An Opportunity for Education and Training

As I mentioned in today's update, I normally don't get involved in seminar events for traders. The majority rely on vendor revenues and compensate speakers by offering promotional time/space. Consequently, many if not most of the presentations amount to infomercials and material rehashed from the speaker's articles or books.

To the credit of the education folks at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange--and their partners at the Chicago Board of Trade and New York Mercantile Exchange--they are sponsoring a different kind of training event. The Futures Trading Summit, to be held in Las Vegas from November 15-16, will feature speakers who either have worked with professional traders or who actually are professional traders. The goal of the Summit is to make professional trading methods and tools available to sophisticated, serious retail traders.

Among the speakers will be Yra Harris (a global macro trader featured in the book "Inside the House of Money"); Jim Dalton (expert on Market Profile and author of "Mind Over Markets"); and experienced author/educator/option trader Sheldon Natenberg. Note that many different markets and trading approaches will be covered. An interesting component of the two-day event is that registrants will have the opportunity to practice trade the markets and receive a print-out of the Trader DNA performance reports used by many professional traders. In my presentation, I'll then show traders how to utilize this (and other) information to improve trading performance--including an extension of the info I share in my morning updates.

My understanding is that the event will be simulcast over the Web for traders who cannot attend in person. Those traders will also be able to obtain the performance reports and feedback. One nice thing for those who can attend is that the Trading Expo event in Las Vegas will be held right afterward. For those wanting to shop the vendors and attend that event, this would be an opportunity to do Las Vegas and participate in a range of educational events.

I applaud the exchanges for reaching out to the trading public to offer a high-quality educational event. They did not ask me to write this; nor am I compensated for marketing the event. Rather, I have an interest in bringing to serious individual traders the tools and knowledge that are utilized by professional trading firms. For those who can attend the event, I will make myself available after the formal programming ends on the 15th to answer any questions, address any issues, and help traders out in any way I can.

And if you can't make it to Las Vegas, I'll be participating in a panel presentation for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in early November. Keep an eye on the Trading Psychology Weblog for details.