Happy Friday to All! I am a long-time reader but new poster here on ET. I was referred to the site back in 2004 by the user Roxyman in Philly when I first started actively trading. Needless to say, things have been very busy since then and I really haven't read as much as I would have liked on this site. I think, for the most part, that it is a valuable source of information regarding finance in general. I am sure there are a few people out there who I have run across in person but I will start by telling everyone else a little about myself. I began in the proprietary trading world in 2004, working in NYC for a while but due to the commute I soon began remotely trading from where I lived at the time in NJ. Like many, I did not enjoy immediate success, and eventually left the first firm after one year. I decided to shop around for the next firm and soon hooked up my new workstation in order to get right back at it. Well, my goal was to learn something new every day and I refused to give up until there was nothing new to learn-of course, there is a lot to learn, always! Either way, for a few months I just messed around, learning the system and so forth, opening and closing trades, etc. This time it took me about 4 months until I was really able to turn things around. The beginning of 2006 marked the year that I started making a small consistent profit, but it also marked the time that I decided to use my 7 and take a position at one of the discount brokers here in Phoenix. All of this happened in a very short amount of time-the best profits of course were just before and after I found out I had the job! However, fielding the active trader phone calls, which I was doing at the time, gave me a tremendous insight into habits of profitable (and nonprofitable) traders. Answering a technical analysis question one minute, an accounting question the next, and placing an order for an option spread the next-well one learns pretty quickly. Due to compliance reasons I was forced to close my prop account, but was allowed to get involved in the currency foreign exchange market instead, and tried to use my knowledge of economics to learn that arena. I really enjoy watching currencies and commodities-I feel that they are more supply/demand based than stocks, which react to such a vast universe of different variables and are difficult to diagnose. Either way, most of what I talk about will involve equities, foreign exchange, and commodities. I consider myself a technician but still have an active interest in fundamentals-I have a accounting background and plan to take Level I CFA in December. Anyone out there in Phoenix give me a holler sometime. My next post I want to share some of my favorite trading books. Derek