Trading and teamwork. Can the two get along?

If I were to ask you to name 25 words that come to mind when I mention "trading", chances are that "teamwork" will not make the list.

But when you think about it, isn't that odd? It doesn't really make sense for why trading is looked upon as an individual activity. The common notion is that you get behind a monitor (or phone, tablet, etc), login to the terminal, and trade away. The mere idea of how trading can be associated with teamwork might even seem like an alien concept.

But it has been shown that traders that work as a team do better than individuals. When institutional trading firms hire traders, traders generally do not work independently. They work as a group, as a team, bouncing ideas off of each other. After all, it's not as if one trader is going to "steal" another individual's trading idea and harm the other's chances of earning a profit. If anything, by using similar strategies, the two will benefit.

But institutional firms have that advantage of being able to group together like-minded, intelligent traders into one room. What do you do as a retail trader, trading from home or at work?

Think outside the box

The first, and obvious, choice for an online retail trader is to go to forums and interact with other members. There are numerous online forums that directly serve this purpose.

But you can do more! If you are serious about bouncing ideas off of similar minded individuals, why not take the bold move in hosting a get together/seminar in your city or area? If you are a full-time day trader, perhaps you can group together a dozen others within your city and you all can huddle together in a coffee shop and trade away! If you're an investor looking to bounce ideas off of other like-minded investors, you can create a meetup event. In fact, websites like meetup.com exist to exactly serve this purpose. Chances are that there are already meetup groups within your city where members are benefiting by picking each others' brains. Why not join them!

Don't be afraid to share your trading strategies with others. The market is far too liquid for any individual or group to sabotage your ability to earn a profit from your strategies. Instead, you will end up learning from others, through which your strategies will improve.

And last, but not least- meeting up with other traders makes the activity of trading more enjoyable and fun. And, like any other activity, when you do something you enjoy- you will end up doing a better job 🙂

Cheers,
RKSV