Futures Trading

March 3 1995, I started to study commodities and trading futures contracts with an introductory course called The Worlds Most Powerful Money Manual and Course by the Ken Roberts Company.

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  • I made a deal with my neighbour, Dave, where I paid part of his subscription to the Toronto Globe and Mail and he saved the commodities quotes page for me each day. I photocopied blank chart grids and set pencil to paper.
     
  • For six months I called dozens of brokers for information while charting by hand before I opened an account with real money. Each and every trade was a loser and soon I was ‘taking a break’.
     
  • While I saved up funds for my next failing plunge, I phoned several exchanges and systematically requested every free brochure and flier they offered. It was amazing! They sent boxes of information and much of it was great to read. I received far more information from the each of the exchanges than was included in my first commodities course. But, the research idea was Ken Roberts… hummm.

Winter of 95, my Folks brought me their old IMB XT computer with Lotus 1-2-3 version 2.0!
 I was able to do ten-fold the analysis, and much faster than charting by hand! I entered daily data from the newspaper and it plotted moving averages, and even had an Accumulation/Distribution formula from an issue of Stocks and Commodities magazine!I put more money in my account in the spring of 96 and lost it just as quickly. My interest faded. I felt that I couldnt trade until I had the information that my Broker had… I needed a Pentuim computer system.

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By the fall of 96, Read more of my short story…

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