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Marek, Sounds like you’re confusing Trader Tax Status with the MTM election. TTS let’s you write off expenses, but the gains are still taxed as capital gains, not as ordinary income. Therefore, you can only use up to $3,000 of losses against other income. Also, while you’d be considered self-employed, capital gains are not subject to self employment tax The MTM election is what makes your gains reportable as ordinary income. Trader Tax Status makes you eligible for the MTM election, but you can certainly be TTS without the MTM election. I agree with what Onosendi said. Robert Green is a wealth of knowledge and a consultation with him would be well worth the money. Marek, I believe you can get started by going to greentradertax.com and purchasing a consultation slot with him.

This is a problem all traders face--beginner and advanced. Even Andrew and Brian mentioned this in the Lifetime Webinar. We go into a trade looking for 2:1 risk/reward, and end up coming out with 1:1 after scaling out. Our losers are almost always -1:1, if not greater. This means that with 50% accuracy, we break-even over the long-term despite claiming to take trades with a minimum of 2:1 risk/reward! My journal tracks some key stats to see how well I'm taking profit compared to the risk I take. The required variables are: Number of shares Entry price Stop price Target price Max loss = (Stop - Entry) x Shares R-Target, aka Target Risk-Reward = (Entry - Target)/(Stop - Entry) R-Real, aka Realized Risk-Reward = P&L/Max loss Let's use my $CAG trade from June 27 as an example of a good outcome. I entered the trade looking for a 4:1 risk/reward (R-Target). Based on how I scaled out (in 6 steps), I managed to come out with an R-Real of 2.9. This is the type of patient profit taking you want to see over the long-term. Entry 36.52 Shares 800 Stop 36.7 Target 35.75 R-Target 4.3 Max loss 144.00 P&L 412.78 R-Real 2.9 Now here is an example of a winning trade where the R-Real is less than half of the R-Target. Despite being a winner, the realized risk/reward was actually less than 1. Statistically, taking trades like this over the long term would result in losing money. Entry 42.87 Shares 100 Stop 44 Target 40 R-Target 2.5 Max loss 113.00 P&L 97.34 R-Real 0.9 I've been consciously trying to improve my long term average R-Real by taking profit more patiently. Similar to Carlos' advice above: (1) take first partial after a 0.30-0.40 (2) patiently take profit at original targets (3) keep the last 10-20% for as long as possible. This has helped bump up my R-Real, but it is nowhere near 2.0. As of right now, it is a mere 1.1 after 450+ live trades. My losing R-Real is -0.9. Both numbers are improving, but it takes a lot of practice. Improving accuracy of winning trades is another solution to this problem. If you can be right 65-70% of the time, then you can afford to have an R-Real of 1.0 and still be profitable.

I created this Google Spreadsheet to help myself with position sizing, and I thought I would share it with you guys. I always have this printed out and laying on my desk while I am trading. I did take this a step further and created a custom keyboard with hotkeys, but I will share that info at the end. With this spreadsheet you are able to calculate your position size on the fly, just by knowing the distance to your stop loss. By default, the risk is set to 100. This means every single trade that you take, you should lose no more than $100. An example would be, if my stop loss is 0.30 away, my position size for that trade would be 334 shares. You are able to change the default risk to what ever you are willing to risk, and your share sizes will automatically be calculated. Here is the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iD0qiPLulbYSFri9r38SG1Ke7eNiZdFHNg8MldGwSng/edit?usp=sharing To use this Spreadsheet: make sure you are logged in to your Google account, so you are able to copy the spreadsheet to your Google Drive go to File -> Make a copy... -> Then save it to your Google Drive Once you have copied the spreadsheet, you can now edit the default risk of 100, and your share sizes will be calculated accordingly A step further... The Keyboard Having this printed on your desk does help you easily calculate your position size, but it does have one drawback. You have to enter your position size in manually, which does eat up precious time. I wanted the idea of the chart used as hotkeys, so my solution was a custom keyboard. I have attached the proof I got back from http://www.wasdkeyboards.com, as well as a photo of the physical keyboard. How it works As you can see from the images, the distance to stop loss is printed on the alpha keys. If I have my hotkeys set up to risk 100 per trade, Short+Modifier+E would short the stock with 667 shares: Risk: 100 Distance to stop loss: 0.15 100 / .15 = 666.6 (667 rounded up) Conclusion Having the spreadsheet printed in front of me while I trade really helped with my position size. The keyboard really helped me execute my trades faster.

I don't use Tradervue; I'm using a custom journal in Excel. Great idea to tag NYSE stocks, though! I can't say that I've lost more money on them. In fact, some of my biggest winners have been trades on $PBR, $CAG, etc. when they were in play. I think the key is to watch the price action and order flow in the first 5-10 minutes. On certain days/catalysts, they can move indistinguishable from NASDAQs.

Hey Everyone, Below is a great question one our YouTube follower's asked and is one that we get quite often, answering it on a post oppose to the comments in YouTube comments in case there is anyone that can benefit from it. Based on YouTube Recap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aufaWi5VS4g The answer is: Absolutely! When I first started trading live, I used to take profits way too early... and this happens to a lot of us. I wanted to take profits off the table right away from Unrealized into the Realized and put money right into my account. And on the loser's I would do the opposite, let them run in hopes of it turn in my favor. Those trades turned into the biggest trading losses I have painfully experienced. I had to learn how to take profits and is not as easy as it sounds and is not clear cut neither which is what makes it harder to plan for. There are a lot of things that I have to determine to set realistic and effective profit taking, like support levels, moving averages, entry position and most importantly price action. I used to get really hung up on hitting a support level when the price action is telling me otherwise and I end up breaking even or with a small profit. For me the price action has been the number one thing for taking profits. If the price drops .30 to .50 I'm taking 25% off the table right away because on average that is a big move for the stocks we are trading. This secures some profit and I still have 75% left to play with. If it drops another leg 20 or 30 more cents than i'm taking another .25 off. So this is aside from looking a levels once I have already taking some profits out this way, I ease back a bit and start looking for more signs and levels that support my price moving in my direction. These are not hard rules, there is no set tragedy, I am simply reading the price action at the moment and seeing what is giving me at that time. Also if my entry is not great, like FSLR on the above recap video, I know that the probability of getting another big leg down were not high so the minute it dropped I took profits and got out, the stock did eventually sold off and I could had made tons of money, but that's not they way i want to play the game. The probability of that happening over and over are not high so why take that gamble that is not in my favor. I hope this helps, I know is not clean cut like an ABCD Pattern, a lot of it is on feel and price action which can give off so many difference signals. Andrew is the king at this I highly recommend try scaling out of a trade if you are having issues getting out too early. Thanks. Carlos

Saw the inverse of this today with the example below -- long wicks above the candle, indicating selling pressure. Sure enough, price dropped shortly after. Glad I got out!

Green Trader Tax seems to be the most well-known firm in the trading community. I referenced some of Robert Green's material in this thread. Here is the site: https://www.greentradertax.com/ You can set up a phone consultation with him to determine your needs. I don't think PDT has anything to do with taxes. Perhaps you're thinking of Trader Tax Status. In order to deduct all of the items (such as scanners, hardware, education, etc) like in a small business, you have to be Trader Tax Status. That is referenced in this thread, as well.