Well, it's time to hang up the old keyboard. I've made my nut and I need some time off to look into the rest of life. The next issue will be my last, and the responsibility for STOCKS & COMMODITIES will now fall on the new editor, Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan.

In 1982, when I started writing about my trading, I saw the world as full of pitfalls amid which we poke and probe for a safe, rewarding path. When a probing trade comes back with two-thirds of the margin missing, the novice learns to avoid something. For a novice, that knowledge is enough -- survival alone is his or her goal. A trader, on the other hand, having bested the issue of survival, may probe some more -- perhaps more gingerly - to find a profit maker. By the time he becomes a true speculator, perhaps he knows what is in the margin-devouring pitfall. After all, the word "speculator" comes from the Latin verb "to see"; hence, a person who truly does see what is before him. To become a speculator, then, is a great achievement.

Funny, though: I didn't see what I expected to see. I set out to capture the market in code, seeing its guts and using them for divination. Instead, I found the market evanescent. It was a will-o'-the-wisp of chance meetings between individual decisions, not a place or a thing or a rule or a procedure or a company or even an economy. These chance meetings could have any result, but in their uncertainty, they gathered around previous results, huddling close to the known in the face of the unknown. Trading turned out to be simpler than I thought, less to it than met the eye. High highs, higher lows. Breaking support or resistance. Nothing exotic.

Still, there are advantages to trading. First, you are truly in control -- you have full autonomy and authority. The markets are always available and will be for the foreseeable future. Thus, if you can survive the trading novitiate, you are assured opportunity in good times or bad. In addition, the upside is unlimited (if unlikely), while the downside should be limited -- the reverse of most jobs. Further, the markets, which are tied to fundamental economic trends and which are cyclic in nature, promise more or less continuous movement and change -- that is, profit opportunities. Not only that, you can practice your work any place in the world and your time is spent furthering your own interests, not your employer's.

Entry is not barred by "credentialism," and the test of success is unambiguous. Success is reasonably related to the one thing you should be able to control: yourself. The market is an expensive place to learn about yourself, but you won't find a more patient or consistent teacher. There is no limit to your growth in the markets, and the subject area is the world -- a subject you're unlikely to master fully but which is certainly worth your trouble and always interesting.

All these words, most from 1982, are still good. There've been millions of words between then and now. Hope you've enjoyed them.

Departing Editor Sweeney can be reached at Nail56@home.com after July 30.

Good Fortune!

John Sweeney, Interim Editor 

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