About a year ago, my friend Tom and I sat down and talked about a new venture. At the time, I was very focused on creating a P&L tracker/journal piece of software that could help people understand what was going on in their trading. As Tom was building that piece of software, our idea for the company was evolving… and we ended up with something much bigger and much cooler than I originally had in mind.
I have always loved to teach. I’ve done work on myself to learn how to teach well, and one of the most satisfying experiences is taking someone from the point where they are struggling to where that person sees some significant success. To be perfectly (and perhaps too openly) honest, I’ve always been afraid of being associated with the trading education business because of all the scams and con artists in the business. Even the semi-reputable voices have a marketing approach that I find crass–the “bro” marketing featuring rented cars and rented models in swimming pools, and promises of making thousands of percent returns on your small trading accounts. It might be effective marketing, but it does not reflect the reality of financial markets as I know it.
The truth is, you can change your life through trading and investing. You can realize your dreams, dream bigger dreams, and make those biggest dreams a reality–this is all true, but before you can change your life, you have to change the way you think and the way you handle risk. It’s not just about learning some patterns or trading techniques–it’s about becoming a trader and that’s a long and difficult path.
As we thought through the opportunities and potential pitfalls with this new company, a few points came up repeatedly: we wanted to build something much deeper and better than most of the trading education sites. Given my background and experience–in financial markets, in other high-performance fields, and as a teacher and writer–I think we can build something here that will stand head and shoulders above the crowd. We also wanted to avoid all of the hype and false promises that fill this “industry”. Of course trading isn’t a get rich quick scheme, of course you probably can’t turn your 1,000 into 1,000,000 this year, of course you can’t learn to trade with just a few candlestick patterns–but people will charge you $2,000 just to sell you hope. We won’t do that. Everything we do and teach, we will do it while maintaining the highest standards across the board, and we will do it better than anyone else.
Many of you have been through my free trading course, and I’m excited to announce the re-launch of that course. In the four years since I first put it up, I’ve learned a lot. Feedback from thousands of people and my own experience has helped me to understand best practices in online education. (Simply put, smaller bites and less pseudo-academic rambling on my part…) Over the next few months, I’ll be completely re-doing the course. Most of the old material will be there, there will be some completely new sections (I just finished a pretty in-depth section on the interfaces between trading ranges and trends, something that was missing from the old course), and the psychology will be spun out into its own mini course.
I am making a commitment to have even more free material available, but there will also be paid membership tiers on the new site, eventually. One of the mistakes I made with the old course was making everything free. It was a labor of love and a fun hobby, but I wasn’t able to maintain the production schedule or the community forum for an unpaid project. MarketLifeTrading.com will give me the base from which to support a message board, community forum, and an even larger set of free resources for the trading community.
Let me share a few things that I’m very excited about, and some innovations that you will see on the site in the next few months:
- Material for different styles and timeframes of trading. Specifically, I will create the options course I have always wanted to create, covering both directional and non-directional trading. Too many options traders only learn one style and don’t fully understand the risks they are taking on. We’re gonna fix that…
- Forex, stocks, investing, swing trading, short-term trading, discretionary, systematic…
- Special focus on meditation, psychology, health, and lifestyle design
- I’ll also be partnering with some fantastic people to bring new silo areas to MarketLifeTrading.com. You will find a college-level course on fundamental valuation and investing created by a top Wall Street Analyst. You’ll also soon be able to take an in-depth course on systematic trading and development created by a guy who has traded professionally for many years and who has written the single best piece of backtesting software I’ve seen in its class. We’re talking to some other potential partners too, including one of the people who was instrumental in my own development as a trader… exciting stuff!
- We will continue to build out the analytical tools. For now, check on the intraday and end of day stock stats screens (here). These are, very simply, the best screening tools I’ve ever seen, the end result of decades of my own work and analysis, and the best way I know to find opportunities in the US stock market.
- Next week, we will start adding some regular market analysis and updates that will help you put this information to best use.
We welcome your feedback and ideas as we grow. I’m learning a lot; I know we will make mistakes, but I’m also confident in our vision and direction.
One other note: we are looking for someone who has knowledge and experience in marketing this type of site. If that’s you, or if you know of someone, drop me an email through the contact form on this blog.
Thank you all for your support and interest in my work. Come; grow, and learn with us!
