back in 1997 when I started out as a trader, i was fresh off business school--had a lot of different ideas, and maybe was a little bit gullible. I had all the knowledge, or so I thought. I also had all the resources, since I worked for a big investment firm. I was doing calls (both covered and naked), straddles,futures, forwards, currency trading--and even spread profits on some bonds (if this sounds too exotic, then simply read as follows: I was not very smart). I was sure my strategies were fool proof, because I had done my homework. I also did pretty good the first couple of years- it was the dot com boom era, remember? I was well on my way to becoming a multi millionaire by 2002, when tragedy struck early 2000---it took only 3 months to wipe away all my gains. I was smart enough (thank god) to pull out before it was too late, but it taught me a valuable lesson. there is no such thing as a sure thing in the market, unless you are extremely lucky. I am still in the investment industry, and I have tracked quite a bit of securities over the past 5 years-- yet I only purchase a very small amount of those securities myself, even though I may come out with a 'buy' rating on them. Why you ask? simply because my life is so hectic during market hours, I have little to no time of adjusting my portfolio on the fly. I also travel so often, this is too huge a risk. Does this sound like a lot of you? not having enough time to keep an eye on your investments? so keep it simple. set aside a small portion to play with, and implement all sorts of strategies there--god knows there are tons of resources available if you know where to look. But maintain the rest in a well diversified portfolio- kinda like the one I proposed above. In today's bull market, everyone brags about having the midas touch--but thats fools gold. wait till this thing corrects itself and see how those midases start turning things to stone. And we will see where we are in 10 years :)