[mhh__]

Wrt number 3 it is really is like walking into a knife fight with a spoon. It may be of note that a lot of financial practitioners consider themselves experts in markets, not trading. This is partly modesty, and partly an acknowledgement that there is a mountain of either bullshit or financial genius (e.g. the moment you have an option for sale you can suddenly turn apparently disconnected numbers into a correct price) to deal with.