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Every year thousands of very successful individuals make a decision to start investing in stocks, or trading: commodities, currencies, or stocks. All traders are on a constant quest for knowledge that will help them increase their profitability. Most individuals decide to start investing or trading for a variety of logical and emotional reasons, many of which have not been adequately addressed. The goal of this book is to help you make your quest easier and less painful. Let me begin by asking you a key question: What do you really want to accomplish as a trader or investor? The market will give you incredible pleasure if you approach it correctly. However, if you approach trading and the market from the wrong direction, you'll receive incredible pain!
There are two primary ingredients for success in any endeavor: mastery of your physical environment, and mastery of your internal mental environment. When it comes to markets, the physical environment consists of numbersnamely, prices. The cold, hard truth is that prices can do absolutely anything tomorrowit is impossible to predict with certainty where they will be. The best you can do is determine what prices will probably occur tomorrow. To do so, you need to have a trading methodology that gives you an edge.
Unfortunately, before you can ever hope to truly have an edge, you must first master your internal environment. Your internal environment consists of your beliefs, values, and rules. It is how you perceive the external market. Think about the times you achieved a new goal in the past. After achieving it, were you the same person you were when you initially started? Have you thought about what type of person you must become to be a successful trader or investor?
This book is intended to give you as many advantages as possible to help you dramatically increase the amount of your profits and speed at which you generate them. While the language in this book is geared toward traders in the commodity, currency, and derivative markets, the information is just as valid for long-term stock investors.
As a group, new traders consist largely of very successful people. Doctors, attorneys, airline pilots, and entrepreneurs comprise the four largest groups who decide every year to try their hand at trading. Of course, outside of these four primary groups new commodity traders have a vast and varied background. This categorization is less true for stock traders.
Traders have lost billions of dollars in the pursuit of profits. They have spent millions of dollars to purchase computer trading programs, attend seminars, and read trading books. Sadly, the average new trader will lose most if not all of his or her trading capital within four to eight months of opening a trading account.

 
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