[MRM]

If it was possible to beat the market with these tools, everyone would do it. If you don't do it for a living, and have the resources of a trading house behind you, don't do it at all. Trying to compete with the guys with supercomputers and all the insider information is like taking your money to Vegas and betting against the house - you are playing their game with their rules. Sure, you could win. The odds are just very much against it.

Several years ago the guy who ran the investment portfolio for Yale retired. He had a brilliant career beating the market and wanted to write a book telling individual investors how to replicate his success. He quickly realized that only someone with the resources available to an institutional investor could do what he did. He ended up writing a book that told individuals that the only way they can make money in the market is to invest in value companies for the long term and benefit from their appreciation over time.

This is good advice. The individual investor, no matter how well educated, motivated and informed, cannot compete with the people who trade with exotic investments professionally. You should not try to. Invest for the long term in companies who have underlying value and you will make boring but good returns. Try anything else and the law of averages will eventually get you.