x. Links and Resources

     Much of my trading just came from experience, so it's difficult for me to really recommend any resources.  Much of it simply came out of searching online and following the community.  My recommendation would be to just join a community and learn with others, as opposed to trying to learn to ride a bike from a book.  The texts I do list below are more for context of what's been going on rather than necessarily being related to how to trade itself.

Reading and Learning

• Dark Pools by Scott Patterson - Recent book describing exactly a lot of the psychological premises behind Technical Analysis and really just the truth about how the modern stock market came to be (effectively coded by one guy). Also nice confirmation from historical accounts in the industry about how large funds really do trade on psychology/technical signals rather than fundamental analysis as schools would have you believe.  A summary of the history covered for the Island bit can also be found at Wired just to give you a taste of what the text is really about.
• What are the Different Types of Quantitative Analysts? - Summary of industry levels in quant and algorithmic trading, so you know who is out there and doing the real stuff, where the talent is.  And so you can fact check the next time anyone claims to be a "quant" trading from home.
• HFT Industry Makes Less in a Year Than JP Morgan Does in a Quarter - Article highlighting how little high frequency trading actually makes for the massive operational risk and overhead they undertake and why it's so overrated.
• The Power of Fate and Irony - Less on trading specifically but for the superstitious, I personally do intentionally sell out of positions that I want to go up in order to "jinx myself" (by regretting having sold).

Community Sites

• Hot Stock Market Financial Message Boards - Forum discussing the stocks.  Good for reading about what others think and have researched.
• Stock to Buy Discussion Forum - Smaller discussion site and blog; also good for seeing what others are thinking about.
• Hot Penny Stocks Finder - Public chatroom and board on various stocks (not just penny stocks).  Useful for seeing what stocks are popular.
• OptionRunners - Very successful options trader worth following and learning from.  IMO the best trader I know of who's actually trading for a living and not just talking / writing about it.
• StockTwits - Twitter for stock traders; useful for gauging what people are thinking about a stock.

Tools and Information

• Daily Forex Realtime News - Realtime news stream, great for trading currencies.
• Yahoo Quote Data in CSV - Free quote data in csv format that you can use for coding stock-related scripts.  Quotes are delayed by 15 minutes though.  For historical data too, see csvHistQuotes.