Page 69 - THE MARKET WHISPERER

THE MARKET WHISPERER 67

order to join the trading room? In the distant past, trading rooms were
crowded physical places: noisy, filled with the smoke of umpteen cigars and
cigarettes. Over time, they became crowded computer rooms, just as noisy
and just as smoke-filled. Now they exist on the Internet, where you can join
a large group of traders in the comfort of your own home environment.
You gain all the advantages of a real time trading room without the smoke
and the noise. Actually, several years ago when I described the wonders
of the Internet trading room to a group of traders, one turned to me and
expressed his interest in joining, provided I could promise him “they don’t
smoke there!”

And what’s the role of the novice trader in the online trader room?
Very simple: to listen, learn, and copy the pros as much as possible. Clear
and easy. The novice will encounter experienced traders, listen to their
discussions as they trade, learn from their actions, and receive real time
support as needed. Even experienced pros have trouble trading without a
trading room. About half of the actions I take on any given day derive from
ideas expressed by other traders in the room. Even if they’re relatively new
traders, they can still raise some effective ideas.

SMART The online trading room is a chat room that links other
MONEY stock traders’ homes. In the online trading room, you will
listen, learn, and execute transactions together with the
pros.

Trading rooms also have their disadvantages. The diversity of trading

methods and the professional jargon that dominates the discussions can

set a novice’s head spinning. When you join the trading room, you will first

need to learn that jargon, and only then try to focus on the methods best
suited to you. Over time, you should be able to adopt the most appropriate
method and stick with it. If you try to imitate too many methods as used
by various analysts, you’ll get nowhere fast. Bottom line, you’ll need to
find the niche that matches your nature, focus on it, and ignore the “white

noise”of traders and analysts that you feel are not a good match.

That’s also exactly how you should relate to the diverse information

you’ll find in this book. If you try to utilize it all simultaneously, you’ll
end up using none of it. Focusing is an important trait. Expanding your
knowledge can be done over the long term as you accumulate experience

and confidence. Highlight that sentence and come back to it in a year’s

time. Right now, it means little. In a year, you’ll understand.