Whoosh 26 Module 1

Oct 2008 marks a milestone for me in terms of stretching my goals. I was part of the coaching team for Whoosh 26 - Patterns of Excellence (POE) Module 1.

Thank you for the guidance from the various senior coaches, and of course Pete Tan, our POE Head coach.

If you think coaching in Wealth Academy is the same as coaching in POE, please re-think. POE Coaching is 100,000 times more challenging than WA coaching. First of all, Pete expects all coaches to attend the pre-course coaching workshops (all together there are four sessions). I missed two of them and was a bit embarassed when I showed up on the third session. These sessions started from 7pm to 4am next morning. No kidding. Also, I am new to Pete and was not comfortable in front of him on the first night. But ... I am now used to Pete. He is a very tough guy and at the same time, is willing to share his knowledge with the group.

In terms of the actual POE, we had some 40 participants and for the first time as a coach, I understand the rationale of two key activities - WHY MUST YOU CHANGE? and WHY AM I IMPORTANT? Regrettably, I missed the STEEL ROD on the third night otherwise this coaching experience will be more fulfiling I must say.

Overall, it is a definitely a stretch to me, and I look forward to Mod 2 at the end of this month. I am grateful to all the senior coaches from POE for accepting me as part of the Whoosh coaching family. I learnt a lot, and I trusts that we will share our joy and happiness in future Whoosh batches.

It takes all sorts of traders to make this world

I am still in the process of recovering from the two full days of invovlement in Invest Fair 2008. I was at my Optionetics' booth, with the aim of meeting prospective students (or appropriately put, options traders wannabies). I shared with my teammates in Skilled Builders Group meeting last night on two interesting stories I had in this event.

Story 1: Meeting a student who had previously signed up for the 2-day seminar but eventually gave up

I met with this student who previously signed up for the 2-day intermediate seminar (i.e. the package that includes our Home Study Course and free life-time reattendance). He was one of the members of the 95% Club. In other words, he failed to continue with the program. When I asked him why he failed, the response was as follows:

"I am not as smart as you"
"I am not a lawyer"
"I am not a university gradutate"
"Options is too difficult for me. I don't understand the concept"

Do you think the response is fair? You may be able to understand why there are so many people in the end who decide to give up. The response was far too negative. It is precisely why these people will fail because they constantly put their mind into unresourceful state. One major challenge for professional traders is to avoid negativity (or stay in the resourceful and positive state). That is the mindset of professional traders. So, good luck with this fellow student and hope he will do something he likes.

Story 2: Seniority in trading - does it matter?

This may be a good one laugh after all. One participant in the Fair came to our booth and asked whether our program (Profitsource) has any proprietary indicator. I explained that Profitsource does not have any propreitary information because it is just a software to allow the users to do technical analysis. I then explained to him that I trade forex without even using any technical indicators at all. He was a bit shocked and asked me how many years of experience I had in trading. When I mentioned that I had a few years of experience, he said that the fact that I enjoyed my success for a short period of time does not mean anything. I was a bit surprised to hear that because if this gentleman has been in this business for 25 years, why is he still looking for propreitary indicator? Does it matter if one has been in this business for many years? Does seniority mean success? Go figure out. I was laughing behind his back because I could not believe that a trader with 25 years of trading experience is still searching for the Holy Grail.

More to come!

The $4K Forex Course in Singapore

"The worst fx training ever given by a local company. You trade in order to earn 2 - 3pips per trade! Don't ever join them! You will be cheated 3.5k. I happened"

"I attended XXX and my take on them is they teach retracement. A course in retracement is not worth $400 not to mention $4000!"

"Recently i attended a seminar by XXX too... sounds interesting... but when it comes to the course fees for 2 days... its almost $5k! (round up) Is that too expensive? Or, is there value for it (for anyone who has attended before)."

Many folks in Singapore must be confronted with rising cost of living. Hence, some daring folks are looking around for quick to be rich scheme. There is a variety of schemes available in Singapore - stocks, options, futures, forex etc. You name it, Singapore has it.

Out of curiosity, one of my trading buddies asked me for websites on forex education. It prompted me to one and I saw some folks discuss the forex courses that are conducted in Singapore. In fact, my trading buddies overseas asked me how I got my forex trading education. What I told them was that Singapore ranks Number 2 in the world int terms of the number of forex traders. So, we are spoilt by choice.

I am a firm believer of education before putting money at risk. So, I was one of those who paid a few thousand dollars for these courses. I did not do only one but a few courses over the period of three months. I also plan to do a popular forex course next month, after I postponed it for three times because of my overseas assignments in options teaching. I also have plan to do an advanced forex course in the first half of 2009.

So, does it work for me after paying a few thousand dollars on forex education? The real answer is that these courses work. Why are they not working for some people? To be frank, I believe it is people that make these courses not work. Why? Let me ask your these questions. Why do you trade? If your answer is "money", then please run. Don't walk away. As my mentor, Tom Gentile, said, money is the result of successful traders and should never be a goal.

Money itself does not motivate us to do something. It's the emotion we attach to the money that drives us. Something I learnt in Patterns of Excellence @ AKLTG. So, if you haven't figured out the answer to "why trade?, perhaps you should not spend that kind of money to get education. You are not even ready to start a trading business.

As far as I am concerned, that course which a lot of folks have negative feedback works for me extremely well. To be frank, Dr. Lim has given me a lot of inspiration simply because he is a believer of looking at the price chart without using any technical indicators. When I was asked by others how I trade forex, my response is I don't use any technical indicators at all. One guy questioned me and sought confirmation. I re-confirmed that I don't even use an indicator such as moving average. How amazing it is to trade forex this way.

The FAST2 is a beginner strategy. It laid down the important concept of having a Profit Target and a Stop Loss in forex. Having a PT and a SL in forex is a must because of the volatility of the forex market, especially during the European and US trading hours. However, newbies tend to focus on the outcome of a trade and not the process of practising to make the skill perfect. Worst still, some newbies can't wait to recoup their course fees and start trading with real money. Guess what will happen? Losing money? Most likely. It is not the strategy that does not work. Newbies simply do not have the requisite skill set yet to trade live. That's the whole point.

Have you ever wondered trading FAST2 in certain hours only? Have you ever wondered not to trade FAST 2 in certain time? Have you done a basic fundamental analysis of what is going on in the global economy? Have you studied the inter-relationship between the stock market, bond market, commodity market and the currency market? So, if you have no clue what I am asking above, you are not ready yet. The above questions are important as far as FAST2's performance is concerned.

A lot of folks do not discuss FX104, which is a daily trading system given by Dr. Lim in the supplementary course which costs us only $20. Yes, I did FX104 under the old regime. FX102, 103 and 104 are blended in a one-day course already but it is still $20. It's amazing how FX104 performed since I started trading it on 28 May 2008. In my case, I started paper trading this system for two months before I go live. I proved to myself that the system can generate consistent paper money for two months (which was 1,400 pips out of 14 trades) before I put the system on live. So far, in my real account for FX104, I have done 4 trades already , and profited around 200 pips. As I am writing this post, a FX104 short trade is in the process and it is already broken even.

So, you may ask why FAST2 and FX104 work for me but there are so many folks who complain about them. Like I said, before you go trade anything, you must do your due diligence. Having a trader's attitude and approach trading as a business.

In my recent Seven Essential Credentials of Successful Traders series written for Optionetics, I said that all successful traders have the following things in common:

1. A Strong Self-Belief that trading is a viable business
2. Have good traders habits
3. Have S.M.A.R.T Goals
4. Have a Master Plan for this trading business
5. Have Winning Strategies
6. Willing to "Kaizen" - continous improvement
7. Know how to protect this business

So, aspriing traders - have you got what it takes to be a trader by having all the above credentials? If not, you are not in the 5% Club yet I must say. You still need to work hard in order to leave the 95% Club.

Take care!