Hello everyone

Hi Amber, thanks for sharing your thoughts on the stock market and making me feel better about the big losses. Gee, we had it all planned. Retire at 50, buy some property on an island in the Caribbean, day trade from our home on the beach, set up a web site and do some ecommerce, visit Toronto once a year to get away from the heat. Perhapas visit sowpub once in a while and see who's doing what. Ha Ha. Fat chance. Greed and ignorance will get you every time!!

>Since then, I have continued my studies and have >become a wee bit wiser, I think. I have made >money in recent months by buying 'put' options >rather than shorting stocks since put options >limit my losses) on extremely high P/E
>stocks...but this is a very tricky market and the wild swings are not for the
>faint of heart. Even the pro's are having a >tough time being on the right side
>of a trade

Amber, you're a smart lady. Neither Charles nor I have really done much studying on stock market trends. We just plain lucked out for the first two years. Admittedly, we fall in the category that the article talks about. We often get a lot of our information from "a hype-network like CNBC." We KNOW the analysts they put on are full of personal biases for or against certain stocks and it's all like a big soap opera at times when you watch the regulars. We do research the stocks before we buy and track them for a period of time, but often it's also gut feel. However, since the Enron fiasco, we can't even trust financials any longer!!

Before the crash, we did make some money buying the occasional puts, but we no longer subscribe to any of the options' newsletters that we used to. They all seem to recommend the same buys. What we do now, since there isn't much free money to invest, is, we record the calls in our PC quote software, and watch.

I have never ventured into the commodities market. We deal with a discount broker who is strictly into equity and options trading. I haven't had a chance to read the entire article that you linked me to. But I will. I actually have always wanted to get into commodities trading and bought a course advertised on TV some ten years ago. I 'think' that I still have the material but somehow because I didn't know anyone else who knew anything about commodities, I didn't have the nerve to go it alone.

Anyway, thanks for sharing this with me. Perhaps if I have any questions about commodities, I can email you privately.

Regards,

Eliz.