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?

RSTHOMP, I want to especially emphasis what RobertH and Willy noted. It is great you have calculated your success rate at 30%. This gives you something simple and clear to work on. Now how do you work on it? You need to break down that 30%. This is going to be very hard and time consuming if you have not done it. But it must be done to dive into better understanding the problem and how to fix it. It will be well wroth it. Consider defining each type of setup you take, and finding the win/loss rate, as well as how big each, win or loss is. Make sure to have a category of "Non Setup" or "revenge trade" or something like that. For many of us, chances are we take trades that have no real setup, but block those trades out of our mind when doing real analysis. After you find the setups that lose the most, CUT THEM OUT of your trading plan, only for now (you can bring more back later) For the setups that you find the most success, really focus on them. Hone in on them, really understand why they work. The risk/reward, the time frame, the ease of entry. Master those setups. Once you really understand how to find success with those setups, add more to your repertoire slowly. . . Now here is the problem you will run into, that we all do. We are wrong 3 times in a row and think the setup is no longer valid, we revenge trade. We dont even remotely follow our plan. We see other people in the chat posting how much money they made (we forget most people only post their winning days and hide their losing days)and we get major FOMO. We throw our plan out the window, lose big, get exhausted with ourselves and start the cycle all over again. But each time we do this we lose trust in ourselves little by little over time when finally we think we have no clue what we are doing. This is the path of so so so so many traders. It was never about the plan that might have been solid. It was about failure to properly execute the plan. So then what do we do? we start over, build our confidence. Use small shares. prove to ourselves we have a solid plan AND can stick to the plan over time. We avoid taking too big of risk, we learn to avoid bad setups, we remember that FOMO will only lead to bad trading. If we can do this overtime and consistently is how we can improve our trading.

I noticed you are trading lower float/sub $10 stocks. These can be extremely risky and volatile, especially on the short side. I agree with what others above are saying: your entries are often quite late. This means that your risk:reward is less than optimal. Another thing I noticed is that you are entering without a clear setup or signal. Do you categorize your trades by strategy? If so, please let us know which one you took on each ticker. Here's my brief feedback on each trade: ASTC: low float, shorted at support, stopped out too late PBR: Decent trade, good first partial. Not sure what your short signal was as it wasn't a 5-minute ORB MSFT: Very extended for short entry, right at support. Second short unnecessary after the prior reversal hammer DSW: Coiling around the VWAP with no clear breakout signals in either direction--chop LCI: low float, shorted at support. The candle you covered on looks scary. It dripped after it lost the support, so at least you had the right idea. NTRI: Slightly late entry but great partials during the downtrend SJW: I remember this stock was very volatile. First trade was actually well managed. Good job. 2nd trade was OK as well. The 3rd trade, you shorted during an uptrend. The stock was clearly reversing to VWAP on higher-highs, higher lows. AMD: Very late entry but good exits at the 50 SMA ANF: Too many MA's it was stuck between, hence the chop you got stuck in. Not a clear signal in either direction until it broke down at 10:30 AM CORT: Chase as noted by the others. The signal for short was after it engulfed around $19 AEO: You had the right idea after the prior red candle and loss of VWAP. Price action seems rather choppy based on the 1-minute chart. Just too many MA's acting as support against VWAP. My tips: Focus on identifying the setup, timing a good entry, and finding a good target/stop. Remember our job as traders is to react, not predict or chase. Stick to 1-2 strategies for now until you can be consistent. Review Class 3/4/5 if necessary and good luck!