adjustable rate mortgages so why is it we're being entreated to open accounts to trade stock?

My favorite commercial from Super Bowl 2000 (that's Super Bowl XXXIV, for those of you into Roman numerals) was for E*TRADE; I laughed my whazoo off when I discovered it on YouTube. (Of course, one must remember that I still crack up every time I think of my favorite riddle which I've known for at least fifteen years: "What do you get when you pour boiling water down a rabbit hole?")  My least favorite commercial from Super Bowl 2008 (XLII) was also from E*TRADE.  I am not going to link to it because it annoys me so - it was the one with the baby talking to the screen about being a trader.  The ad is one in a series which show how anyone who has a computer can be hot dog stock picker: there's one with a whole family egging on a man to make his first trade, one with some yahoo talking about making his first trade for an Asian stock.  All of this Trading for Dummies is designed to make us feel that we can make money just like the big boys and girls: just one problem, we aren't the big boys and girls.

In the early nineties when I first became aware of trading stock after receiving options from the company where I worked at the time, I came up with a grand little scheme for making money in the market.  Choose a really cheap stock, buy a thousand shares, let it go up and sell it, net a few bucks after fees and taxes.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  (I didn't say it was Warren Buffett money.)  A few years later the planets aligned and I actually had enough money to put my theory to the test.  Whoa!  It worked.  The only problem was at the time I had good credit and more cash than sense so my broker gave me enough line to hang myself.  It didn't take long before I got to thinking I actually knew what I was doing.  Pretty soon I was trading higher priced stocks, shorting, watching trend lines...  By the time I realized that I really hadn't the slightest idea what was going on my bankroll had dwindled to the point where I couldn't even go back to lather, rinse, repeat. 

Now my financial situation restricts me to dollar scratch cards (where I have just about as good a chance of hitting) but I'm still addicted to Bloomberg and CNBC (don't tell anyone but I sometimes catch Fast Money even though Dylan Ratigan talks way too fast and they have all those testerone fueled frat boy nicknames, even the ultra sensible Karen Finerman has one).  Every so often I get the itch to trade but fortunately I don't have the cash to scratch it.

I was reminded of my brief ill-fated foray into trading by the collapse of Bear Stearns over the weekend.  I wonder how many uninformed folks sitting at home with their computers and a few thousand in their cash reserves bought BSC at thirty on Friday afternoon only to hear on Bloomberg Sunday night that JPM had taken it out for $2.00 a share.  Poor saps, they had no way of knowing that Bear had flat lined Thursday night.  Forget about CDOs and SIVs and CMOs that baffle even some Wharton grads, the little guy/gal sitting at home trying to make a killing at stocks doesn't even have enough true info to make a simple trade.

This is not to say that there aren't some people who can master the ins and outs of trading and - if they have the money to risk - can make a living or just a nice little nest egg.  For most of us though there are four simple rules:
1.  Diversify.  2.  Dollar cost average.  3.  Invest, don't speculate.  4.  Turn the sound down when Dylan Ratigan talks.

And, oh yes, "hot, cross bunnies."