I'll start this Saturday morning by saying how sad I was to read that TraderTamas, one of our most prolific commenters, has decided to leave not just this blog but all blogs. His reasoning is that the comments and opinions of others throw him off his game and damage his trading.

This, to me, is a personal decision, and everyone is entitled to their own viewpoint based on personal experience. Personally, I've grown more and learned more as a trader by reading all of your comments than at any other time in my life. Regular readers know how frustrated I get when I don't have time to read comments, because I find them so nourishing and enlightening as a trader.

Some folks chimed in to say they agreed with his point of view. I think this may be a case of false causation. TT mentioned he had one really nasty trade this week, so the logic appears to be that the corrupting influence of outside opinions caused that loss. Speaking for myself, as long as there is someone besides me in there making comments, I have no intention of leaving! That, to me, would be a true loss.

This morning Barron's has their annual brokerage survey, which you can read in its entirety. The table below provides the bottom line.

This will be my last post for Friday.

I "discovered" e-mini S&P futures last autumn, and I've been addicted ever since. I notice there are a few other relatively active e-mini markets, such as these:

I'd be interested in knowing your opinions (via the comments section), both good and bad, about trading these markets. I'd also be interested in knowing if there are any other juicy ones I missed. Thanks!

My favorite part of this blog is reading the comments from you folks. One individual, however, has made it his life's purpose to keep creating fake profiles and spamming the blog. It is time-consuming and demoralizing.

Because of this, I have cranked up the level of security to require everyone to authenticate their email. When you try to post a comment, it will (one time only, assuming this works!) ask you to authenticate your email address. It should send you an email, and once you click the URL, you should be good for life. I am hedging my words here a bit, because you never know if there's a bug in Disqus I'm not anticipating.

Even if you have nothing to say, try to post a comment here to make sure it works (not everyone has to do this; I'd just feel more comfortable if I see a few dozen comments successfully posted).

Hopefully this will be the end of Ned.

Every few weeks I do a spotlight session from 1:30 to 2:30 Tim Time (PST). Join me there via the Investor Toolbox if you're interested.

The trolling from Ned is getting a bit tiresome. There is a beefier level of authentication which Disqus permits, which is email verification. (The reason Ned keeps coming back is because he just creates new identities, none of which really email authentication). I might turn this on to see if it works, so don't be shocked if suddenly you can't post. It will be temporary.

As usual for Fridays, I'm probably going to "go dark" until late tonight. This was kind of a bizarre week, with almost all the attention focused on banks and the world of FAS/FAZ. I hope you had a good one.

I know it's been a defiant mo-fo, but I just love this short.