For those of you just getting started, I'll explain the evolution of my thinking to arrive to what I do today in the markets, with the sincere hope that it will somehow help you and save you some $, time, mistakes and worries in your own journey in that incredibly fascinating financial world.

A few years ago, I finally had some saved money to invest and so I did the usual approach of studying all options offered to me to make that money grow AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, AS FAST AS POSSIBLE and with the LEAST WORK POSSIBLE...

I did eliminate pretty quickly most candidates/vehicles to "grow" those hard earned $: -CDs: no thanks... I can throw money to the inflation ducks of the worldwide (and very deep) pond on my own!

-Mutual Funds: no control there whatsoever added to the fact that 75% of them are doing worse than and INDEX 500 fund... not for me neither!

-Real Estate: I like CASH, ACTION and the FREEDOM of working and living anywhere in the world so ... not for me!

-Stocks: here we go... that was my first stop.

What I realized then was the INCREDIBLE POWER OF COMPOUNDING... especially if you have a lot of years ahead of you...

When I crunched some numbers and realized that the difference between "growing" $50K for 20 years at 10% and growing that same amount at 25% was $4,000,000 !!!! (about 13 times more!) ... then I decided that this was certainly a game worth learning and playing!

My 2 options then were then INVESTING and/or TRADING.

INVESTING is great but I soon realized that, if my goal was to make 25% and more, on a regular basis, over 10 years ... I better be realistic and think twice about pursuing that goal as it would simply mean that I was trying to beat Mr. BUFFET's results!

I always strongly believe in going full steam for HUGE goals in life ... but me trying to KO Mike Tyson will NEVER be one of my goals. You got to know your limits and the chances of success of your goal!.

So, I obviously needed to find SOMETHING ELSE to have a chance at yearly returns much higher than 25%. My other consideration is also that I want to make money to spend and enjoy NOW, not when I'll be 65. And I want to take a good shot at making LOTS of it... why not??? The only 2 possibilities left to fulfill those needs were then either doing a BANK ROBBERY or learning to TRADE STOCKS. For various subjective reasons and for the time being, I decided to go for the second one.

There is NO FREE MONEY on this planet. It took me a few years to realize it. "Substantial" money will only come to you through TAKING CALCULATED RISKS, NEVER GIVING UP and SMARTER SUPERIOR THINKING (some people always add "HARD WORK" but I try not to!). So, please, you got only 1 life to live and you don't even know if you'll still be here tomorrow so, give it your best shot and go for it with all that you have!

I therefore now specialize in 2 kinds of TRADING and I, for now, only trade STOCKS. 1/ "DAY TRADING" (DT) in which I take large positions for a few minutes up to a few hours but always close those positions before market close. 2/ What I call "OVERNIGHT TRADING" (ONT) in which I am willing, if needed or judged worth it, to keep a position OVERNIGHT, usually from1 day to a few days.

I got very excited right away about the stock market because it gives me several elements which have always been part of any venture that I started:

• -FREEDOM (of doing WHAT I want, WHERE I want and WHEN I want to)
• -NO (or very few) EMPLOYEES
• -NO "HARD" ASSETS (offices, machinery, supplies etc.) so I can "work/trade" from anyplace in the world (whether I decide to move to a new place or just to vacation there)
• -UNLIMITED PROFIT POTENTIAL
• -FUN AND CHALLENGING FOREVER!