I actually traded S038P 500 futures before doing commodities in a big way. Once I hit that I increased the risk tolerance of my personal account to 10 per trade (sometimes even more). The trades just worked so often (and were somewhat rare) that I felt alright with this. This was somewhat suggestive. Sometimes a trade was just so perfect-I could get in with a tiny risk for the potential reward or the setup was lined up perfectly-that I had to go bigger. If I did get punished for a big trade then I would pull back my size by a lot.Great article Kyle, I believe lots of traders will benefit from the truths you have shared. I am also monitoring Commitments of Traders data, and advise everybody to do the same. This is not another fancy indicator that derives itself from price data, but comes from an entirely different source, and lets you peek inside the structure of the market. Here are some more stuff on COT analysis if you are interested: cotbase/resources/booksNote: I am the co-owner of the above site, cotbase, that we created from our Excel tables that monitored the changes in COT data. Once the tables became so big that Excel could barely handle them, we asked a programmer to build an app from it and also open it for everybody on a subscription basis.I am tempted to rattle on about my experiences and thoughts: possibly to vent and hopefully to help by emphasizing what you said. But if your readers really read this manifesto, they can skip reading 99.999 of anything else written on the subject including anything I would say. ( I may be a few 9s short, so please excuse any lack of precision. The accuracy is still there.)At present, I simply dont have the oomph or time to do a thorough post of my own. Instead, Im going to just make a few comments. They will primarily reference your fine post. (By the way, the time thing is partly your fault. Your piece on Antifragile has me now poking around in Talebs 300 page Silent Risk. Plus, your site has lots of other good stuff.)Great article Kyle However, I have one question: you mention that you would pass on the soybean oil trade because producers are still significantly short soybean oil. However, wouldnt producers of a certain commodity always hedge their risk by entering short futures positions on that commodity So even if the price of the commodity was in an uptrend, wouldnt they still maintain a mostly short position through futures contracts and make their profit exclusively off of their actual production. After all, theyre not speculators. Thanks for the help, JohnAwesome post (though I admit, its really late here and Im falling asleep, so have bookmarked to read the second half tomorrow. Lol) Im studying up on day trading right now. I only have a few grand and was looking into perhaps starting with CFDs. What are your thoughts on themHi I browsed through charts of dozens of commodities but the COT charts are only available for a handful of them. For example, I couldnt find the Cot chart for Zinc or Copper. Does it mean you used to trade only 10-12 commodities If yes, then why browse through 200 odd charts as you mentioned in the post.Trading is the hardest way I know to make easy moneyAnd to those who think their going to learn how to trade in a few months SEVEN YEARS before I had any kind of consistency. And I have a 150 IQ. And Im about as emotional as a goldfish.Trading is so incredibly simple that people think that equates to easy. So is losing weight: eat less exercise more. Why then can very few people do it Simple does not equal easy.I have enjoyed the consistency and 8212 to use a trading term 8212 high sharpe ratio of returns in importing/selling online. Once the online biz is big enough Ill be happy to take more risk trading and potentially hire on a FT quant to run my book.Thanks for the info. I jus started trading and my system works. I traded paper money for 3 weeks then implemented my system with real money and it works I jus have to have discipline to get out as soon as I hit my quota for today and not be greedy or try to make more. Yea it bothers me sometimes when I see that I could make more but I rather follow my system and be safe cause I make money everyday literallyI thoroughly enjoyed your post Trading can be lucrative and it is very exciting By following the industry research and opinion and utilizing sound statistical rechnical analysis it is no surprise you have done well I would like to clarify one salient point regarding Warren Buffet and his thoughts on investing. As a professional investor and one follwing his methods I feel wholey qualified to say that while warren advices the unintelligent investor to invest in index funds he advices the professional investor to arbitrage sure things and purchase great businesses at discounts. Personally I have had success using these methods. I had an excellent surplus to the market last year and expect to beat it again this year. If you really Are good at trading I would suggest reading books by Mary Buffet regarding Warrens methods. Be wary of some of the advice regarding stock choices but the math and methods are sound and approachable. Please feel free to email me to discuss it moreThank you for the article It was great 1 question for you:I find myself second guessing myself when something goes wrong, so I set up stop losses and it seems like 99 of the time It stops me out then goes right up from there lol. Any advise on setting up a good stop loss Like is there a range that I should be setting up instead of just setting up what I dont want to loseIf thats happening regularly (and doesnt just feel like it is) then you probably want to find new way to set your stops. Just being looser wont be helpful though. And setting it up just for a 1 loss (or whatever youre willing to risk) isnt great either.The price jumped to 2.17 at open. I paused and was watching on level 2. I ended up getting in at 2.00. The stock was bouncing around from 2.10 to 1.95. I decided to put a stop loss in at 1.92. I had to walk away because of my nerves.