Leaderboard

I'm a pretty heavy user of trading sim, and there only seems to be a bit of scattered info on it in the forums so I thought I'd post a detailed thread here along with some recent improvements they've done. For those who don't know, TradingSim (www.tradingsim.com) is a dedicated replay paper trading platform that runs in the browser. One can choose any date, setup a watchlist and playback stock data. There are buttons for play, pause, step to next candle, speed up, slow down etc. You can set your account size, buy, sell, short, limit and stop orders are all there. The advantages of using such a platform: Trade outside of market hours Drastically increase the amount of practice trading for a given time of day (for instance the open) Trade in different market conditions Use it as a research tool to study historical data, refine patterns and strategies, etc. One of the main drawbacks that people have commented here on the forums here is that it does not have pre-market and post market. They have since added this a little while ago. I'd say the only key thing that's still missing is level 2, although they do have order flow; and that also shows the current spread. There is obviously no premarket gapper scanner or anything like that. For trading practice I simply look up the respective recap from Andrew on youtube in order to get a watchlist. I spent quite some effort getting this das-like, and I'm relatively happy with the result. Take a look for yourself, and note that my DAS setup is slightly different than Andrews (I use green candles, different thickness MAs). Like DAS, there are a lot of options, it takes a little while to find everything you need. One rather critical option that vastly improved it for me was the 'Scale series only' under the 'Scale' of the chart settings. This stops the chart zooming out to fit the 50 and 200 SMA when they are out of screen. Just like DAS you can mark your charts with relevant levels from the premaket or daily, levels can be moved across charts via one by one via a copy-paste type functionality, but given the amount of clicking involved it's just as fast to draw them again. Some of the drawbacks the platform still has: Calculation of the VWAP in the pre-market is incorrect (I am currently in contact with them about this) No level 2 Hotkey functionality is a bit weak compared to DAS For active trades, it shows your average price on the chart, as well as relevant limit/stop orders, which is pretty cool, however once a trade is closed, there are no triangles to show you your orders. This makes it difficult for reviewing trades. This also facilitates overtrading or scaling out too quickly in my mind as you can't see the array of triangles you are leaving behind. During my usage of the platform I have found some bugs or oddities and sent them feedback. They have been fairly responsive about addressing all the feedback I have sent them, and a number of things have been fixed thus far. A word to pricing and competition. I tried both NinjaTrader and ThinkorSwin in the beginning, both of which are free. Ninja trader didn't work at all, replay only seemed to work for futures and forex. ThinkorSwim is also free but requires an ameritrade TD account. Based on feedback I heard from others from the community that it was rather clunky and not really usable, I didn't bother trying it out. TradingSim is $300 a year, and they offer a 10 day trial. Compared to the cost of DAS I personally think this is totally reasonable, particularly for people with jobs, or in other time zones who need to practice out of market hours. To conclude I want to emphasize that whilst I am happy with using this software, it is clearly no replacement for the DAS trader simulator with real time data and participating in the chat. Personally, I find I take tradingsim less seriously than the DAS sim, something about the fact the things are not happening real time really takes the pressure off. Therefore it is essential to participate in the market daily to practice in realtime market conditions, and on the platform you will go live with. I'd be interested to here from other members using tradingsim and what they think. Anything to add or any questions?

When first starting out or learning a new strategy, I would suggest respecting your original stop loss. This way you can get a feel for the signals that appear when the trade falls apart. As Mark Douglas recommends during the 20 trade exercise: make it mechanical and limit decision making. As you gain experience, you will start observing the above indicators that reduce the probability of your trade working out. This is where intuition allows you to get out of a trade early. Remember that you can always re-enter as commissions are cheap. The danger when doing this as a beginner is that it leads to getting chopped up and/or revenge trading.

Greetings BBT's, My name is Steven Burke (AKA StevieB), as of today, I'm a new lifetime member. I am 55 years old and "semi-retired" entrepreneur living in Santa Fe, NM. I have a 15 year old boy and 19 year old daughter, and coming up on my 30th anniversary with my wife I met in college. Yesterday, I completed my simulator acct setup with Speedtrader. I will be in the simulator starting this Monday for 3 months or so and will be going through all of what Andrew's education programs have to offer, full time. MY HUMBLE PIE STORY: Since this October I have been doing real money equity trades on Ally's crappy platform. I got ridiculously lucky and within two weeks was up about $7,500. I thought, oh man, this is GREAT! We'll, as Howard Cossell said back in the day, "Down goes Fraser!, Down goes Fraser!" I averaged down pretty heavy with an SQ trade that plummeted like $9 bucks, caught falling knives along the way. I quickly did all the classic emotional trading mistakes, you name it, I've done them all in the last 7 weeks, revenge trading, FOMO trades, not committing to a trade plan, sloppy stop loss setups, not closing out positions overnight....and I did it ALL with real money! Needless to say, the $7,500 of what I beginner's luck made vanished in 2 trading days, and I then proceeded to lose $6,500. In the process, I did have a couple disciplined, well executed trading days after re-grouping, so I do have a sense of what that feels like. On those days I was patient and letting the trade come to me instead of the reverse, I was mostly ahead of the action with a well thought out technical trading plan, and good trade management ( scaling in/out, adjusting stops, etc.) THE UNEXPECTED SURPRISE AND POTENTIAL GIFT: I love the challenge of what day trading represents, and the surprise to me is that it presents an opportunity far more then money making: The technical aspects I think any reasonable intelligent person can learn with some good 'ole hard work, but I did not know that perhaps 90 percent of what this will require is "me learning about me", and changing neural pathways that not only give me a fighting chance to be a long term successful day trader, but can also improve my mind, body and spirit. Andrew did speak to this in his book, but it is one thing for me to read it and another to look it square in the eye with hard earned money on the line. I look forward to this challenge on a daily basis and I feel that BBT will be a safe and enjoyable community to evolve in and resonate with. MY BACKGROUND: This past September 2018 I sold a home environmental services company in Santa Fe, NM to a couple of my existing employees and now I am a part-time environmental consultant with ample time freed up. This change process is what made me look to the stock market over the last couple months, as I originally was looking at stock investment opportunities. Then the market began it's ongoing correction and volatility that started in October. That led me to seek guidance, and rather quickly led me to Andrew's book. Andrew's excellent, well written and honest book, along with the current market environment, changed my original thought of investment education to now complete devotion to day trading education. I researched several chat rooms and educators prior to taking a test drive this last week with BBT. I am impressed with the "quality over quantity" of the membership, Andrew's team members, and the sharing of talents from various members. From my research of many groups, this group stands out and is the one I look forward to resonating with as I now head into the simulator for 3 months. Warmest Regards, StevieB