Part One: Exploring Trade Rooms
Exploring Trade Rooms and How They May Benefit Your Trading
Has your trading experience left you feeling alone and at the mercy of the markets? Ever considered the benefits of bouncing ideas off of other traders in the same boat, or perhaps even giving your input to help a fellow trader? Perhaps it is time that you started taking a serious look at using a professional trading room or an online trading group. To some, this may be a new area of interest; to others, it may bring up red flags from the past. Regardless, I’m a firm believer that the right trade room can provide real value to almost any trader, no matter their experience or what the intentions are.
In this blog series, I hope to shed light on the advantages of using trade rooms, their functions and why I think having access to a trade room could benefit you as a trader. I think it’s all about finding a group of like-minded traders that you can connect with, bounce ideas with, and create a community of support so you are not alone in the world of trading.
The Human Element
Human beings are very social creatures. We are hardwired to communicate and be heard by others. This is especially true in high stress situations, such as trading. Before everything became electronic, traders would work day in and day out in the pits with other traders. This created a very unique and close-knit community. This daily interaction gave birth to strong relationships between traders and significantly influenced how they traded and approached the markets every day. Even though they were technically trading against each other, it was more of the individual trader versus the whole market mentality. It certainly didn’t stop traders from sharing ideas and/or seeing habits and patterns of the market together. Everyone seemed to have an opinion they considered unique, and most were happy to talk about it. It’s like the famous line by Matt Damon in the movie “Rounders” discussing professional poker players, “We’re not playing together. But then again, we’re not playing against each other either. It’s like the Nature Channel. You don’t see piranhas eating each other, do you?”
What Are Trade Rooms?
The introduction and dominance of electronic trading has changed the way this game is played. Now traders are typically glued to a screen and in their own narrow superficial world – the daily interaction with other traders and the corresponding human element is lost. It is my opinion, through the use of trade rooms, that we can bring the human element back into trading. Like minded traders, who are looking to share ideas and strategies, can create a sense of community together. In turn, this creates mutually beneficial relationships that can prove advantageous when trading against the market. This is achieved because the room is an online meeting place that is being run by a moderator where you can view their chart setups, strategy signals and color on market moves and conditions. Most rooms have a chat feature that allows traders to connect with one another and discuss setups, ask questions and have a human connection to other traders around the world who are trading the same market in real-time.
There are many types of trade rooms that all focus on different strategies, markets or education, but at the end of the day, I believe they are all striving towards the common goal of bringing people together to hopefully make everyone a better trader. Just as traders choose different markets or brokerage options, there are also different trade rooms for different traders. An educational trade room might make sense if you are just getting started. If you have a theory about a specific sector, perhaps a strategy focused trade room is for you. Through my experience, I feel that trade rooms can play a strong role in the growth and mindset of both the novice trader and the experienced professional trader alike. If a room gives a trader one extra input that allowed the trader to make or avoid a trade, then at the end of the day it was a success.
Regardless of goals or experience level, with any trading room all you need is a functioning computer. All trading rooms will have some type of support structure in place to make sure you can setup to view the room and follow along. The online meeting place may differ from trade room to trade room, but they are all essentially the same – an area where you see the moderator’s screen, and a chat entry box where you can ask questions and/or chat with other members. The biggest requirement is the hardest to produce – finding the time to leverage this resource.
Next time we will look at the different kinds of trade rooms and who they can benefit most.
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