Reader Feedback & Question

Hi Michael,

I have a question. I am a 50 year old blue collar type of joe. I work in the food industry as a kitchen manager. I have always had an intense interest in the markets and have been educating myself over the years as far as how the markets work and who the players are.

You and Michael Covel are by far the best educators that I’ve come across. I have never actually traded before; I want to get more knowledge before I start. I will have between 40 & 50k in trading capital when I start. Trading to me represents independence and a chance to do things that I have not been able to do with my life. To me, it’s a challenge.

My question is, do you think that I am expecting too much from the markets? I have read that it’s not a good thing to expect the markets to do things for you. How do you balance this? I will be trading my own account; I’m not looking to manage other peoples money. Thanks for your time. I love your website and your intro to commodities course.

Bob D.

Expectations have built-in disappointments. I think you’d do well to think that the market will try to kill you and take all your money. Focus on keeping your losses small and start by trading 1 or 2 contracts to see how it feels. And by that, I mean “how does it feel?” – not “how do you think your trading is going so far?” If you feel scared, you should hold off.

If you do trade, grow your account and don’t take any money out. In other words, don’t trade and try to live off of the growth. You’ll always be trading with scared money.

It’s better to peel off a chunk and leave it somewhere and trade the rest. IMHO, it’s better to be a blue collar joe b/c you’ll have an appreciation for the money and you’ll probably err to keeping losses small. You know how hard it is to accumulate that much in the first place.

Second, you probably have some ambition about you with this sort of background b/c things have not been provided for you, so my guess is your intention is rock solid. But you’ll only know for sure once you start managing risk.