it all with a grain of salt what is written or produced in this business! 
Hello Mr. (Scarce) Gecko.
Not sure how much of your post I agree with or not (or even if we’re in agreement in general or not).
Anyway and as I promised earlier on this thread here is a link to download the February 2012 issue of FuturesMag (the purpose of which is to demonstrate just how much it takes to move a market as SMALL as the S&P Futures let alone this ‘behemoth’ of a Spot FOREX Market):
Technical Trading Systems at TechTraderCentral - Home
Read the article entitled ‘Trading off the prior bar’ on page 28 and you’ll see what I mean. No (little???) retail trader’s ‘secret’ is going to change how a market moves (especially not a market as HUGE as the Spot FOREX Market). The only time such revealing such ‘secret’ COULD have a detrimental affect on the trader with the ‘secret’ is if they’ve discovered some, as yet unknown, ‘flaw’ in the workings of the markets which can be taken advantage of (and believe me it won’t be long before such ‘flaw’ is eliminated).
The download link is in the Downloads Forum in the ‘E-books for Trading Systems’ thread and is called ‘FuturesMag - February 2012’.
Regards.
Dale.
Hi Dale. My opinion is based on logic. I gave some examples, also of other parts in life. So, if you disagree, you disagree with logic and general life observations. You can for sure do that, but what’s the reason to ignore such logic?
We both know markets are fractal in nature. Fractal is where a small change can have big impacts. So it is with even a retail trader. Sure, the crowd of retail traders with tiny accounts lose. So they don’t have a big impact on anything, beside of giving their money to the banks.
Well, then let’s assume we have a retail trader who starts like Soros. He has a winning system. At first his trades might be so small that it has no effect. But if his leverage grows on compounding, revealing his system and attracting followers, there will the time come when those trades will have an impact. We are not talking here about a hundred pips, do we? You and I know very well that even a pip can make the difference between a losing and a winning trade! If it’s always that pip what was missed, that can make a winning system becoming a loser. Just because the target was missed or the stop was hit by a pip different than the system works with.
That’s the reason why professional traderes don’t reveal all of their secrets. They would lose and the followers would lose as well. So, why revealing it? Even the turtles signed an agreement to keep the system confidential, btw. Frankly, we are talking about big money, do we? To have a winning system is like the key to Fort Knox. It’s just a matter of time til the leverage makes the trades a real factor with impacts in the market.
Well, I am talking about day trading here. The longer the trades run, the less the impact would probably be. Makes sense?