How Commodity Traders are Like Allen Iverson

Who remembers this infamous interview?

We’re sitting in here, and I’m supposed to be the franchise player, and we in here talking about practice. I mean, listen, we’re talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, we talking about practice. Not a game. Not, not … Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it’s my last. Not the game, but we’re talking about practice, man. I mean, how silly is that? … And we talking about practice.

It actually goes on from there, but it all sounds the same. (Watch the clip below.) Iverson is saying practice doesn’t matter. It only matters what you do in the game.

But when we see that interview, we cringe. Because we know it’s ridiculous. Nobody doubts “The Answer’s” talent and skill level. He was truly one of the greats of the game. I’ve got nothing but respect for his game. But these statements are cringeworthy. We cringe because we know it’s not true. We cringe because we know that practice is vital for any sport. I mean, how did Iverson get to be as good as he was in the first place? That’s right…Practice. We talkin’ bout practice.

But if we take a minute and think about our own trading habits, isn’t that how we approach it? Don’t we also have this attitude? We aren’t concerned enough to even try and practice an idea? Instead we’ve got Iverson’s attitude. We say, not the real market, not the real market, we’re talking about paper trading. Paper trading!

And that’s where we miss the point. If you cannot succeed in practice, then you cannot succeed in real life. Furthermore, professional athletes don’t just stop practicing when they reach the NBA. They actually practice more. That’s their job!

So, here are three ways that commodity traders are like Allen Iverson:

• They put their money on the line without paper trading first.
  If you’re like me, you’re excited about using different trading techniques. Whether it’s trading off of a different chart type, or getting the inside scoop on a piece of advice, your ears are tuned to see new ways to gain an edge. But the problem becomes a refusal to paper trade it first. A refusal to see if we understand the concept properly. We rush out to try it using real money. It’s a recipe to losing money quick.
• They follow a “guru’s” advice hook, line and sinker without testing him out first.
  It always amazes me how quickly traders will blindly follow advice. I remember a broker offering me advice on a trade he felt I needed to get in to. I didn’t really have the money to make the trade, so my response was that I would take the information and paper trade it this time around. Guess what? That trade lost money. This was a lesson that actually helped lay a foundation that would eventually lead us to create papertrademe.com. Read more about that here.
• They think we’ve arrived.
  There’s nothing worse than a cocky athlete that’s too good for practice. Allen Iverson certainly fit that bill at times. But we can do that, too. We have a couple of successful trades and we think we’re ready for the big-time…that nothing can go wrong. But if you’ve spent any time in the commodities market, you know that things can turn against you really fast. Even the most advanced trader needs to continue working on his skills.

Papertrademe.com’s aim is to make sure that you have a chance to test out all your ideas and continually work out your own personal trading technique. Our platform is dead-simple and get’s straight to the point. We don’t mess around with trying to get you to trade real money. We see that as a conflict of interest. We just want to give you a simple, clean platform to paper trade commodities.