May be One way to beat better : is Writing Covered Calls... may be by adding some 5 LEAPS to 500 shares to doubble the result. Initiate the two legs separatly (at the better price each time) And use (trade) the fair price movement into each leg! Like this no worries, because 85% of the options expire worthless Sell only 8 (-->30/45 days expiration) of 10 underlying (dont forget the delta) for further information, see http://www.google.be/search?hl=fr&q=options+expire+worthless+85&btnG=Recherche+Google&meta= and http://www.google.be/search?hl=fr&q=selling+calls+options+against+stocks+LEAPS&btnG=Rechercher&meta=
someone mentioned the william o'neil book, how to trade ins tocks. read reminiscences of a stock operator (lefevre), and how i made 2 million (darvas) as well. understand that cnbc is NOT the market. understand that following most gurus will not make you money. it's (relatively) easy to make money in the last throes of a bubble. you said you barely broke even in 2006; in equities, things move much faster than in real estate (and commodities, much more so). errors are less forgiving in the stock market. anyhow...put aside a couple chunks of money. the first is your "i'm not touching this, it takes care of all iving expenses and everything else" for a few year. the second is some amount over 25k - i'd recommend at least 35-40k - for, after you've done reading and paper trading, actual trading at some point. the third is some other amount over 25k, when you make a serious dent (hopefully, NOT blowing out) in the second chunk of money. good luck, and you will be wrong a LOT of times in the market. minimize losses relative to rewards and you'll do ok.
===================== Best bang for the buck; Jack Schwager 3 top traders books. And keep reading RE ads on saturday; lenders ,lawyers have been helpful [done it decades] Perhaps the biggest difference between RE and stocks; most ''bargains in'' stocks are best sold, bargains in RE, buy then sell
dood, You may want to check this article out: http://www.thestreet.com/_tscs/funds/investing/10352216.html Tom