Agreed!!!!! number one rule imo: Trade with your own personality. What does that mean? You may not be able to scratch the surface on the ES, 6E, CL, etc., BUT, you may find that options fit you best. OR, visa versa. Swing trading, position trading equities, trading bonds, using a technical only approach trading price action and volume, trading on fundamentals, and using charts as a "just want to see where price has been" methodology, etc., ALL of these can work. However, you have to find what fits YOUR personality first. Takes time. How much time? Depends on you... Best of luck!
Therealu, See New Strategy in Strategy trading posts. I also was bewildered by all of the data on trading, but this post information opened up my eyes for one.
Too bad there isn't a book out there that explains trading in general with examples of all the types and some examples with pros & cons... I've tried quite a few types of trading and it took a long time to find my groove, but most of it was, the more I learned, the more I found that was out there to learn... At first I thought that trading was just buying & selling stocks a whole bunch of times a day. Now I know some people make good money doing just that, but not I. I finally found a collection of styles that works well for me and I can switch among them to fit with the market moods. But agreed... everyone needs to find themselves out there somewhere...
Your profile says you are in Canada. Look up Tom Stanley. Hes a fundamental investor / trader who got amazing returns. He has an internship so I've read. (Check out his resolute funds site). But you need to think about how you will trade - If you see yourself in a bank setting - get derivatives experiences for swaps - FX, Equities, etc.... or work for a commodity trading firm, there are a couple in Canada, but you'd probably move on. Unless you are very well capitalized, the Market is not conducive to growing a small account without generating substantial drawdowns or blowups... So I would stick to an aggressive job search first (you're only 24, a person with experience could save you years of errors and financial mistakes in a couple of hours one on one discussion) , and let the system give you the Market education you need, rather than trying to figure it all out on your own. If you cannot find a decent gig to trade at in the next little while, by 2012, equities should bottom and you can build a big stake riding the next bull Market. If you have computer / math / etc training, use that to get in the door. A background in mining / commodities / agriculture is valuable right now at various commodity trading shops globally. That kind of degree could be used to get in somewhere. Obviously stay away from mutual fund style investing and that career path, because that is a dying field (ETFs are taking over, and the fundamental of equities right now are highly risky, and anyone who goes into bonds is not paying 3% management fees on the account)