Hi everyone,
First, a little background about myself. I was first introduced to futures through the famous (or infamous) Ken Roberts course back in the early 90s when I was a university student. Unfortunately, being young and naive, I believed all the hype that you could basically become a millionaire overnight. I made it through the course and attempted to paper trade but being a broke student, couldn't afford to subscribe to a charting service (this was back in the days when the Internet was still in it's infancy) I tried to get around this by making my own charts using the commodity price information from the financial section of my daily newspaper.I eventualy gave up. due to the sheer effort involved plus I lacked the focus and organization which made all my efforts wasteful and inefficient. I basically forgot all about commodities for a few years until 2001 when I came across another company selling a trading course. I can't quite recall the name of the company (was something like "Securities International or "Investments International). They were based out of Vancouver, BC Canada. The course was somewhat similar to the Ken Roberts course but went a bit more in depth with technical analysis. Unfortunately, like most courses out there, they were also heavy on the hype so I ended up abandoning this one also. Suffice to say, both these experience soured me on futures trading for a while. Plus, every book or article on investing would basically say to avoid futures like the plague. One book I had just gave a one paragraph blurb on futures basically saying it's just another form of gambling, let's move on. Then you have others saying that you can be successful by using the right strategy. Being a total newbie, I just want to be able to separate the "wheat from the chaff", so to speak. I just want to know how I should get started in educating myself about futures trading. I realize the learning curve is fairly steep, so I want to give myself the best chance of success.
First, a little background about myself. I was first introduced to futures through the famous (or infamous) Ken Roberts course back in the early 90s when I was a university student. Unfortunately, being young and naive, I believed all the hype that you could basically become a millionaire overnight. I made it through the course and attempted to paper trade but being a broke student, couldn't afford to subscribe to a charting service (this was back in the days when the Internet was still in it's infancy) I tried to get around this by making my own charts using the commodity price information from the financial section of my daily newspaper.I eventualy gave up. due to the sheer effort involved plus I lacked the focus and organization which made all my efforts wasteful and inefficient. I basically forgot all about commodities for a few years until 2001 when I came across another company selling a trading course. I can't quite recall the name of the company (was something like "Securities International or "Investments International). They were based out of Vancouver, BC Canada. The course was somewhat similar to the Ken Roberts course but went a bit more in depth with technical analysis. Unfortunately, like most courses out there, they were also heavy on the hype so I ended up abandoning this one also. Suffice to say, both these experience soured me on futures trading for a while. Plus, every book or article on investing would basically say to avoid futures like the plague. One book I had just gave a one paragraph blurb on futures basically saying it's just another form of gambling, let's move on. Then you have others saying that you can be successful by using the right strategy. Being a total newbie, I just want to be able to separate the "wheat from the chaff", so to speak. I just want to know how I should get started in educating myself about futures trading. I realize the learning curve is fairly steep, so I want to give myself the best chance of success.
