When I started trading for a living in 1997 I borrowed money to invest in stocks. I started by getting margin loans. I had used my home equity to buy investments in past so it wasn't totally new to me.

First I borrowed $50 000 and then I borrowed another $60 000.

Was this risky? YES - it was, because I was learning what to do as I went. What I did was I looked at stocks I liked and I went from trading stocks to trading leveraged instruments like:

instalments, options and warrants.

At top my portfolio was worth over $800 000 and a lot of that was due to re-investment of profits. I always re-invested my profits into next stock or play.

The other aspect which acted as a roller coaster was that I chose speculative situations. Within three years I had made $700 000 and started to lose money big time in 2000.

Now please don't use this recipe - it is very dangerous to do any of these things. What would make it less dangerous?

Good question - I'm glad you thought of it! Firstly, you need to have a system. Your system tells you when to buy and when to sell. I also suggest you get educated in market you want to trade and technical analysis.

To make anything less risky you must be in control. Is it possible? Well you can try - but there are no guarantees!

1*Have a system Your system rules are so important because they help you keep what you make.

2*Next you need money management rules. One of reasons I lost a lot of money was because I was putting too much money in trade and not limiting my risk.

This is a brilliant resource to help you prevent bad practices - it's called Trading Secrets Revealed:

http://tinyurl.com/4xml6

You will get a free audio training course when you visit site. I suggest you read this manual carefully and remember that David Jenyns has also lost money, which is a common lesson for anyone who decides to trade.

3*You can't run a trading business successfully or for very long without training. It's like, would you want to operate on people without qualifications of a doctor?

During last three FOMC meetings, Alan Greenspan raised interest rates by a quarter point in order to bring short term interest rates to a more neutral level. The rate hikes took short term rates to 175 basis points. Despite higher short term rates, throughout summer long term rates have unexpectedly move downward. This surprising movement in long term rates contributed to Morgan Stanley missing estimates during their latest quarterly earnings report, and has puzzled many Wall Street analysts. While some analysts may indicate recent economic slowdown as reason for this abnormality, a more practical explanation lies in United States large economic imbalances.

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