and if you do the speck la tu bets, you're almost guaranteed to lose, and you're not going to be ables just a horrible mistake. jack: that said, you have been a professional trader, so you don't think it's crazy to buy individual securities and so forth. 9 give us some ground rules for somebody who wants to do that. >> it's one of those things where if you want to trade, you need to set aside a certain amount of money that you know the you can afford to lose and use that as your trading money. and you want to be methodical about it, keep track of what you make and what you lose and what works and what doesn't and try to treat it as you would anything else that you're putting your money into. it's not really a game. but it can be done. you justed need to do it very carefully, not with a lot of money. jack: and i think it's important to be honest with yourself, you've got to do the math. you kind of forget about the losers, but if you keep careful track, you can compare yourself to the s&p 500 and see if you can really beat it. jack, keep those frictional costs from low to zero. tell us