word of caution ..anyone pm'ing you to be your god-sent "mentor" make sure he/she is actually qualified to be one in the first place. You dont want to waste your time speaking with someone who is all style-over-substance. My advice -forget the whole mentor approach -it comes later in the game. First try to develop a thorough understanding of the securities markets be it equities, fx, futures or commodities. Read a few good books that explain the macro workings of the markets, and then focus more on technicals, strategies etc...basically a top-down approach. If you start bottom up, then you might develop into one of the idiot traders at my office who thinks that every 5cent move on a stock is "news" related.
Thanks for the inputs and advice. I am beginning to notice a pyhcologocal weakness in me that I have been dealing for a long time now. I tend to learn on a superficial level. I will read first the most complicated material when if fact I should be taking baby steps. I have done a lot of reading but it seems to have been waisted energy. I like to eat the elephant at once. I zig zag from one reading to another -- or one seminar to another --and miss out the basics. I need real focussed and basic easy to understand reading with no BS that is leading in a real direction. I also need very practical basic learning how to trade --and which software and which broker to use. I am sure once I learn the very basics with some discipline, I will have walked the first most difficult ten miles and will catch up to speed. I get up everyday, scan about 20 stocks --write the ones I think have good chart patterns -to paper trade --- then get lost into the world of reading. I will certainly blow my account if I keep doing this -- as most of my paper trades lose. Spyder -- your journal so far seems interesting. Let me give it another try -- If there are any Jack Hersey students in the Toronto area -- I would certainly welcome a pm --- or any genuine traders in the TO area -- lunch would be on me...