OK I admit it - I am possibly the crankiest trader in the world. Nuts to bankers - Nuts to speculators - But I do love life, fun, dogs, vacations, people, sport, cars, … and blogging. In fact I am only cranky when I trade, or read about the markets, or watch the news on the TV, or hear about more banker bonuses, or when my team loses, or .. enough already! If my crankiness could be harnessed to produce energy then I could power the whole bloody planet on a bad day.

Anyway I digress. Question - what separate’s human beings from the apes? Come on, you know the answer. No it’s not hair - the mono-browed Gallagher brothers (Oasis) have more hair than the average ape. Nope, no idea eh? Well there are actually two things that separate human beings from the apes:

1. Humans have Starbucks (but maybe not for much longer!).

2. Apes don’t use money.

It’s this second point that scientists cite as proof that apes have a far superior intelligence to us dumb humans. Think about it. The average human drags themselves out of bed, grabs a slice of toast on their way out of the door, commutes on an over-crowded train or road, spends most of their day doing stuff they don’t like - just to get money so that they can blow it on life’s essentials like beer and a kebab. Then up early the next day to do it all again. When we are not working us humans dream about having roast swan and cucumber sandwiches served on a silver tray for lunch - just like the Queen. We plot and scheme ways to get more money - enough to gilt our toilet with 24carat gold - enough to make us as rich as Warren Buffet (man that guy is so smart I think he just bought all the on the earth just so he can sell it back to us).

So unless you are an ape or Warren Buffet then you would probably like to have more cash just to enable you to dream about even richer things in life. That’s where I am and my choice of money making schemes is trading on the financial markets. I like it because:

1. It’s challenging.

2. When it works I can make an absolute killing.

3. It’s better than sex.

OK so I lied about number three but you get the message - trading the financial markets is brilliant, frustrating, rewarding, stressful, enjoyable, annoying, easy, hard, …. and that’s what I do. I am no expert at it but that doesn’t stop me earning good money using what I will admit are some pretty simple techniques. You see the trick to being a successful financial trader is … the knowledge. If you have the knowledge - you know how to trade, how to assess the risk, when to trade and where to trade. And the knowledge is a secret closely guarded by the so called ‘financial experts’. They paint trading as some form of black art or alchemy where the knowledge is passed on down the generations by the privileged to the privileged. Well not any more!

In my CrankyTrader.com blog I will be mainly covering two areas - news that will probably affect the movement of the financial markets, and tips and tricks of the traders - the knowledge. I distill the knowledge down to pure basics, filtering out all of the rubbish to leave you with simple to follow techniques. I am including stuff for absolute beginners through to pretty competent traders so bear with me!

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