Some time ago, last fall to be exact, my brother and I attended a stock options trading class. It was fairly groovy and I learned a ton. The possible income boost it would provide me was mind-boggling!

Since then, we both have been virtual trading at OptionsXpress to practice what we learned. The bro went on and signed up for the fancy-pants advanced training course which cost a cool $7K. Gak! I was not able to go due to financial limitations.

But never fear, gentle reader, the brother has been kind enough to share his learnings and insights with me. We both continue to practice and discuss why we pick what we pick and all the technical chart analysis, geeky finance stuff ad nauseum.

So, I started off last fall really strong and didn’t lose too much of my virtual money. But then I got distracted with the holidays and then spring came and it was all about the traveling. So I let my virtual trades die. Bummer. I lost all my virtual investment. Boooo!

My brother had to kick me in the shins to get me remotivated. Thank you, big bro for that. I shall not slack again. Promise.

So I’ve popped back into the trading over the last couple of months after reading TONS of books, blogs and websites. I’m practicing lots before I use real money (again!). And you know what? I’m a pretty good stock picker (way better than the big bro-still smarting on his ACH pick). I’m surprised because I was convinced that I had to know all sorts of financial hooey to “get” trading. You got to know some, but not as much as I thought.

Plus, it helps HUGE to have a wonderful pile of option bloggers to teach you and provide much needed ideas for the stock picking such as MyTradersJournal, OptionAddict, TradingGoddess, and DailyOptionsReport to name a few.

But I really have to thank OptionAddict aka Jeff Kohler, for his fine explanations and fabby watchlists. I have made over $3K in the last two weeks because of his recommendations. Plus, I have learned a ton of excellent trading tactics which, so far, have been spot on! Thanks Jeff!

Man, I wish it was real money.