The Realist: I hope you don't mind if I respond to your post to Zeev?
I have had many pmails or emails sent to me from individuals that have had the same experience you have since the market began it descent in 2000. You're doing a lot better than many.
Some folks after their beloved tech stocks or internet stocks did not rebound to new highs with the first dip (now drop) of the correction listened to their "new era" gurus that had made their reputation being perma-bulls in a mania. When the downturn came the reality that the gurus did know what they were doing eventually became obvious, after many of those that had lost money listened once again to their gurus and leveraged (using options, etc) new long positions with expectation of regaining quickly what they have given back. For some this was fatal, as they lost nearly everything.
Trading is "not" a get rich quick profession. In fact, few make it and it is very hard work. I "highly" recommend to anyone that is just starting out to only trade small amounts of shares (100 for starters) until you begin to understand what you are doing. Sure you're not going to get rich that way, but you're not going to give up a lot during the learning process either.
Once you have a system that is winning consistently enough to make you money. Then you can begin to gradually increase your exposure to the market by gradually increasing your position. Say, go from 100 shares to 200 shares for a while and so on.
This allows you to learn how to work with larger and larger positions. You find out how quickly you can get larger positions executed, keeping in mind equities with low volume can trap you in a dramatic move that goes against you. I almost always trade issues with plenty of liquidity.
More important than watching someone else trade and trying to follow them, is to learn how to identify opportunities for yourself and at the same time learn how to execute using your own system.
Regards,
LG
AI
Market Data 
Markets 
