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Trading The Early Years

Trading in the early years is really a big subject; I decided to become a trader to improve my lifestyle for my family and myself.

So how did I start, well I read a couple of books, then I did some video lessons that were helpful but what really made the breakthrough and really made trading as a profession and made a career possible was finding the On Line Trading Academy that is a school that teaches you to trade.

They take you along for a free educational seminar for the day, which is really a selling seminar they give you a taste of the opportunity and then they look to sign you up. I attended the seminar with my wife and honestly it was pretty easy decision.

The class structure is as follows:

First of all you attend the Pro Trader I Class which is a week full-time, 8.00am to 6.00pm in the class room and they start to educate you, the really cool thing is that every person has their own trading system and you get to actually trade live with real money, it really is a great foundation but really leaves you like a weak baby in the trading world.

You go off and practice, most people set up a trade account and start to learn with paper money it really quite exciting.

You then attend Pro Trader II for another week in the classroom and build your knowledge from there.

Once you have attended the Pro Trader Classes you then get into detail on a range or course where they go into detail about different asset classes, futures, currency, options, long-term investing, technical analysis, building your trade plan etc., there are lots of classes.

You can take classes as many times as you want and there are great instructors and lots of hands on experience and real sense of community.

When you have completed each class you can sign up for an extended learning tack or XLT where you can build on your learning in a live trading class on-line that runs 3 to 4 times a week for about 2 hours.

Let me be honest, I do not think I would have made it to being a professional trader without the On Line Trading Academy and I still attend about 10 hours of class a week and I am still learning and improving as a trader.

So here is the important point about this, over you education period you will need to invest at least $50,000 plus over around 12-18 months in your education. This may sound a lot but remember you are getting a whole new profession and career.

I am sure there are other trading schools but my only experience was to find the On line trading academy and it really worked well for my, the key point is that you need to find a good way to get a great education and ongoing support to become a trader.

Why I became an options Trader

Well this was the first course that was available to meet; futures and currency were all booked up.

So kind of by accident I started with options which is without doubt the hardest asset class, this is just not buying calls or puts to follow and up-trend or down trend but the whole understand of the Greeks, how to leverage volatility and time to make for efficient trades in a sideways market or a market that is not moving strongly, it starts off with vertical spreads and then moves to more complex multiple spread know as iron condors or butterfly’s. But the critical point about options is that they do not take away to need to be able to read price charts, supply and demand as it does not really matter how complex or clever your option is, if you get the direction of the asset wrong you will still likely lose money.

I would not recommend options as a starting point for anybody and it is the only course I had to take three times to really start to understand it and thanks for the great and patient instructors at the on-line trading academy; but it has been a great skill and tool to help me with my trading. A big part of what I trade on a regular basis, that is every week, are known as naked puts that can deliver income in a bear market and allow you to buy assets in a low risk zone in a bull market. There is no doubt this is a great skill for any trader to have and I would say, every month, my option trades with trend drive more than 50% of my profits.