I have thought about it but have not as yet looked into it.

Please keep us informed how it goes.

A good place to start would be to look at some charts and try to detect patterns.

http://futures.tradingcharts.com

To follow up on what I wrote earlier, I've tried to take a Ben Graham approach to stock investing, and it's worked well enough in the past, but I suspect those days are over. Graham did his work when there was still some sort of gold standard, and debt and currencies traded more or less rationally. Since then, world-wide fiat money printing has changed the whole equation. Now it's whatever fool is willing to step up (often with other people's money) that sets prices. I can't compete with that, nor (conscience aside) can I play their game - I'm just not fast enough.

So, what's left?

Real estate? ( I jest)

Bonds? Feh... only as a short, but then that's fighting the Fed - also a mugs game.

Currencies? I suppose, if you can figure out which one will blow up next. But you can trade those in the futures, so you might as well go whole hog and just learn that market.

Frankly, the closer I look, the more futures seems like the place to be. My reasoning goes something like this:

On the private side, some of the money in stocks was around for 1987. More of it was around for 1997/8, more still was taken down in 2000, and just about everyone got slammed in 2008. So, you're 50-something and retirement looms large. Are you gonna stick around and get slammed one last time, or are you gonna shelter what you have left? Remember, most private money is in this demographic, and your 20/30 somethings may be up for it (there's one born every minute) but they lack the funds - all the moreso with high unemployment now an established fact.

So, that takes care of private capital for a while.

Institutional capital is a little different. Some of that's retreated too, but what hasn't is now highly leveraged in a valient attempt to recoup losses. Predictable result: volatility, but little forward movement (no public to sell to). OK if you can game it, but again, easier to play in the futures, since these guys are almost entirely index driven.

What really interests me though, are the commodities more than futures. Unlike stocks and other essentially worthless paper, that's real stuff that people need, so you can be sure there'll always be a market. That they're global markets gives you extra protection from government interference, since most of them are too large to push around. All this fits my definition of a free market, where skill is pitted against skill, not insider information and regulatory blindness.

Anyway, that's my outsider's take on it. I'll find out soon enough what it's really like<g>

ebear