It may take 3 to 5 years to become a good trader. Becoming an expert could take even longer. No one can teach you to press a few buttons on your computer and make money. There are no magic formulas. What it takes is:

1. a sound working knowledge of the basics;

2. an understanding of the traps and pitfalls that you face in the market every day; and

3. above all else, it requires an understanding of yourself.


What it Takes to Become an Expert

Scientists have conducted extensive research into what it takes to achieve mastery in a particular discipline. Karl Anders Ericsson and his colleagues studied top performers in a wide variety of fields and identified a specific type of practice, which they call deliberate practice, that is required to achieve excellence (Ericsson

Let's get one thing out of the way: your employer probably isn't the next Enron.

Bad experiences make a huge impression on investors. A generation of investors who went through the Great Depression convinced themselves that buying stocks was basically the same as betting at the track. Talk to old failed day-traders from the Internet boom era and you'll hear stories about how they'll never do it again.

The same attitude surrounds buying shares of your employer's stock in your 401(k). The very thought of buying company stock brings up images of Enron and Worldcom employees cleaning out their desks and selling paperweights with corporate logos on eBay as macabre reminders of the financial devastation that thousands suffered. Waves of litigation ensued, snaring not just failed businesses but also companies like Boeing (NYSE: BA - News), Tribune Company (NYSE: TRB - News), Dynegy (NYSE: DYN - News), and EDS (NYSE: EDS - News).

Even though some employees lost everything by owning company stock doesn't mean you should avoid it entirely. Here's how to do it right.

1. Don't overdo it.
The employees who lost the most in the Enron and Worldcom debacles took on too much risk in their retirement plans. Their plan balances represented the bulk of

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Employers sliced payrolls by 4,000 jobs in August, the first such decline in four years and a stark sign that a painful credit crunch that has unnerved Wall Street is putting a strain on the national economy.

The latest snapshot of the employment climate, released by the Labor Department on Friday, also showed that the unemployment rate held steady at 4.6 percent, mainly because hundreds of thousands of people left the work force for any number of reasons.

The surprisingly weak report provides the Federal Reserve with a reason to lower interest rates when it meets next on Sept. 18.

Job losses in construction, manufacturing, transportation and government swamped gains in education and health care, leisure and hospitality, and retail. Employment in financial services was flat. The weakness in payrolls reflected fallout from a deepening housing slump, a credit crisis and financial turbulence that

SINGAPORE (AP) -- Oil prices gained Friday after U.S. government data showed a larger-than-expected decline in domestic crude stocks.

Light, sweet crude for October delivery rose 25 cents to $76.55 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, midmorning in Singapore. The contract added 57 cents to settle at $76.30 a barrel Thursday.

In its weekly inventory report, the U.S. Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said crude oil inventories fell by 3.9 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 31., more than tripling analysts' average prediction for a 1.1 million barrel decline.

Gasoline inventories fell by 1.5 million barrels, slightly more than the 1.1 million barrel decline analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected.

Refinery utilization, however, jumped by 1.8 percentage points to 92.1 percent of capacity, much more than the 0.2 percentage point increase analysts had