The only reason that these courses are available at all is thanks to the  mindset of Joe Ross. Here is an extract from 'Trading By The Minute' by Joe Ross.

" I've been revealing my trading secrets. Many will be sceptical of what I'm saying. After all, what kind of a nut would go around telling everyone how to make money in the markets?

Many have become somewhat jaded by the plethora of garbage that has been sold over the years claiming to show the "magic" way to trade.

I'd like to answer some of the many questions people ask me, and then make a number of comments that will show my approach and mind-set for trading the markets.

In the fall of 1987, following a couple of days of severe abdominal pain, I became very ill. I didn't know what was wrong, so I more or less took to my bed, although I tried to continue functioning as a trader.

After about eight days, I developed a severe case of hiccoughs and visited my doctor to see if he could do anything about it. While I was there, he did a routine blood test and took a urine specimen. The results of the tests were alarming enough that he suggested I immediately report to the emergency room at the hospital.

My wife drove me there, and after a series of brief conversations with various doctors in the emergency room, I was admitted for exploratory surgery. I have absolutely no recollection of ever leaving the emergency room. My next memory of anything other than nightmarish dreams about suffocating to death, was 2 1/2 months later someone telling me that my broker was liquidating a December corn trade I had been in because the contract was about to expire and the broker didn't think I wanted to take delivery on a load of corn.

From that point, I drifted in and out of sleep for another couple of weeks before I was made aware that no one had ever thought I would live. I was supposed to have been dead on several occasions due to complications of surgery, severe respiratory distress, Staph pneumonia, Spinal Meningitis and Mononucleosis, following what had been a burst appendix with severe peritonitis.

I then became aware that the doctors thought that even though I had somehow survived, I would probably never walk again. They also thought that there was a distinct possibility I might never talk again.

I was starving to death, and could not retain food. I was pretty sure in my own mind I was about ready to go where my ancestors before me had gone.

If anyone thinks that an experience such as I had is anything that can be easily sloughed off, then think again. What happened to me changed my life, and it changed the way I trade. It gave me a whole new mind-set. That change in my thinking is why I was willing to publish this book.

Up until the time of my "significant emotional experience," I was totally a private trader. I was essentially unaware of other traders, their activities, the publications they read, the concepts with which they traded, or that most traders were losing most of the time.

My education in trading was derived from sources far removed from those that most traders have ever encountered. It would take far too much space in this book to go into all of that. (I do tell more about this in my book, Trading Is a Business.)

My experience was first in the long term aspects of trading from daily charts. Later, I applied the techniques and methods I had acquired to the intraday charts, modifying the tactics used in order to accommodate the differential in time.

As I began my long recovery (it's still going on), I had ample time to think about a great many things.

My children were not yet ready to trade, they simply were not mature enough. My wife didn't have the foggiest notion of what trading is. I decided to write down what I knew. That way, in case they ever wanted to use the market to earn their living, they would at least have some input from me.

Before I even had the book finished, I mentioned what I was doing to another trader. He had called me for support on trading software I was using at the time. The programmer was going out of town, and referred the trader to me. I agreed to answer his questions as best I could, because I had been given similar support from the programmer in the past.

When the other trader heard I was writing a book, he asked me for a copy of it. I was reluctant at first, but in jest I said I would sell it to him for $750 dollars. I was sure this would blow him away. Instead, he sent me a check for the book - to be sent to him upon completion. Then I received another call from someone I had never met. He, too, wanted the book, again at a price of $750. He asked me what the book was called. I didn't have a title for it, but blurted out 'Well, how about "Trading by the Book?" He said, "Send it just as soon as you finish it."

I sold a number of books this way. I didn't mind sharing what I knew. As I got to know some of these individuals by their calling to ask questions and the subsequent conversations, eventually tutoring some of them, I became aware of the vast wasteland of commodity trading. It hurt me deeply to find out how many traders were being taken advantage of in the markets.

I had been given a new life. I found out I didn't have to live as intensely as I had. The, condition of my devastated body wouldn't allow it. For quite some time I couldn't even watch a live data feed. The excitement of daytrading was more than I could bear. The pain in my stomach when the adrenaline flowed would cause me to double over in agony. I was reduced to only casual trading of the daily charts.

Still, people were calling or writing and sending for my book. My conversations with them were demoralising to say the least. Here are some typical quotes.

"Trading 27 years and only have had 1 winning year and that by accident."

"Trading for 15 years, and lost 2 1/2 million dollars."

"Trading for 12 years, and have lost my entire inheritance."

"I've put my family into poverty with my trading over the last 30 years -our whole nest egg is gone. Now I'll have to work in the days when I expected to be retired."

I have talked to eminently successful businessmen - men with giant incomes. Men who have succeeded in everything else they ever tried - but they have failed miserably when it comes to trading in the futures markets.

One foreign ambassador I know of had lost $700,000 in 1989 alone.

I am a compassionate man. Much of my compassion was born of excruciating physical pain and misery. Not just from my recent illness, but from past problems with my health.

The few quotes above, coupled with dozens of other similar and even worse disaster stories about the markets, made me want to reach out and help.

Yes, I have a sincere desire to help others to succeed in the markets. So I have made Trading by the Book, Trading by the Minute, Trading Is a Business and Trading the Ross Hook available. Anyone who can't understand that will have to live with his scepticism. He won't get much out of this book.

The greatest single problem I encounter when I am tutoring others is unbridled greed. People cannot bring themselves to take a small profit when it is there to take. They hesitate because they want more. What's wrong with making $100 in the S&P? What's wrong with covering costs first, then seeking profits? I get out when there are profits. I can always get back in.

Part and parcel of this terrible greed is being in a hurry. The traders I tutor are in such a hurry to get into the market. It's as if this were the last spaceship leaving from a dying Earth. It should be just the other way around. My advice is, be slow getting into the market and in a hurry to get out!

The next biggest problem I come across as regards other traders is that they don't know how to use something that works without trying to fix it. They say they want to know how to trade, but what they really want to do is to re-invent the wheel. This lack of discipline is the ruination of many a would-be trader. If something works, leave it alone. I am sure that amidst all the rubble out there, there must be some methods and systems that work. But there are few indeed who can follow another's system.

That is why I did not even attempt to present this book as a system. I know that only a few will follow it. Instead, I've tried to present the fundamental tools and understanding that are needed to win in the markets.

Another problem that crops up when dealing with other traders is their incredible selfishness. They think that if something works, it should be kept secret. Why? Because they fear that if everyone starts doing it, it will no longer work.

That kind of thinking flies in the face of fact and truth. I seriously doubt that of all the people who purchased my first book, that even 5% have consistently utilised the methods, tricks, and techniques I presented there. In fact, I doubt if 5% of them still trade the markets at all!

The same will be true of this book. Of the thousands of traders who might buy this book, only a few hundred will actually purchase it. Of those, a tiny percent will actually do what it says. Within a year or two, most of the others will no longer be trading.

I am appalled at the lack of a business-like approach I find to be overwhelmingly prevalent among traders. I meet and speak with men who are fantastically astute businessmen. But when it comes to trading in the futures markets, they completely abandon a business approach, becoming instead reckless gamblers.

Men who are masters of good management seem to fall apart at the seams when it comes to managing risk and money. Men who are cool, calm, and collected under everyday job and business stresses, seem to turn into hysterical, raving fools when it comes to trading in the markets.

The markets are such that every weakness and flaw of character is revealed when trading. A man who is a liar, no matter how clever, will lie to himself. He will tell himself that a market is going up when any moron can see that it is going down.

A man who is greedy will be destroyed because he will stay too long.

A man who is dishonest will end up being dishonest with himself and will be annihilated by the market.

A man who is sceptical will never have the faith and confidence to trade successfully.

A man who is distrustful will never have the courage of his convictions and will soon lose his margin money. To make matters worse, most of the "professionals" he will encounter in the markets will give him little to encourage such trust. In general, traders are prey to a whole host of vultures whose only goat is to part the trader from his money as quickly as possible. Such a situation hardly encourages trust and confidence.

If I were to try to devise the most fantastic character building device ever created, I could do no better than the markets. The markets represent the, ultimate challenge to self-mastery, self-discipline, and self-control.

The markets attack the greatest human failing of all - vanity. There is nothing I can think of that can quickly make a man as humble as the markets can.

The only way 1 know to consistently win is to humbly approach the

markets with great awe and respect. Then, in the full realisation of how awesome the markets truly can be, determine to master every human flaw one can find in oneself.

Sincere, deep, and thorough self examination must come before the markets, or oneself, can be mastered.

The search must be for the simplest things, not the most complicated.

It is absolutely incredible to see how complex people try to make their trading. It seems that the more complicated a formula is presented to be, the more people think that somehow "this" is the holy grail of trading. What nonsense! The truth of the markets is in the simplicity of their movement. A market is going up, down, or sideways.

If it is going up, and if I'm honest, I can see that it is going up. I don't need a logarithmic, parabolic, standard deviation band to tell me that. A child could tell me that. Oh look, Daddy, that market is going up."

If a market is coming down, I don't care how many trend lines or moving averages I draw on my chart, they will not contain it. Does drawing a trend line underneath a trend somehow magically stop prices from coming down? When prices reach the bottom of your computer screen, does that mean they can go no further?

I've had traders tell me that if prices break through a trend line, we are witnessing a significant event. Is that true? Would we both draw the trend line in the same place? Would one of us draw it exactly the same twice? And if prices make a new low and then rally back, do we now draw a new trend line at a lesser angle? Is that now somehow the magic line drawn in the sand that says "Prices, you can't cross this line!"?

Give me a break! That's as bad as saying that the divergence of an oscillator from prices means something. Look, I'm no great mathematician, but I know that when you de-trend an oscillator, it is going to drift. There will be plenty of times when a market continues to trend seemingly forever, when the oscillator (any oscillator) will trend in exactly the opposite direction. If a market is trending up and the oscillator is trending down, does that prove divergence? Someday, of course, that market will start to move down. But that could be months from now. When it does, all the great prognosticators will say, "See, you could have known the market was going to come down, just look at that divergence!"

Pardon me, but I think just about any four year old child could have told you that what goes up will eventually come down. Who needs an oscillator to tell you that?

If traders spent the time mastering themselves that they spend on mastering the markets with technical analysis, there would be far fewer dropouts and many more successful traders in the markets today.

If traders spent as much energy in seeking simplicity and truth as they spend making things complicated and false, there would be more traders still with us today.

If traders spent as much time examining themselves as they spend on examining the crossover of two or three moving averages, they would make a great deal more in the markets than they now do.

To me, the height of folly is taking a moving average, de-trending it to create an oscillator, and then trading a combination of the oscillator and the moving average that was just de-trended.

Except for very limited and appropriate use, the technical tools I find being used in the markets are for the most part worthless.

In Trading by the Book, I said something to this effect:

Would you carve a doll out of wood and then bow down before it in

worship? What is the difference between doing that, and taking an oscillator

of your own or someone else's manufacture, and then entering a trade

because the oscillator says to do so? Who is to say that the oscillator should

be set at five bars, or ten bars, or twenty bars? If we each set it differently,

we will get different results and therefore different trading decisions.

Let's face it, there is no such thing as oversold, and there is no such thing as overbought. As I write this book, the Canadian dollar has been overbought for close to three years and it is still going up. Silver has been going down for about the same length of time. Who's to say when and where it will stop?

I have a friend, a very well capitalised, big-time trader. When silver was at around $6.40 in November of 1988, he said, "Man, silver is making a bottom here. I'm looking for $12 silver inside of a year. All the fundamentals say that it has to go up. All my technicals say that it's oversold. I'm going to scale it in by buying every time it makes a new low." That was back in 1988. He has steadily bought silver because it is so "absolutely oversold." He has rolled over multiple contracts repeatedly, and is now $900,000 in the hole. When I talked to him recently he said, "Man, if you've got enough money, you can always be right."

I guess that maybe he does have enough money. Rallies in silver don't do him much good because he's in too deep. Sure, one of these days silver will quit being oversold and climb to $12. Maybe by then he will be able to break even - that is if silver doesn't break him first. Hmm - I wonder how well he'll sleep tonight. Silver just made another new low. It's now well under $4.

It puts me in mind of all the people who sold the British Pound this year at the $1.80 level because it was overbought. Now it's flirting with $2.00. A lot of. people got "British Pounded".

Hey, I'm no exception. I was crazy enough to buy $18 crude oil puts

when crude went to $28 because it was way overbought. At $35 it was

surely overbought. Didn't all the oscillators say so? Now it's at $40 and my

Puts will probably expire worthless.

The closest thing anyone can hope to get that is nearest the truth is what is seen on a simple price chart, unless, of course, we are like the old-timers who could see in their mind's eye what was going on in the markets just by reading the tape or watching the clacker board.

There are still some of those blessed souls around, still making their money in the markets, still enjoying what they do. We could all learn a profound lesson or two from them.

Tape reading seems to be going the way of all the good things. It's becoming a lost art. These old pros can successfully day trade from a clacker board. It makes me ashamed to have to sit in front of an expensive computer, with an outrageously priced data feed, paying even more outrageously priced exchange fees, and not be able to do an ounce better than those who have gone before me did and still do just by reading the numbers. No fundamentals here, no technicals, no cycles, no seasonals, no astral phenomena, no oscillators, no moving averages, no parabolics, no channels, no speed lines, no heads and shoulders, no pitchforks, no Fibonacci, no Elliot Waves, no fractals, no chaos theory, no any of these things. Just profits, based on truth the truth that is revealed in the movement of prices.

My best advice to anyone who wants to trade is to work on and learn how to understand simple price movement. Learn to read it and learn to interpret what it is saying.

The problem with most technical studies is that they smooth away the minute details that are exactly what I am looking for in my trading. I know, I know, someone will tell me that I don't want to have to react to every little fluctuation of the market.

But what are those guys down on the floor doing? They react to all the detail. They don't have any fancy studies in front of them, they just know where prices are - and they win - and most others don't!

The floor traders have to pay attention to detail. They have to watch the prices on the screen. They have to decide and react to what is happening, and most of them are taking home the bread. If they don't, they will soon not be floor traders. The floor traders make money watching prices. The old geezers who watch the clacker boards (there still are a few around clacker boards I mean - no, I mean both) make money watching prices, and Joe Fancypants, with all his sophisticated electronic equipment, is losing his best friend.

With that in mind, let's look at some additional refinements. "

This has been an extract from 'Trading By The Minute', one of the books available in the range by Joe Ross.