WHAT ABOUT JUDGMENTAL APPROACHES?

WOULDN'T IT BE NICE..

•  You study under the best of the high-powered pros. You achieve a 90%
win ratio through unexcelled market understanding.

•  You live where you want, trade when you want, and rid yourself of the
employee hassles that have been bugging you for years.

•  You turn a modest amount of money, through skill and diligence, into a
veritable mountain of pure financial muscle. You leave an ever-growing
portion of it in a high-yielding money market account whose proceeds will
allow you to zip offto Fiji when you choose to and... well, you know the
rest of the story.

THE REALITY...

1. You learn from one high-powered pro, then from another high-powered pro, and although you find some real benefit here and there, you're just never able to achieve quite what you expected.

1A. In fact, it's been years now, and after $30,000 in seminars, books, software, and trading courses, your profit is only barely able to cover your cost of overhead. You haven't been able to touch that $50,000 you're out from past trading losses!

•  If you can't find a way to get really profitable and hit a big home run,
your savings will be gone in not so many months. You start wondering if
you will become someone else's employee.

•  The stress and time demands of constantly focusing on that screen, being
there for the open, and tangling with the overnight Globex session have
you wondering ifyou'll ever get to the local beach. As for Fiji, is there a
contract on them? What'sthetick size and... where do Fijis trade?

Okay, things aren't quite as rosy or quite as bad as what I've outlined above, but they easily can be. In fact, they can be worse! What follows are some unqualified observations from my direct involvement: the odyssey I have experienced. This recantation of events isn't hypothetical, it's real time living stated here, so you can see how I arrived at certain conclusions. Then, perhaps you can better decide for yourself where you might best fit in.

SOME HISTORY:

Around 1980 I decided to investigate the futures markets. The plan was to switch from the vehicles I had been trading to what I knew was the most demanding and potentially rewarding game in town. The timing of the switch had to do with my view of my station in life. By that time I was "well heeled" enough to take what I expected would be a rough transition. I also thought my knowledge level and trading expertise were at a point where this new challenge could be properly met. I quickly realized two things. It was a good thing I had waited until I was "well heeled" and the challenge was a bit more than I had anticipated. Here are the highlights of the odyssey, how I got started in, and eventually became successful at trading futures.

After about a year of trading poorly, I managed a much sought-after meeting through a social contact with an extremely successful and reclusive CTA. This man was reputed to have made a bazzilian dollars over the past five years in agricultural futures. I wish I could describe this bizarre individual to you, but perhaps someone would recognize him, and one prerequisite for his tutelage was that I never reveal his identity. Of course, I never have.

After a few pleasantries, this "cerebral" type began our get-together with a discussion of, "What if you were a Martian and you came to earth to trade commodities." Hmm.... "You look at this action, that action, another action, and so on. Not being able to speak English, you simply watch actions. Prices fluctuate." He went on, "You talk with your Martian friends about these actions and you wonder about appropriate reactions." I looked at him as if he were Moses holding the Commandments behind his back and musing about the fit of his sandals. After an hour of this much cloaked "benefit," I was so befuddled and confused I was willing to settle for which way soybeans might be going. Hopefully that information would allow me to get back the cost of my travel to see him!

This man was the first of three mentors I was fortunate enough to have. Their kindness and willingness to share with me weighed heavily in my decision to begin teaching in 1986.

So what was all this about Martians? It took me a while to figure it out, but he held the key to the gold box and he wasn't about to share it with a stranger whose intentions, interest, and sincerity were unknown. This meeting was the first of many that stretched over a period of about three years. I learned a lot from this man who traded strictly and

competently from the basis of a non-judgmental system. But, strangely enough, none of what I learned was what I was after in that first meeting. He taught me that:

1. There are no absolute heroes, only heroes for a while.

•  All non-judgmental systems eventually fail (stop making money). Your
hope is to be using one while it is working.

•  Excellent information can be gleaned from a true expert once trust,
eligibility, and pre-requisites in your knowledge base are established.

•  Non-judgmental systems are lucky to achieve 50% winning trades, 30%
is acceptable.

•  Trading a non-judgmental system is difficult and stressful. It requires
tremendous concentration, diligence, and self discipline.

•  There is an awesome level of challenge, fulfillment, and discovery in the
entire trading process.