I can definitely say, I am glad I am not learning in this market, I'm sure it can be done but wow is it harder than it was. Best of luck, if you are determined to do it than my best advice is - DISCIPLINE, above all else. Good luck, let us know if you succeed or fail so we know what to tell the next "average" guy.
It's hard to think of a truly "average" guy in trading financial markets would have the above attributes. Maybe an "average" guy would not even know the existence of www elitetrader.com. How could we believe that a guy who knows well how to ask such smart questions like this thread is still an average guy? Be confident in yourself and very careful about risks, you will be fine.
If I don't take your words literally, should I believe your statement above is true, or not? How could an average guy like me understand your intelligent puzzle like this one? You are amazing, axeman.
Some say our human brain is the best (fast, sophisticated and most powerful) computer so far. Now I think that's true. :eek:
Quote Long-Term Capital Management [LTCM] was a hedge fund using derivatives so arcane even some of the people at LTCM who created it apparently did not understand it. Like Nick Leeson at Barings' BFS, LTCM seems to be another case of a single main player, John Meriwether, whose errors in judgement may have, without emergency intervention, destabilized the entire global stock market. LTCM was reportedly bailed out at the Federal Reserve Board Chairman's "request" as letting the derivative-driven hedge fund collapse may have risked creating excessive turbulence in the global financial market. See: Sep't 25, 1998 Stocks drop sharply amid global market turmoil, hedge-fund debacle "NEW YORK (CNNfn) - U.S. stocks started Friday where they left off the day before, extending a steep sell-off triggered by renewed concerns about the health of global financial markets....The jitters came in the wake of the collapse of Long-Term Capital, a multibillion U.S. hedge fund facing failure because of risky bets made in emerging markets. Late Wednesday, some of Wall Street's most venerable institutions came together in a deal brokered by the Federal Reserve and agreed to come up with $3.5 billion in cash in an attempted bailout for LTC." Unquote
If the link just takes you to the home page register and see the june issue, "Innovations in disaster, are otc derivatives running amok" by Desmond Macrae