As your Consultant:
They should provide their years of experience to be at your service, to help you with the many aspects of trading for success.
They should be like a personal trainer, coach, mentor, market strategist, overseer, and advisor, or limited to what is exactly needed by the client.
You pay for a golf pro to help you with aspects of that game, get a second opinion from a doctor, get advice for your taxes and so on?.. Why would you not want the same respect for your brokerage accounts?
You would be wise to pay for an unbiased opinion from a person with the knowledge, wisdom, and has the experience, to look over your shoulder or your brokers, to tell you what pitfalls that they might see. They should give you a better strategy if and when they can improve your risk and reward.
As your Market Strategist:
They should provide technical analysis to trade futures or options in any time frame.
They should believe their strategies can improve what you are doing and with less risk. They should take pride in that belief. It comes from working with clients who not only have had less than five years trading, but from clients who have traded more than twenty years. They should believe they have helped almost all who have asked for their strategies and guidance.
They should provide two strategies, one aggressive and one not, based on your thoughts, ideas, and time frame. Using options, they should be able to replicate whatever you are thinking into a strategy that will make you money if right and limit your losses if wrong.
They should provide strategies with a short term time frame with a known risk that could be worthless in one week if wrong or unlimited profits in the same time frame if right. I call this a Gamma trade.
They should also be able to provide medium to long term strategies that have a known total risk, eliminating some of the high cost of TIME DECAY that is inherent in owning option premium.
Offer strategies that act like futures contracts, but with less risk.
Long term trades, swing, or day trades can be provided using futures or options on futures.
They should provide answers to your questions on subjects such as but not limited to, futures markets, market strategies, money management, risk and reward, odds or probabilities on your trade ideas in real market time. Evaluate your mindset, discipline, and trading approach to help you understand and control your emotions when trading.
They should help you with charting, day trading, or give you their opinion when asked.
Many clients are professional people who do not always have time to look over their accounts the way they would like to if they had the time. Your consultant should be your sentinel.
Howard Tyllas Copyrighted June 10, 2007 |
