Hello futures.io (formerly BMT) Traders,

Whenever I venture on a new undertaking, I jokingly tell my friends: listen up guys, I now know what I want to be when I grow up!

Yup you guessed it, a Trader, more specifically, a Futures Trader!

Mind you, I'm only 53 years young...

A brief background: Educated as an engineer (never practiced), IT professional , commercial pilot (2,000+ hours) , aircraft builder (Lancair), entrepreneur (owned quick-lubes), semi-pro poker player (live), and real-estate investor.

So, a few months ago, I was pondering on what I want to do next. Just sold my franchise business, kids gone, and working from home full time as an IT guy. Can't beat on-line poker and am tired of driving one hour to and from the casinos three times a week. No money in aviation but flying is my passion, so I continue to fly for peanuts.

In any case, I am due for a new challenge wherein I can hopefully also profit...

So, I stumbled unto Tim Sykes website, penny stock trading commercial, on-line and was instantly hook on the idea of being a trader. That's it, I want to be a trader when I grow up, yes, that's it!!!

I actually signed up for Tim's pennystockingsilver chatroom service for about a month and quickly realized that I can't stand the guy. But more importantly, I couldn't make sense on why he or how he decides to make trades. I also purchased Michael Michaud's Textbook Trading DVD because it was rated well @ Profit.ly website and seems like a good starting point to me. I was disappointed, however, as it was not really a textbook per se, lots of set-ups but short on specifics and details. Not totally useless since I started with almost zero trading knowledge, but way overpriced.

As I researched and read more and more trading stuff on the internet, I discovered that trading futures is probably what I will concentrate on moving forward from this point.

Lots of information and educators that point toward Technical Analysis as the main basis for an overall trading strategy. Initially, I thought, wow, that's real cool, candlestick charts, head&shoulders formations, EMA's, Bollinger bands, MAC-D, etc. Until I discovered orderbook and DOM reading! The 'Holy Grail' of Trading? Probably not. But to me, logically in my mind at least, learning this skill will probably yield optimum results.

Next step? Not entirely sure yet but am currently digesting literature and videos from NoBSDayTrading, TopStepTrader, & JigSawTrading.

Best regards to all,
-PilotTrader

P.S. BTW, I am so, so glad to have found futures.io (formerly BMT)! What a fantastic trading resource...