If resources are still to be committed to stock or commodity futures trading, it helps to have realistic expectations. Financial markets don't exist to make the individual trader wealthy. A private trader will be competing against much more experienced and better informed traders with far deeper pockets in what is basically a zero sum game. Every dollar that is won (or lost) comes out of (or goes into) someone else's pocket. In the beginning, a trader's goal should be not to get rich quick. Instead, the outlook should be a professional approach emphasizing a conservative view of the markets. Also important to keep in mind is that actual trading results will probably be somewhat worse than results computed from back-testing.