I realize that there is one day left, so this may be a bit premature but I prefer to think positive I began trading around September of this year with absolutely zero knowledge. By zero I mean that I traded for a week without knowing what a stop order was. To this day I cannot read a candlestick chart. What little knowledge I had came from reading posts on these forums while trading and working a real job during the day. I picked up several books, mostly the classics, that were recommended here. The postings here have given me insight into what I should expect from myself. There is a tremendous amount of technical knowledge on these forums also, but I have found that most of it is far above my head. That is intimidating, but it serves to keep me humble and cautious... and for now it has helped to keep me profitable. Using an initial investment of $25,200 (beginning in early Oct) I have earned $1000 in October and November (each) and about $1800 in December. A bit of luck tomorrow and I could hit $4000 total for the year. I was actually up about $5000 for this month but squandered it early on, recovering only in the last week. I fully realize that 3 months of profit means nothing. Should I be able to remain profitable for a full year I will consider myself to have a knack for this. The coming year should prove most interesting. I am a .NET developer in the real world and I intend to develop some minor utilities to help me do some things that I now do manually with pen and paper. While I have spent less time developing a technical understanding of trading, I have worked hard on the emotional side of things, managing myself and my personal tendencies. This was important as I tend to be excitable by nature I may not brag about my trading, but I am amazed at how I've been able to separate emotion from daily events. Had you asked 6 months ago I would have believed it impossible. I think that having a few moderate successes brings its own set of problems. I've watched myself change in different ways. Recently someone posted about whether or not people use a daily benchmark to mark success. For myself, I do not look at things daily or weekly. I try not to think that way but rather go with what I believe will happen. And I never look at something and think about *needing* to make another $100. If it looks like its time to bail - I bail. One thing that I notice changing is that I tend to be more protective of profits at the end of month... a bit more conservative. Whether this harms me or not I cannot say, but I do notice this tendency. I do not want anyone to think that by mentioning my lack of technical trading ability that I believe it is unneccessary. In fact I think quite the opposite. My inability to read charts or other skills has held me back and certainly contributed to more then a few of my boneheaded errors. It is much, much more difficult to gauge buying/selling pressure without a) understanding all of the tools and b) understanding what signals the other people are looking at. In 2006 I fully intend to work on developing at least some fundamental skills. Again I want to thank the contributors on this forum that have helped me over the last year and I wish everyone the best and good luck with your trades in 2006.