Trading is a game with certain rules for winning and certain rules for how the game is played. And if you don't know this, then you are playing by other people's rules and probably have little chance of winning. Who makes up the rules? The answer is the people with the most money at stake.

Now, if this is all new to you and you'd like to know the rules you are playing by, then I'd suggest that you spend a day reading back issues of the Wall Street Journal and perhaps a week listening to CNBC. You also might go to the bookstore and pick up a couple of the most popular trading books (my books won't work for this purpose). When you'd done with all of this, then write down what you think the rules for trading might be.

Your rules would probably be something like:

1) Success is created by picking the right stock.
2) Find them and hold them.
3) Diversification is the key to not losing money.
4) Some stock pickers are better than others and they must have a magic secret.
5) If you found this secret, you could make millions in the market (even with a $5000) account.
6) And if you trade, you need to make lots of trades, because the costs become much lower.
and winning in the market involves making 100s of millions of dollars.
7) It doesn't take a lot of work to make money in the market, you just have to find the right investments or the right money manager.

If you haven't figured out that trading is a game, then you are probably playing by these rules. And they are dangerous. Most people lose money playing by them because they were designed (by the people who made them up) to make them a lot of money.

However, once you understand that trading is a game, you can (within limits) make up your own rules for how to play the game and especially your own rules for how to win the game. People who do this usually become winners. And if you'd like to understand a set of rules that you just might be able to win with, then I'd suggest that you look at the new edition of Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom.