Justin wrote this morning to say ‘thank you'.

"bill, i realized today that i learn more from your site than the journal, barrons, and nytimes combined. thanks; Justin"

So I replied:

Hi Justin, I see you are a student at UCLA.

Knowledge is great, but before you learn you need to appreciate the reason why you are acquiring it.

Just remember that you have to decide if you want to be a good trader or whether you want to join the securities industry as an analyst. In the first case you need to broadly understand all the important fundamental, quantitative, technical and economic drivers of prices. In the other case, you need to acquire an in-depth expertise of one of these areas, and do it better than the person you hope to replace in the business.

A big mistake in trading that I see too many people make is that they try to become an expert (for instance) in Elliott Wave Theory, or Stochastics/MACD, without understanding why and how prices generally move.

Another mistake I see are young people who join the sell-side firms as sales persons thinking they can be analysts and traders. The people who excel in the securities industry are those who understand why they are there and go about meeting those objectives. If you want an analyst job, first become one by acquiring an expertise; then look for a job opportunity in that specific field.

Hope that helps.

Keep on learning. In the market, your education will never stop. We are all students of the market.

Cordially, /Bill