Why are most Forex Authors not active Traders?

I've had to ask myself this question many times. In fact, every time I read a post by a proponent of some strategy or system I always try to figure out their motivation. In this kind of environment, you just have to, otherwise you fall prey to in what is the best case deceptive marketing and at worst straight up fraud. When there's a fee involved I automatically lose a lot of respect for someone's advice, as the old argument stands - if they were so good at trading, why would they want to sell me something? That even goes for widely respected users on this forum like James16 and Darkstar. It just never made sense to me why James16 would need to charge such a hefty fee for his forum and why Darkstar ended up selling a hardcover book - all of which could have been posted in a PDF if he were just wanting to help the new guy out.

I strongly believe that the best advice in trading is free and openly available....but you have to do the digging and mental sorting to find it. I doubt there is anybody worth paying who can just hand you that kind of knowledge which comes from years of evaluation and critical thinking.

Those who can do......those who cant, teach.

I have also seen many so called PROs posting in forums or even in Forex Classes I took. They really look like important mentors and people who know their stuff very very well...

But when I look further, I find out that they never trade... And that is something that makes me think a lot.

Why would I believe this guy or follow what this guy says, if he never EVER trades??

I've read a lot of fx/business books from various authors and i can honestly say that it already cost me more than 1micro lot of eur/usd
All i can say is, it's great to read books and pick up something that you think is valuable to add to your trading arsenal and of course create
your own system that will work for you.

Many coach doesn't play..

I find the coach analogy to be somewhat flawed. While a coach in sports can develop strategies (cognitive ability), the coach may not have the physical requirements to play the game at the level his players do (physical ability). Strategizing and playing utilize two completely separate strengths. In trading, no such divide exists. If a 'coach' knew how to trade profitably, they could apply that knowledge directly.

Exactly what I was thinking when I read the analogy with Soccer, coaches like Mourinho, Bielsa or Pelegrini, were awful players, but they are among the best trainers in the world.

However, I don't think that analogy can be applied to the relation of mentors in Forex. Mentors really need to be good players, otherwise they lose credibility and authority.

In my humble opinion. (IMHO)

a trader is a trader, believe me, I rather play futsal all day than trading. A trader needs to focus every minute's (not ignorance), search newer and newer news every hour, make analyze every 4 hours and one thing ready to admit a loser every second.
What I'm saying is a trader is not a coach, doctor or engineer who have best a mathematical analysis.
When I first became a trader, my family said a trader like "a dreamer at noon".

You are contradicting yourself Kanzler. Knowing how to trade well and doing it are two very different talents. You know my way of trading, it is very tough mentally to step in front of a fast moving price. The coach not having physical ability but knowing the strategy perfectly and having the ability to teach it to capable players is a perfect analogy to the trading coach who knows a great strategy and can teach it but doesn't have the necessary mental skills to apply it to the market.

I once had the same belief. I am an accomplished golfer. Once had thoughts of turning pro. I would never consider taking a lesson from someone who I could beat. I had hit a wall with my game though and was not improving until I found a coach who could communicate to me the proper feel for my swing. I could play much better than him but he improved my game by three strokes a round. He could not repeat a swing but he could teach it.

If a mentor gives you a method that you can objectively test, in my mind it doesn't matter if he or she can trade it successfully or not. A mentor should be someone who can give you the tools to develop your own style. I have to repeat that I don't have any experience with paid mentors but I do have experience with taking lessons from someone that I could beat at the game.

Great post. Your rationale is solid, but something still doesn't quite set well with me about it. Perhaps because in my mind it seems like a trivial transition from knowing a working strategy to implementing it, versus knowing how to play football and being physically in shape to do so. Personal bias I suppose. Trade well!

IMO most of the authors, mentors & other parties earning more than the forex traders. These people have very good knowledge about the markets and trading. But unfortunately they can't do it in practice. So they move to do business in forex trading . Newbies fall for these people and spent large bucks for nothing. But I must say there are a few very good mentors & authors both do personal trading and mentoring/publishing books for passion.

Its very simple, as they are busy in writing and monitoring they forgot to place orders! Where as regular traders are busy managing their own money.
Honestly, if someone finds map of a gold mine, will he/she share it with the world?

For me the difference between a coach and a mentor (and I put authors who don't trade under the coach category) - is that mentors are people who are trading and show people how they have done and do it and coaches can teach it, but aren't traders themselves) Both have their place, some great traders cannot teach it for the life of them and some great teachers can't or don't want to trade. For me I look for mentors who are great teachers - I follow Sam Seiden from Online Trading Academy, he is a great trader and teacher - so really it depends on what you want to learn and how.

I am a Doug Zalesky student, and would always be very interested in how his students are fairing on.
He is one mentor among many that actually trades. Basically the best mentors are those who will have
you do what they do rather than those that will tell you what to do.

I like the ideas Sam teaches as well but I've never seen any real evidence that he trades professionally as well. He's also been very careful to never say it either, unless I missed it somewhere.

He does not trade for a living. He sells training.

forex authors must be busy to place an order, coz they're paid to be an author.

A good Forex mentors usually an active traders. If you ever go to advance forex seminars, usually the mentor demonstrate their strategies on live account (sometimes you can see their balance in the account and their history) and it may take 5 days seminar.

However some of forex mentors usually only speak speak speak and sell their strategies, EA, etc to make money. They usually demonstrate their strategy on off-line past charts (of course they pick the charts that suitable n profitable for their strategies). This kind of seminar usually only 1-2 days only.

I don't disagree with you as I haven't seen any solid evidence to the contrary - but do you know that for a fact or is it the omission of such that causes you to suspect it?

omission and common sense...

1) If he (and others like him) were trading successfuly, he (they) would scream it from the roof tops for all followers and recruits to hear
2) if he (and others like him) put time, money and effort in building a brick-and-mortar business that sells training rather than "just sit at a computer and make a fortune" it means the money to be made is in the training and not the trading.

First, IMO skepticism is healthy, and can save the aspiring trader a lot of money, as the vast majority of "educators" are snake oil salesmen who don't know how to trade profitably.

I think Seneca_pilot makes a good point about there being a big gulf between theory and practise (even though the gulf may be more "obvious" with "physical" activities — just as a person with a physical disability is more likely to be noticed than one who is intellectually handicapped). I trade only a very small account, yet I find the gulf a significant one. When it comes to real money, it's a whole new ball game, and if trading's your sole form of income, then I know from talking to others that the pressure is magnified significantly further, especially as trading doesn't necessarily provide a consistent weekly pay-packet, that's suitable for paying the bills that DO arrive on a regular basis.

Some intraday strategies necessitate spending many hours at the computer waiting for an A+ setup, which requires incredible patience. Fishermen will know exactly what I mean, you can be sitting in the boat all day, without even a nibble, let alone a catch to take home for dinner....... Then the A+ setup finally comes along, and the trade can turn out to be a loss! Here's a good post by flotsom, who DOES trade for a living — he once encountered 34 consecutive losses. Now how does one cope with that — both income-wise, and emotionally? There's also a good post by Joel Rensink, who's apparently been trading for more than 30 years:

The whole post is worth a read, IMO.

Marketing hype that makes it seem that, once you've found your edge, the rest is plain sailing; that profitable trading is an easy, guaranteed, stress-free way to own luxury homes and expensive sports cars. Yet for the vast majority of traders who are profitable, nothing is probably further from the truth. There's a gent at our local TA group who's apparently successful, but he's admits that he finds trading to be the most stressful activity he's ever attempted, and that's after more than 4 years in profit. But he keeps at it, because he believes that he's painted himself into a corner where he can't find any other line of work.

Two further reasons why a profitable trader might sell education: diversification and capitalization. As already pointed out, income from trading can be erratic, hence the need for some consistent, 'backup' income. And capitalization: not everybody has a spare 6-figure sum lying around that they can use to open a trading account that's big enough to immediately provide a decent income.

If you think J16 is expensive: well, I recall reading somewhere that Larry Williams used to charge $25,000 for a weekend workshop. Coaches like Craig Harris and Steve Mauro sell courses for $5,000 upward (and I have no idea how good their material is). At least J16 has a free thread where you can teach yourself his approach and prove its profitability (or otherwise) for yourself.

Finally, I'd suggest that, no matter how much money I spend on 'good' education, there's only one person who can teach me how to trade: and that's me. Sure, a genuine mentor can likely shave many months off the learning curve, but ultimately it's me that must sit at the computer, and put all the pieces together for myself. The testimonials that I read on Forex Peace Army frequently contain polarized opinion: many posters rate an educator 5 stars, while other rate him a scam. Same course material supposedly, yet vastly different results. I guess one reason is that folk post after having made only a handful of trades, i.e. before they've attained any kind of statistically valid track record. But I think another reason could be that some folk have the aptitude (dedication, nerve, patience, discipline, lack of ego, capacity for logical thought, ......) to trade successfully, while others don't.

As Parmalat points out here, there are a million academics out there with profitably tested trading algos, but the big funds are more interested in employing folk who have the existential qualities needed to actually trade successfully. Trading is as much a test of mettle as it is a test of intellect. Again, theory and practise.