|
|
| |
|
 Q: Who's behind Kane
Trading?
Q: What's different about Kane
Trading?
Q: I notice you write frequently about
different 'myths'. How come you
discuss myths so much?
Q:
What can you tell me about your writing style? I've seen you mention
your writing
style and presentation in a few places, and I wonder why
you bring it
up.
Q: I've heard a little bit about your
philosophy on the critical elements of
a trade. Do you have details
available?
Q: Why don't you make market calls on
your website?
Q: Who's behind
Kane Trading?
A: Kane Trading is run by Jim Kane. I develop the products
and write all the commentary. Many times, though, you'll see references on the
site to 'we'. That is because it takes the effort of many people to develop and
run a website, and to run a business. Kane Trading 'contracts out' for many of
these services. To give credit to the many who have contributed to this effort,
the reference to 'we' is frequently used on the site. For more information on
Jim Kane, see the section on 'About Kane
Trading'.
Q: What's different about Kane
Trading?
A: There's a lot different about Kane Trading and the Kane
Trading philosophy. I'm not saying everything I present will be unique, or that
no other sites share some of the same philosophies. What I am saying is that
the Kane Trading site and products focus on real world trading difficulties,
not on hype. I present material that I hope will help traders improve their
trading skills, as opposed to hyping up trading as a make a million-a-minute
business that's easy to 'master', if you only buy my products.
I contend that
trading is an extremely difficult business that few will succeed at, and those
that do will work very hard at it. I present trading as anything but exciting
or glamorous. It's hard work and can be a real grind. But, and here's the
critical part, if you've already decided, before you ever checked out Kane
Trading, that you want to take a shot at this business, that you want to do the
work, I will do my best to offer products to help you.
I think product sellers who promise
big dreams (I've seen them referred to as 'dream merchants') sell many more
products that I ever will. My audience will be small and select. The truth is,
very few people want to do the work. I used to be a teacher, and the most
common comment I got, far more common than any other remark, was 'I don't want
to know how to do it, just tell me what to write down.' If you tell people it's
a long, hard road with lots of work ahead and a fairly small chance for
success, you'll scare away just about everybody.
On the other hand, if you promise
riches for no effort and people will line up and give you ridiculous amounts of
money for the 'secret'. Since, in my humble opinion, there are no true
'something for nothing' game plans (at least no legal ones), it's all false
hope. My experience is that the majority of people would rather pay big money
for hope than pay small money for help on how to do their own work and put in
the effort it takes. Personally, I could not feel good about myself if I sold
products that I didn't believe in the merits of.
I choose to sell a lot less product
for a lot less money, but have belief they have value. When I read a book, my
hope is to get one good piece of information out of the book. One thing to help
improve my game plan, one more piece of the puzzle. If I get that, I will feel
satisfied in having bought the book. I don't expect to read a 'secret' and then
make a zillion dollars overnight using it. To me, being happy with one good
helpful hint, that reflects reality.
It is to those who understand exactly what
I'm saying here that I have created this site and developed my products. I
didn't start out saying 'What can I do to maximize the money I can make with my
products?' It was more like 'I'm going to develop products that teach the
things that saved me time and effort in my own education. Things I wish I could
have found when I was starting out. Then I'll sell them for what I feel is a
fair price and hopefully make a few dollars doing it.' That sums up the gist of
the Kane Trading philosophy.
Q: I notice you write
frequently about different 'myths'. How come you discuss
myths so
much?
A: In my own trading education I've encountered a
lot of information. I've found that a large part of this material just didn't
hold water in my own real-world trading. Much of the material appeared to be
written by people who didn't seem to have practical trading experience. But I
didn't know this until I, personally, developed the experience to see that
these things were 'myths' that were being continuously and repeatedly
propagated.
Since my focus on this website is to try and save developing
traders some educational time in their evolutions as traders, I feel that
pointing out these myths, as I encounter them, is an important part of what I
offer. One example is my free article Kane
Trading on: The Myth of 'Right' or 'Wrong' on a Trade. Now in no way can I
say that just because I write that something is a 'myth' that it is completely
not true, or that a technique, say, doesn't work at all. What I am trying to
point out is how the common viewpoint on the topic is, perhaps, not all there
is to the story. I'm not trying to tell you 'this' or 'that' is wrong, I'm
trying to give you food for thought and, most importantly, I'm trying to get
you to think!
Q: What can you tell me about your writing
style? I've seen you mention your
writing style and presentation in a few places, and I
wonder why you bring it
up.
A: I want to state right off that I am in no way a
professional writer. In fact, in school I did well in Math and basically hated
English. I have worked quite hard to improve my writing, in order to be able to
present works that are of the quality and clarity I feel comfortable with. I am
a severe perfectionist, and dislike doing anything below a high level of
quality.
I
have been working with a few 'coaches' who have been helping me improve my
writing. I finally decided that I am not comfortable writing and producing
works that my old English teachers would be happy with, or that would be
acceptable to a conventional publisher. To do that, my writing gets so 'chopped
up' that it may then pass the conventional standards, but it barely says what I
want to say anymore. Anyone who has done any kind of professional writing knows
exactly what I am saying.
So I decided that I am going to write in my existing
style, and my customers will tell me whether or not they like it (or should I
say my customers will tell me if they can understand my point without undue
difficulty)? What I try to present is not as much a written book, in the
conventional sense, as a narrative, as close as I can get it to what you would
hear if you saw me do a lecture, or if you sat with me as I traded, and I
explained things.
I am presenting my works to explain what I feel are my own unique
and valuable trading ideas. I am not trying to win any literary prizes. I
think, to some extent, this is also true with almost all self-published books
written by traders. If your main desire is to get the information, and you can
be a little tolerant of my 'I would be looking at…' and ' As we move ahead
here we see…' style, I think you will greatly benefit from my
works.
I
also use a lot of charts, and I mean a lot. I do not do this to take up
space in my books so I can charge more for the books. I do this because I feel
the only way to show and explain the concepts that I teach are with charts. I
frequently use a strategy of following a past trade example as it unfolds, so
decisions and thought processes can be demonstrated as though they were
unfolding in 'real-time'. This requires me to capture many charts in a
sequence, adding a few bars at a time, or even one bar, and explaining what I
see happening 'frame by frame'.
This is how I can best explain my methods, and how I,
myself, learn best. If you do not like this style, or if you feel it's just a
bunch of charts for 'fluff', then I can tell you right now that you will not
like my work. For me, I pretty much only like a trading book if it is loaded
with charts. I've never seen a book with too many charts. Given that, I decided
that my works would have all the charts they needed. My hope is that my readers
will have preferences similar to mine, and that they will be quite happy with
my use of charts, and well as with my works.
Q: I've heard a little
bit about your philosophy on the critical elements of a trade.
Do you have details
available?
A: Yes, I've laid out the details in a free article entitled
Kane Trading on: The Critical Elements of a
Trade. You can just click on the title here to go directly to the article,
or access it through the free articles
link in the education section of the website.
Q: Why don't you make market calls on your website?
A:
There are several reasons why I don't make market calls on the website. What is
important to understand is the 'mission statement' behind Kane Trading. On the
'About Kane Trading' page I wrote: "My
intention is to provide quality educational products for traders." I would ask
that you go to this page and read it (or read it again, if you've already done
so), and familiarize yourself with my philosophies and purpose.
I am trying to help
traders become self-sufficient. I am offering educational material to help
guide this process. What I am not doing is trying to provide a service that
makes calls, so the trader can simply place trades based on someone else's say
so. I'm not in any way knocking such services, or saying that they don't have
value. I'm simply pointing out that I have chosen a completely different route
for this website. If you want to learn how to make your own market calls, you
must develop the skills to do so. That is what I want to help traders
with.
If
you don't want to become an independent trader, and you want others to 'tell
you what to do', this website is not for you. I believe that trading is about
developing an edge, which you use in your trading. You attempt to use this edge
such that the net dollar amount of your winners exceeds the net dollar amount
of your losers, netting you a profit. Many successful traders do this with win
ratios in the area of 30%, 40%, or almost 50% winners. The idea is that the
size of the winning trades is greater than the size of the losing trades,
allowing there to be a net profit.
Now here's the point. Who would pay for a service where
the 'guru' was wrong 70% of the time, for example? My guess is: almost no one.
Yet that trader may be making money overall. I feel that most people who
subscribe to a service whose main function is to make calls give up on that
service when they discover that the service is hitting 30%-50% of the calls, at
best. Then they move on to another service that is making great claims. And
they just keep switching.
I believe that if a trader were able to make money with
30%-50% correct calls, they would have a lot of the skills that I am trying to
teach with my products. But then they would also have the skills to make those
calls themselves, and hence not need the service. What about if you are a
beginner, and can't yet make the calls yourself? I feel that if you can't yet
make the calls yourself, you likely don't possess the skills at this time to
make money when the calls are only at 30%-50% winners.
So, do I see any use for such
services? Absolutely. If you find someone who has a trading philosophy similar
to your own, and you simply want to pay someone to do the legwork for you, to
uncover the opportunities that you would uncover yourself, then I feel that
there is value in that service. I have followed many services myself, and I
have used them for that purpose. I have not found a service that I would use in
any other capacity, but I am not stating as a fact that no such 'guru' services
exist. I'm only saying that I don't believe that you can get something for
nothing.
Now, as far as what I do in my market commentary, I
frequently focus on things that happened that day. These are usually things
that I think demonstrate some Kane Trading technique or philosophy. I may also
point out things that I may be looking for in the upcoming days, if they relate
to some idea or concept that I am focusing on. None of this is designed to
'make a call' on the market. It's designed to follow my mission, which is to
educate.
And as far as my own trading, I play the probabilities. I look for
what I consider to be an edge, and then I make a trade according to my 'Trading
Plan'. I understand, and accept, that perhaps as many as 70% of those trades
might not fully 'pan out', yet I may still net a profit overall. My focus is on
my risk management, my stop loss, my trade management (if the trade begins to
go in my favor), and a host of other things that make up my plan.
The potential trade
area is but one small aspect of my overall plan. This could be thought of as
the 'market call'. Since everyone will have their own unique plan that they
devised specifically for them, I don't see how someone else's market call can
be of much use to them. That is, unless, as I mentioned before, they
have found someone who is pointing out potential trade areas that fit their
specific criteria.
Myself, I don't feel the need to 'establish' the value of my
techniques by making market calls, and hoping that they meet the exact needs of
the person getting the market call. I feel that a 'track record' between 30%
and 50% correct on 'market calls' would be quite good, and I feel that most
people looking to subscribe to a 'tell me what to do' service would drop a
service like that in a heartbeat. To me, that reflects a total disconnect with
trading reality.
I have chosen not to get involved with a game where 'you
are only as good as your last call'. To me, that is not what trading is about,
and not why I have this website. My goal is to help traders who want to learn
trading as a business, and who want to learn to be independent. I am not trying
to 'prove' how great my 'calls' or my methods are.
If it turns out that there are not
enough people out there (who want to work hard on being independent traders) to
support my efforts as an educator, I'll simply close down the website and stop
offering my products. None of that would change my views on trading, or change
my own personal goals as a trader. I'm not, nor will I ever be, a market timing
'guru'. I'm a trader. And trading is what I teach.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
 NOTE: Reading this page or
any page on the Kane Trading website, or utilizing this website and any
material
contained herein in any way, shall constitute an
acknowledgement that you have read, understood and agreed
to
all the disclaimers,
terms & conditions, and
policies of this site.
|
|
|
This
website is best viewed with MSIE 6.0, text size set to medium, and screen
resolution set to 1024 by 768.
Copyright ©
2003-2004 Kane Trading. All rights reserved.
|
|
