Have you ever watched a trailer for a movie and got all excited and hyped up about how great the movie was going to be and then gone to watch the movie and been massively disappointed or let down or realize that you were misled. Well, it’s kind of like learning to trade by watching YouTube videos. Why has this come up? Well, I was having this conversation today with a student who … Now, I asked the question, “How many trading books have you read?” And they said, “None.” And what I realized is that there’s this whole generation of wannabe traders. I’m going to say wannabe and I’ll tell you why, but wannabe traders who are learning how to trade by watching YouTube videos and watching a YouTube video is kind of like watching a commercial because they’re usually pretty short, only a couple of minutes, and they might explain a short little topic or teach a certain short point and give you some idea about the bigger picture.

But the reality is it’s very hard to string together a coherent picture of a profitable trading strategy or trading approach by watching YouTube. Why is that and why are books so much better? Well, the thing is, for me, and I’ve heard over 200 trading books and I’ve also watched a ton of YouTube videos, but I’m going to tell you, I got way more value from the books than I have from any number of YouTube videos and I think the reason is that when you take the time to read a trading book from end to end and you get the opportunity to let those ideas sit in your mind and kind of settle and you ponder over them as you’re reading the book and you’re spending a certain amount of time where you are immersed in the author’s idea, the one strategy, the one point of view. And so, that allows you to develop a better appreciation, a better understanding for the concepts being presented.

Now, contrast that with YouTube. Now, what happens when you watch YouTube? If you Google, ‘Stock trading videos’ or, ‘How a stock trade’ or, ‘Learn to stock trade on YouTube’, you’re going to get a whole bunch of suggestions and what do you do? You watch the first one that looks interesting and then at the end of the first one, you’re going to get a bunch of suggestions from YouTube as to what to watch next and so then you choose one of them and you go watch that and then you get more suggestions about what to watch next and you go and you watch that and you watch that and you watch that. And so, what’s happening is typically you’re not getting multiple videos from the same educator, from the same author, the same thought leader and so you’re jumping from thought to thought from concept to concept, from strategy to strategy, style to style and so you never get that opportunity for the lessons to really sink in and for you to really kind of ponder over them and deeply understand them like you would if you were spending the time to read a book.

Now, it’s perhaps a little different if you jump on YouTube and you go to someone’s channel and you go to the very first video and you watch all of their videos in a row, that’s a little different. But most people don’t watch YouTube like that and YouTube actually doesn’t want you to do that because what YouTube wants you to do, it’s kind of like a casino, you go into a casino and you choose a game … Now, I don’t gamble but if you go into a casino, you choose a game, you play that, and then someone brings you a drink and then you look around and you see another table and you go play there and then you look around, you see another time when you go to play there. It’s all about keeping you distracted to keep you there. And for YouTube it’s the same thing, it’s about keeping you distracted to keep you entertained so they can keep serving you ads so they can make money. It’s nothing to do with teaching how to trade well. Now, if you sit down with a good trading book that’s all about teaching you how to trade well, particularly if you’ve chosen the right book.

Now, if you need help choosing the right book, if you haven’t found them yet, comment below, say, ‘Trading book’ and I will give you a list of the best systematic trading books so that you can spend some time with some authors who actually really know their stuff and rather than than gambling with your time, I want you to spend time with the best authors. Now, it’s okay to watch training videos on YouTube, don’t get me wrong, but what I don’t want you to do is delude yourself into thinking that you can learn to trade by watching YouTube videos because it’s kind of like learning the plot line of a movie by watching the trailer. It’s misleading. You don’t get the whole story and it’s kind of like watching commercials and try and fully understanding the TV shows that they’re advertising. What they’re trying to do is hook you in because most YouTube videos, there’s some that are truly educational, but most of them are marketing and I do the same thing, I have videos out there for marketing purposes to do some education and attract people to my course. Of course, that’s what happens, right? But you can’t get the whole story.

If you sit down and read a book from end to end like, “Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom,’ by van Tharp, or, ‘Market Wizards’ by Jack Schwager, or, ‘The Design Testing Evaluation of Trading Strategies’, by Pardo. If you take books like that or, ‘A Way of the Turtle’, by Curtis Faith, these are books where if you sit down and read them end to end, you will transform your knowledge and understanding about trading and if you’ve already read those books, great. Read them again and again because I’ve read all of those books and many others multiple times because, by getting into the author’s mind, you take your learning to the next level and you can continue to grow and each time you read these great trading books, you get a different depth and a different level of understanding.

It’s not the same with YouTube videos. If you’re thinking, “I’ll just watch a five minute YouTube video and then another one and another one and I’ll learn how to trade”, you’re mistaken because you never get enough depth, you never get the time to sit with the concepts. If you’re in the YouTube generation, that’s fine, keep doing that but commit to reading good trading books as well because if you don’t, you’re not going to make it because this is hard. Trading is not easy and you need to learn from the best and the best people are authors and they’ve got courses and they teach the concepts end to end. They’re not little snippets of trading videos. The barrier to entry to creating a video on YouTube about trading is literally zero.

Anyone can pull out a smartphone like I’m doing now and record a quick video and try and teach you something about trading and, look, I hope I am, but the point is you can’t just do this. You’ve got to go to the source. You’ve got to go to the books and do the courses and actually immerse yourself in this fully. Go read a trading book. If you don’t know which one to read, comment below and I’ll give you a list of suggestions. My name’s Adrian Reid. This is Enlightened stock Trading and you need to read more trading books. I need to read more trading books. I’ve read over 200 books on stock trading and I still buy books every single week to expand my knowledge, get different inputs, different ideas, different stimulus for my trading system development and you should be too. See you in the next video. Bye for now.