There was an interesting article some time ago that was talking about the number of people who over time have been successful at speculating going all the way back to like the 1600's. They said even 400 years ago about 90% of the people who made a try at it failed. Same numbers from 300 and 200 and 100 years ago. Same percentage failed in the 1920's, the 1950's and 1980's. All the way up to today. That 90% number is still alive and well. The interesting thing about this article was and that it pointed out that despite all the information we have today, the lower cost of trading, electronic lightening fast executions, all these fancy charts and instant news, despite all of that, technology has in no way shape or form allowed more people to make money at speculating. Bottom line, trade where you want to trade, whatever product, whatever exchange, whatever timeframe, just don't blame others for your failures. People don't fail at trading because of bad fills and high commissions and greedy specialists and evil locals, they fail because they can't trade. When people can't make money trading they will blame everyone but themselves. The exchange fees, their trading software, their prop firm, they only have 3 flat screens instead of 6, whatever. They are just excuses. The day they can look in the mirror and blame themselves for their losses will be the day they start cleaning up in the market and stop worrying about the miniscule amount that exchanges charge to clear your trades. You know what's funny, 10 years ago, guys use to pay 10 times the commissions and exchange fees they pay today and use to trade over the phone instead of computer and they still made ungodly amounts of money.