Working with a professional coach for an investment learning plan

In one of my earlier posts, I wrote about expat coaches and the specialist areas and concerns that they can address when working with expats. Recently, I attended an investment day expo aimed at retail investors and with that still lingering in my mind, my next session with the professional coach was around structuring a three-month investment learning plan.

An investment learning plan will differ for individuals. I decided to incorporate within that learning plan to learn more about a) active management strategies, b) technical analysis (charting and patterns), c) research on two types of investment strategies – discretionary versus systematic and also d) research into a few investment vehicles that interest me. Looking back on early 2015, much of my time in this particular area (when I’m not learning Linux commands or figuring out the Canadian visa system..) had been delving into private banking and wealth management. Much of what I know had been on an eagle’s eye point of view or from the viewpoint of a marketer when my experiences within that career was still very recent in my mind. Therefore, my approach to this plan is going to be from a completely different viewpoint.

Another issue that I mentioned in the coaching session was sifting through large volumes of information, opinion, charts, patterns, products, tools and data. We ended up allocating a key task to do each week over the next three months so that I only focus on the one task per week. Part of the information overload was around dealing with distractions which seemed to go hand in hand. We then addressed that by allocating x hours per day on this learning plan. I finalized on 7 to 8 hours per day but I spread this out over a whole day. For day trading, the hours need to be changed to consider Sydney/London/New York (and possibly Tokyo) overlaps. New York and London (8:00 am — 12:00 noon EST), Sydney and Tokyo (7:00 pm — 2:00 am EST, London and Tokyo (3:00 am — 4:00am EST).

And last but not least, one of the issues that I had to address in the coaching session was that I was completely aware of what I don’t know. I know enough to begin to structure this plan, but I don’t know if it’s actually going to be effective compared to other potential plans that I could be structuring instead. It wasn’t like I was having a coaching session with a trader or an investor coach. I think it’s too early for that. Instead I didn’t want to be swayed by someone’s approach and instead wanted to do my ownresearch journey and try to find what works for me. I think that is when a non-specialist coach is very useful in that there is more freedom to make your own way, including finding out the mistakes and weaknesses.

I imagine that I’ll be spending three months virtual currency or paper trading before I move on to real currency. I will see if this plan changes, if the hours are correct, if I need more time in a few months!

Question for readers: Did you have an investment education plan when you first learn to trade? How long did you paper trade? What resources do you recommend?  Comment below or comment via LinkedIn.