Daytrading University : Our Traders Come First

Prior to starting the TradeMastery.com mega-site, I single-handedly created Daytrading University.  Ever since I founded my active day trading site way back in 1999, I've valued the opportunity to share my 'lessons learned' with active traders.  It's been an exciting journey!  In this article, I thought it would be interesting to chronicle the early years, and let you know how DaytradingUniversity.com developed over time into an industry leader.

Why integrate Daytrading University into TradeMastery?  Read about it here.

Day trading stocks can be incredibly challenging, and rewarding -- the thrill of making winning trades, the disappointment with losses -- and the quest to gradually get better over time.

Daytrading University -- How it all Began

Back in the 1990s, I was a trusted consultant to many Fortune-500 companies -- here's a partial client list:
http://daytradinguniversity.com/clients.htm

I was busy speaking, training, and helping clients implement quality-management and other business improvement strategies.  I'd been a statistician & earned my Certified Quality Engineer (CQE) certification while working for the Ford Motor Company from 1991-93.  I was on the Total Quality Management System (TQMS) implementation program for McDonnell Douglas prior to that, and was on the division TQM staff for Rockwell International - Satellite & Space Electronics Division (we built the original GPS satellites) in '91.

I am a UCLA graduate & also earned my Masters' degree from Cal State Long Beach.  In the late 90s I was also an instructor for 2 private universities... busy times.   It was about to get busier...

DaytradingUniversity.com -- Origin

While teaching, the university I was faculty for started offering distance-learning courses online -- a useful way to teach working adults earning their MBAs via the internet.  Remember this was in the late 90s, before google or youtube.

I also saw how popular day trading was -- this back in the NASDAQ 'bubble days'.  Silly commercials about truck drivers and tropical islands were attracting many new folks to day trading the stock market.  Amazingly, now there's a lot of young wannabe educators pitching the dream with youtube videos of tropical islands, beautiful women and fancy sports cars... these millenials were still in grade school back in the late 90s.

So I thought to myself -- how hard could it be?  After all, I had a strong work ethic, lots of quantitative background in statistics & quality process improvement. I learned the hard way, blowing up 2 small trading accounts, that day trading stocks is very risky -- and hard-earned money can disappear with the click of a mouse button.

Daytrading University Online Course

After learning what not to do, plus getting occasional winning trades along the way, I decided to create the internet's first trading university themed site... my background in total quality management has several core principles:

a) all work can be thought of as processes, like a flowchart -- and it can be improved

b) lack of consistency ("variability") causes low quality & higher costs, and should be reduced

c) you cannot improve what you don't understand, so "document what you do, and do what you document"

d) a team-based approach to problem solving is ideal, because it leverages everyone's knowledge (not just the bosses & managers').

So I thought I'd try my hand at teaching what I learned (the hard way!), and so Daytrading University was born. I am the sole founder of DaytradingUniversity.com -- and put in many long hours of work.

My popular online day trading course was my first big commercial trading education product -- and the "Daytrading University Online Course" went on to be featured in theStreet.com & won a "Best of the Net" award.

Ken Calhoun -- Public Appearances for Daytrading University

I first spoke at what was then called the "Online Traders' Expo" that my colleague Tim Bourquin (also an LAPD reserve officer) co-founded in the early 2000s.  I spoke on tape reading (and also published an article in Active Trader magazine) on this useful topic. I had a standing-room only crowd!

I started the industry's first Saturday webinars (using text-only chat) and began working with Steve Nison. We held a seminar together in Anaheim, and co-produced a bestselling VHS educational course filmed at the event.

From there, everything took off -- I founded my live TradingTheOpen.com room and added additional Daytrading University products and services over the years.

Now as we've expanded significantly into swing trading stocks, plus Forex and other markets, I'm shifting our focus to the main TradeMastery site (info).

Daytrading University -- Next Steps

As I continue to build my network of educational sites, we have exciting plans for the future. I'm dedicated to helping all of you, my traders, continue to sharpen your trading skills as we work together.  The best is yet to come!