Best Futures Trading Mentors to Help You Acquire Legitimate Competence & Skill:
With nearly a decade of personal experience going through various trading courses/programs within the “trading education” industry, there’s certainly no shortage of trading products/services out there. But high-quality mentors are hard to come by.
This is because it’s relatively easy to share information online (regardless of quality). But it’s not so easy to coach, train, and develop hopeful traders into consistent, six-figure earners. The reality is that not all trading courses/programs are created equal.
One major problem is that the bulk of the industry essentially promotes dependency – through guru alert/call/signal services, for example – where people think they can merely subscribe and copy-cat trade their way to multi-millionaire status.
But this surface-level approach simply doesn’t work. It sounds great in theory, but it’s entirely ineffective in real life. In order to become a consistently profitable trader, you have to become self-sufficient through the acquisition of legitimate competence/skill.
And what I’ve found over the years is that the futures trading space offers the most legitimate education, training, and mentorship (in comparison to stocks, options, and especially forex and cryptocurrencies) – and it’s really not even close.
There’s just so much nonsense floating around out there – but generally speaking, futures mentors have far more integrity.
Top 3 Futures Trading Mentors With High-Quality Training/Mentorship Programs:
Here are my top 3 favorite futures trading mentors based on personal experience:
JOSH SCHULER
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Short Description: Josh Schuler is the founder of Trade With Profile – which is a skill-development firm for intraday futures traders. In my opinion, Josh Schuler as a mentor and his Profile Trading Development Pathway program as a course are drastically underrated. This is a training/mentorship program that should honestly be selling for at least 2-3X the current price. The value provided is unmatched. Free Ways to Learn From Josh Schuler:
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AARON KORBS
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Short Description: Aaron Korbs is the founder of Tradacc (short for Trading Accelerator) – which is a trading education platform that offers 2 main courses: Volume Profile Formula & Profile Method. Volume Profile Formula is a low-cost introductory course that broadly covers Aaron Korbs’ trading methodology and Profile Method is his next-level training & mentorship program that digs into the finer details. Free Ways to Learn From Aaron Korbs:
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MERRITT BLACK
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Short Description: Merritt Black is the founder of Apteros Trading – which offers professional-level training on Merritt’s NADRO methodology, as well as an opportunity to earn a spot on his proprietary trading desk. Through the combination of his training and prop desk, his priorities are clear: he wants to cultivate a community of exceptional traders and scale them up with as much capital as they can handle. Free Ways to Learn From Merritt Black:
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The Wrap Up – What the Best Futures Trading Mentors in the Industry Have in Common:
I’ve been trading – as well as studying the landscape of the “trading education” industry – for a relatively long time. And based on my experiences, I would have a hard time pointing aspiring traders in any direction other than these 3 futures trading mentors.
Futures markets are some of the most liquid, well-regulated, capital-efficient, and tax-friendly markets in the world – so it’s no surprise that this is the ideal environment for serious/legitimate/professional intraday traders. The benefits are unparalleled.
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And amongst the top futures trading mentors mentioned above, they all analyze markets with an auction market framework through the lens of profiling tools like volume profile and market profile – and I don’t believe this to be a mere coincidence.
They teach auction market theory and profiling principles (and how to develop high-quality trade ideas/”playbook” trades based on these principles) because it’s the best way to view/interpret markets. It simply makes sense and actually works.
I used to exclusively trade stocks and options (which is kind of the default for most people) – until I came across futures markets, auction market theory, and profiling tools. And now I almost exclusively trade futures for the reasons mentioned above.
I’m not saying that other trading methodologies don’t work, but I’ve yet to come across anything that rivals the power of profiling.
Written by Matt Thomas (@MattThomasTP)
Related Pages:
- Best Futures Trading Method – The Volume Profile Method
- Free Futures Trading Education – Top 5 Educational Resources
- Volume Profile Trading – What Does Volume Profile Tell You?
- What is Futures Prop Trading – Get Funded Trading Futures
- Top 3 Reasons Why Traders Fail at Such a High Rate (~90%)
Thanks for sharing this informative article. I researched these 3 mentors and it was so helpful. To be honest, you provided more information on these coaches and their training programs than any other site I’ve come across. I don’t have much trading experience, but this was incredibly helpful to read. All of the related content is great as well. I’ve learned so much. Thank you.
Thanks Matt for this very informative article on the best futures trading mentors to help acquire legitimate competence & skill. I have never heard of any of these guys in my short time researching futures trading but I’ve still discerned a good deal of the wisdom provided. Phrases like auction market framework and volume and marketing profiling can get a little confusing to me. Is it necessary to have a mentor like one of these men to help guide me through the process or can these strategies be learned on my own?
Hi Joseph – I appreciate your comment/question.
I’ve been trying to add more content to the site in regard to futures, auction market theory & profiling because I believe them to be superior. So I recommend checking those articles & videos out to get a better understanding of what they are. That should help clear up a lot of confusion, but always feel free to ask follow-up questions if something doesn’t make sense to you.
To answer your question about whether or not a mentor like Josh Schuler, Aaron Korbs, or Merritt Black is necessary – I would say yes if you’re actually committed to pursuing trading on a serious level; not just to dabble or compulsively gamble, but actually build deep market competence and real trading skills for sustainable success. It’s certainly an option to try to piece a powerful trading process together by watching a bunch of free YouTube videos, for example. But that approach really isn’t something I recommend because it’s simply not as structured as a high-quality course/program and there’s limited to no feedback/support to make sure you stay on the right track. It’s also very time-consuming and chaotic trying to filter through all kinds of free content to find what you’re searching for (which brings up another point: as a beginner, how do you even know what you’re searching for when you don’t know what you don’t know?). But overall, I don’t view this kind of approach as worthwhile because the opportunity cost is extreme. The financial price tag is “free” – yes, but the time, energy, and focus lost on a subpar path just isn’t worth it from my perspective. I’d rather pay the money to immediately get the information and coaching I need, rather than go down a “free” path that wastes a ton of my time, energy, and focus on entertainment (which is what YouTube tends to be) rather than real education, training & mentorship. Ultimately, everyone gets to make this choice for themselves. But I’ve already gone down multiple free/low-cost time-wasting paths that weren’t worth it back when I started (because I wanted to “save” money), but they actually ended up costing me more in the long run.
This blog is really helpful for someone like my old self who was interested in trading but doesn’t know where to start. Of course I failed doing Forex trading. My heart couldn’t stand it. As someone who never tried futures trading but feels lost of what it is and will be too busy study it, it was great to read the descriptions of each mentorship program in simple terms. Now I have a much better understanding of what I could gain from joining one of these programs. I just worry of where to get the extra cash to join the club.
Hi Raymond – thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences.
I always recommend my free Trading Success Framework course to start. It’s not about futures trading specifically, but it covers what being a trader really means from a foundational perspective. And for futures trading, I suggest checking out these free futures trading resources, if interested. There are certainly ways to get started trading with limited to no personal capital through online prop firms/funded trader programs (like Topstep, for example), but of course there’s going to be some costs no matter what path you take in terms of time, training, tryout/evaluation fees, etc. Trading doesn’t have to be a pursuit for everyone – and that’s completely fine – but I just wanted to share some helpful resources for you to decide. That’s really the main point of the Trading Success Framework course: to help people understand what trading actually entails and decide if it’s something they truly want to pursue before putting a ridiculous amount of resources into it (not just money, but energy, concentration, etc.). It’s important to me that people who visit my site approach trading with proper expectations and a heavy focus on acquiring deep market competence and legitimate trading skills/habits for consistency, self-sufficiency, and sustainability.
To excel in trading, you must have a good training background. There are a lot of people who poses as crypto traders and instructors but barely have good knowledge of how the market really works. This is one of the reasons many beginners lose hope in the process because they blow their account when they eventually start trading after being lectured by these quack instructors. It is cool that you reviewed some of the best mentors here and I can say they are the best when it comes to trading futures
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Crypto is honestly the “wild west” of markets. There are so many gimmicks, scams, and all types of other nonsense going on there – and it’s not something that I’m personally interested in dealing with when it comes to intraday trading. That’s why I almost exclusively trade futures. There’s a much higher level of legitimacy/professionalism in the futures space in comparison to markets like forex and crypto. If I were interested in day trading foreign currencies or cryptocurrencies, it would definitely be through futures contracts. I have my own views on which markets, methodologies, and mentors are the best – and I’m sure there are a number of people out there with differing opinions – but to me it’s crystal clear. These futures mentors and the trading strategies/systems/methodologies that they teach are by far the strongest that I’ve come across in nearly a decade of researching and interacting within the trading space. I honestly wouldn’t feel comfortable pointing new/developing traders in any other direction. It’s simply THE path to go down, in my opinion. These guys are top-notch.
Wow, what a great post; thank you for sharing resources from 3 of the best futures trading mentors in the Industry. I am a beginner at trading and looking to become a full-time trader shortly. I know Aaron Korbs, and he is doing a great job with his YouTube channel and everything; I will certainly check out others. I want to trade futures, and thank you for sharing this post. Have a great day. Regards. Vlad
No problem, Vlad – I’m glad you found value in this post.
In my opinion, anyone who is pursuing futures and any one (or multiple) of these 3 high-quality educators/mentors is moving in the right direction. If you’re a beginner, I highly recommend checking out my free Trading Success Framework course if you haven’t already. I also plan on launching a free community within the next few weeks to go along with it – so be on the lookout for that. The goal of everyone in the community will be to develop the competence, habits, and skills to trade for a living or at least make it a substantial portion of their income. It won’t be for dabblers or compulsive gamers, but rather individuals who are serious about earning six figures per year as active traders. Legitimate education, training, and mentorship will be at the forefront, unlike many other chat rooms, communities, and trading services that focus on spoon-feeding alerts/signals/hot picks or some nonsense like that (which simply doesn’t work). Interaction is extremely important for learning, but dependency/blind copying will only serve as a distraction. The end goal for my community is for every member who is willing to work for it to become a self-sufficient, consistently profitable trader.
Hi Matt,
I too am a stocks trader but been scared to venture out in futures for some reason or the other. Your article comes handy as learning avenues for futures trading. Besides, your list also is great in knowing what can be learnt for free.
Thar brings to the key question here- what is the fees which each of these three charge and who ranks better than others? Thanks for sharing your thoughts in this article.
Regards,Rohit
Hi Rohit,
I understood the hesitation to trade futures years ago because the “big” contracts were all that existed – and you can’t trade anything smaller than 1 contract. But with the advent of mini and micro futures contracts, in addition to numerous funded trader programs/prop firms where individuals can get funded for close to zero risk, the landscape of futures trading is completely different now. It’s no longer just for the “big boys”. Now everyone can experience the benefits of futures (liquidity, regulation, leverage, tax advantages, etc.). For example, one “big” S&P 500 futures contract (SP) is worth $250 per point, one mini (ES) is worth $50 per point, and one micro (MES) is worth $5 per point. So in regard to capital/risk tolerance, there’s pretty much an option for everyone. And if not ready to risk any of your own capital, there are plenty of simulators and funded trader programs available to trade futures with little to no personal risk (besides a relatively small tryout/subscription fee). So at this point, I think it’s all a matter of familiarity – most people just don’t know what futures markets are and all the choices/advantages associated with them. They stick to the default stocks, options, and forex because it’s what they know, while completing overlooking futures as the far superior market for expressing risk (especially on an intraday basis).
And to answer your question about the three mentors and their courses/programs listed above – I think this article would be a great resource to reference some of my thoughts on how’d I’d rank them. But a lot of it just comes down to personal preference. So I highly suggest leveraging the free resources shared above (like all of their YouTube channels, for example) to see which mentor resonates with you the most. That can help make the decision of picking one a whole lot easier (and there’s no rule against purchasing training and mentorship from all three). In regard to Trade With Profile with Josh Schuler, he essentially only has one course/training program – his Profile Trading Development Pathway – which currently costs about $1,250. In my opinion, this is by far the best value that developing traders can get for their money. The price should be at least 2-3X higher for the top-notch training and mentorship that it offers. In regard to Tradacc with Aaron Korbs, he offers a number of mini courses – the main one being his low-cost, introductory Volume Profile Formula – but his full-blown training and mentorship program for serious students (Profile Method) is about $3,000. In regard to Apteros Trading with Merritt Black, he offers excellent education, training, and mentorship as well through his NADRO course (which can range from $3,000 to $7,000+ depending on the level of mentoring) – and he also offers an opportunity to join his prop desk with unlimited scaleability (the tryout is about $300 per month). Overall, you kind of have to do the “ranking” for yourself based on personal budget and preferences, but in my opinion, they’re all well worth it for individuals who are serious about acquiring a high level of market competence/trading skill and want their trading operations to produce a significant portion of their income.
I hope that helps answer your question. Take care!
Wow these are some great resources here I really appreciate the fact you took the time to show where to follow them and find their information for free. I’m just getting into trading and investing and I’m trying to grow my wealth this is really useful for me to learn from these guys.
That’s great to hear – I’m glad you found this information useful.
As someone just getting started, I would also recommend my free Trading Success Framework course – which does a great job of laying the groundwork for what trading (and being a skilled/competent market participant) truly entails.
Take care!
All I can really say is wow! I am a novice trader. I have been trading stocks for 2 years off and on. Lately, school and work have taken up a lot of my time so I have fallen off of trading. However, I did join a few trading platforms and courses. Some I paid for others were totally free. I have heard about one of the gentlemen here. Aaron Korbs. I have run across his website quite a few times and at first, I thought that he was some stock guru. So, I generally ignored him and went about my business. But I most definitely thought that he was some type of scammer. I’ve had a few bad experiences with trading programs and now I stay clear of anyone pushing courses pretty hard. But now that I see that you have reviewed him and his courses quite thoroughly. I’ll check Aaron out.
As far as this particular article and accompanying resources goes it is a ten out of ten from me. The information provided is well-researched and presented in simple terms that even a novice such as myself can understand. Trading futures is very new to me. I am still trying to understand it. Ticks, market structures, charting etc. It all seems a little much. Probably because I have not studied in a while. Either way, Ill check Aaron out and the other two gentlemen you presented here. The only opinion that I have about trading is that I wish I would have started as a young adult and not waited till I was in my 30s to start. Trading stocks or futures has and will change many lives. I am just hoping that one day It will change mines.
The only question I have is this, what are your thoughts about the crypto industry? Do you think It will last?
Hi Shakida – thanks for sharing all of your thoughts and experiences!
I’m glad you found value in this article and the other futures trading resources I’ve shared. I completely understand the difficulty in navigating the “trading education” landscape because there’s a whole lot of flash/distraction as opposed to legitimate training/mentorship out there. It’s extremely difficult to determine who/what is legitimate or not before actually going through the courses/programs. Aaron Korbs, for example, has a low-priced beginner’s course for which the sales page is quite “sales-y” for lack of a better term – which initially made me think that he was indeed a scammer. But it turned out that his next-level training & mentorship program – Profile Method – is one of the best in the industry. So surface-level marketing and advertising is sometimes quite difficult to see through and understand the validity of what’s being offered. Then there are mentors like Josh Schuler at Trade With Profile who don’t do anything that resembles “flashy” advertising at all. But the tough part about this approach is that he gets nowhere near the recognition he deserves. He legitimately offers one of the best training and mentorship programs in the industry at 2-3X less than comparable programs – yet his following on social media, for example, is fairly limited. Popularity isn’t necessarily correlated with quality. Some of the biggest scam programs I’ve come across have gigantic followings (sometimes in the millions), while some of the most authentic only have a few thousand or so. It’s sad, but most of what’s out there can’t really be trusted – so I try my best to share only the most legitimate courses/programs/services/mentors that have had an extremely positive impact on me.
To answer your question about the crypto industry, I do think it will last. It’s quite clear to me that physical currency will eventually be phased out and replaced entirely (or close to it) with digital currency. But I don’t personally speculate too deeply on what form that might take. It’s hard to say which specific crypto-related companies and cryptocurrencies will sustain over time. I do have some longer-term investments in Bitcoin and Ethereum that I plan to hold for years, but that has nothing to do with my short-term trading. On an intraday basis, my entire focus is on futures, and more specifically: index futures, and even more specifically: the e-mini S&P 500. That’s personally where I’ve carved out my own personal niche and I enjoy trading that same market/product every single day. But that doesn’t mean auction market theory and profiling (and everything else these mentors teach) can’t be applied to other asset classes like stocks, forex, cryptocurrencies, etc. Keep in mind that cryptocurrency futures contracts do exist – so if I were to venture down that road myself, that’s where I would be looking to trade crypto on an intraday basis (long-term investments would be a different story – I wouldn’t look to futures for that).
Hopefully this response helps. I know a lot of people get excited about trading crypto because it’s been the hot thing for the past several years, but I don’t personally trade it on a short-term basis at the moment. I’m not saying it’s bad, but I stick to my lane with index futures.
Thank you for highlighting free ways to learn from these proven veterans. I have seen so many of Aaron Korb’s resources from your blog, like his YouTube. But getting to know that I can also discover free information from Josh Schuler and Merritt Black is exciting. I have subscribed to Merritts’s daily insights and follow him on Twitter. I bet he will also be as resourceful as Korbs. Once again, I say thank you
No problem!
Take full advantage of the free resources these mentors have to offer. I’m a huge fan of all of their premium courses/training & mentorship programs (Profile Pathway, Profile Method, NADRO Training, etc.), but there’s so much knowledge that can be soaked up for free through their YouTube channels, for example. They each offer some great free/low-cost opportunities to get started learning and developing into a competent/skilled trader.
As someone who has recently started trading crypto, I am very appreciative of the information you have posted here. I know these are futures trading mentors and not crypto trading mentors but being in a position where I’m learning how to trade efficiently, I’m very pleased that someone in my boat trying to learn how to trade futures would be able to find mentors with your help. Maybe you could compile a list of crypto trading mentors for people like me, or do you know if any of these teachers have dabbled in crypto before?
Hi Steven – great question.
I don’t really have a list of great crypto trading mentors to compile. To be honest, I have an extremely hard time trusting anybody in that space. It’s so full of nonsense, gimmicks, and overall scammy behavior that I’m not all that interested in digging into it. It reminds me of all the nonsense circulating online in the forex space – but worse.
I’ve been trading and studying the landscape of online trading education for the better part of a decade – and it’s chock full of lifestyle marketing and get-rich-quick promises. But to a large degree, futures markets are an exception to this phenomenon. There’s a much more “professional” feel to them. It’s the ideal environment to operate in for aspiring intraday traders who are actually serious about mastering the craft. The information and training/mentorship are far more legitimate and it’s just been my experience that futures markets have a much higher level of integrity in comparison to stocks, forex, cryptocurrencies, etc. Futures used to be intimidating for the average retail trader due to the size of each contract – so I understand the hesitation years ago. But with the advent of micro contracts and funded traders programs in recent years, capital restraints are no longer a legitimate excuse. And I’ve never personally traded them, but there are crypto futures contracts available – so you might want to consider those. For the most part, the 3 futures mentors mentioned above focus on index futures (like S&P 500 and Nasdaq) and sometimes commodities (like Crude Oil), but some of them do occasionally monitor and trade cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin and Ether).
So don’t think that the methodologies that futures mentors like Josh Schuler, Aaron Korbs, and Merritt Black teach can’t be applied to cryptocurrencies – because they absolutely can. They can even be applied to stocks and forex. But these mentors specifically choose to trade futures as active intraday traders because they’re superior trading products – plain and simple. I’m not saying that nobody makes money trading stocks, forex, and crypto on an intraday basis – I’m positive there are people out there doing it. But the benefits of futures are simply unmatched. I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but I don’t think it’s a mere coincidence that pretty much all of the best traders and trading mentors I’ve come across over the past ten years mainly operate within futures markets with an auction market/profiling framework. The masses flock to “shiny objects” (like forex, crypto, small cap stocks, etc.), while the select few serious/committed individuals gravitate toward futures and develop legitimate market competence/skill.