Stocks, I like the idea of researching new ideas and trying to buy shares before the markets have cottoned on to their potential.
To my mind, if you are successful with trading some particulat type of instruments, you can expand your experience to other types. For example, experienced stock traders quite often became successful options traders because they use some principles that are similar. It is possible to say that they have an interesting (and profitable) idea and then use various instruments to benefit from it. If, for instance, you make an assumption based on earning report analysis that one particular stock could move upside substantially, you can either buy stock itself or just buy a call option to increase your leverage (options has lowest possible extrinsic value the day after the earnings results were released, so it would be a good deal). Another possible situation is when trader having large position in the stocks from oil and gas sector could use oil futures to hedge his position, or S&P futures - to exclude the impact of broad market. As professionals say, if trader is successful in trading with one particular type of instruments, this means he has proper trading mindset: e.g. discipline, analytical skills, other important psychological elements. Thus, he is more likely to be profitable with other types of instruments too. At the same time, if trader jusy switches from one type of instruments to another without being profitable at least with one of them, it would be better for him to focus on something particular.
