How Much Is Too Much?

About a year ago while sitting on the couch on a Sunday morning about 5AM after a bout of insomnia. An extended infomercial came on from a company named INVESTOOLS. The stock market had piqued my interest ever since my mother had died and I discovered she had a ton of stock options from Whole Foods Markets. Well, the options never got above water (I think they were 45 calls) as Whole Foods Markets slunk to new lows and then their creepy CEO was caught pumping the stock on Yahoo Finance.

Some time later I resolved to take the free Investools course, attended, signed up with T hinkorswim but said no thanks to the $1200 stocks course. Six months later Investools dropped the price to $295 and it was kinda funny because for months I thought for sure the price of the Foundations Stock course was $295 x 6 monthly payments, that the price was concealed in a sly way.

After thinking about the power of trading in options, I resolved to spend the $1800 thinking it was worth it anyway. I called Investools and the guy was like, "no way, it's $295 flat."

I declared, "Well, then Lee Barba (CEO of Investools) is insane because the course is worth way more."

My trading had become quite active by then as the insane twin of Investools, Thinkorswim, had thrown on a FREE options course and I was making money hand over fist selling vertical spreads on the SPY, DIA and IWM.

But this question: How Much Is Too Much? Is not about $1800 courses slashed to $295 or about the balance in my brokerage account (later reduced by assinine trades resulting from lack or training.) Its this: How much thinking about the market/about trading per day is too much?

In this amazing webinar by Tim Knight on Fibonacci ratios a few days ago, Tim quipped, "I had better stop here because I could talk about this until 1:30 am." Somehow I knew exactly what he was talking about. I could literally listen to Tim, take Investools classes, seminars, chats, virtual coach sessions and trade room capstones 20 hours per day.

For me, its been about 4 hours a day on this stuff in between a full time job and a full time family. On the markets, on trading there can never be enough.