Leaderboard

Hi Everyone. We are slowly expanding on the Swing Trading platform and wanted to let you know that you can sign up for swing trading opportunity alerts. The sign up forum is at the bottom of the Swing Trading section (under the "Other Trading" tab) on the BBT website. We will not be using your email to blast you with ads and other info. It will only be used to send trade opportunity alerts. What we hope is to give you more timely information on opportunities that come up throughout the trading day. These are not recommendations to buy or sell securities but they will give you ideas for you to form your own opinions on a potential trade. More to come. One step at a time. Brian

Hi Kevin, Hope all is well! This scenario you are describing is a big challenge for many traders trading small accounts. This is my advice and opinion to this situation. For me most important thing is that the trading process and execution stays intact. If you are trading well and taking profits as you should and your Gross P&L is green that's a win. You should not change your trading style or execution to try and save on commissions as that can have a negative impact on your trading. You start taking bigger share size to make up for commissions. You are not risking more and that can have a negative impact on your account's bottom line when trades go against you. Wait until you are more confidence and consistently profitable to start increasing size. Let the progress of your trading determine when you increase your size not the fact that you want to save on commissions. Change the way you think about commissions. Think of commissions as a fee you pay monthly to be able to learn how to day trade and gain experience in a live account, not as a fee that is taking away from your profit and great trading. Focus on your gross P&L instead of your net P&L, this is very important with small accounts. As you grow your account the commissions stays the same but your P&L starts to cover commissions. Continue to trade your plan and keep the same execution process that is working, you want to build great habits from now that will be beneficial as your account grows. For example if you let winners run longer thinking about covering commissions you can get in a situation were the stock might pullback on you due to not following your plan. You do not want to think about commissions while trading as it can change your judgement about the trade possibility creating bad decisions. There are some options that will help compliment your trading style for small accounts without changing your entire trading technique. If you are scaling out continue to do so but maybe this time you take 30% off instead of 25% and scale out less. As you get better in your trading and the account grows these issues with commissions will not be a thought at all. Focus on the process the P&L will follow. Carlos

Hey Everyone I'm going to start posting my daily trades here. I joined this community in March 2018. I did sim for 4 months. Went live in July. Loss $3,000 in 10 days. Went live again in August. Loss $1,000 in 10 days. Went live again in October and I'm still currently trading with that buy in. I haven't been profitable and I am down to about $300 above PDT. Every day I will post my P&L and Tradervue Dashboard, and I plan to post any relevant/interesting trades that I've taken. I'm not the best trader, but like many people here, my biggest problem is self control and discipline. The Good days are ok. The bad days have been extra bad. I've finally realized my limitations on my self control and I have increased my DAS Risk controls. My current settings: Max Daily Loss: $200 Max Pos Loss: $80 Max Shares traded a day: 4,000 Goal is $150 If I my P&L hits $120 in a day, my max drawdown is 20%. My trading is cut off at 12pm Auto Stop on Max Position Loss and Max Daily Loss. I've implemented these slowly throughout the past month. I originally started with just the Max daily loss, until I began to double down and let my big losers run and run and run because I wasn't ready to end my day and then it got to a point, that the loss was so significant that I couldn't exit the trade and had to pray for a reversal. It didn't always come. I've had to implement the Max shares traded and max drawdown, because I've let too many winnings day turn into losing days, mostly by overtrading. The 4,000 shares and 12pm cut off time is my way to combat my overtrading. It is still very easy to overtrade when you are trading 100 shares at a time, but I felt this was the best balance considering I do take 300 shares or so at a time on MU/AMD. I didn't want an AMD day to be cut short because of this limit. Some of the problems that I currently deal with: Walking Away - I have a hard time walking away when I am losing. Often times, I finally quit when Das Stops me Out. This will be one of the things that I report on daily. Stopping Out/Doubling Down - This used to be one of my bigger problems. Again, I hated to lose, so I will let me losers run or double down on my position to try and get out at break even. It works until it doesn't. I've been better at not doubling down with the Pos Max Loss with Auto Stop. Overtrading - My problem since the very beginning. When I first started trading, I didn't have a stopping out problem, I just had an overtrading problem. If anything I had the problem of stopping out too quickly. I tried to implement a trade limit for myself, but then I started letting my losers run a little because it was one of my limited trades for the day. I still let trades run (not as bad as before) , and I still overtrade on a daily basis. I probably average about 12-15 trades a day. Taking Bad Setups - Another issue that I've been working on is my patience and taking better setups. The emotions get to me at times, and I will trade to just be in a trade. Sometimes as soon as I exit a trade, I will find a reason to enter a new one. Short Bias - I have an extreme short Bias. Since Oct 2018, 80% of my trades have been short. Relying too heavily on the 1 min chart - This one, I've been getting better at and its really helped. I used to trade solely off the 1 min chart and at times I still do. Less often than before. These are the problems that I deal with on daily basis. Going to fix all of these on my way to becoming a profitable and consistent trader. I'm going to be documenting my journey to make trading my full time career. I would happily accept any questions, feedback, or critiques. So please feel free to chime in. If there are any particular trades of mine that I didn't share for the day, that you might want to see, feel free to let me know.

Yes. You need to work with DAS Support to link the additional IB accounts. In terms of execution, you can select the account manually from the Montage dropdown, or specify in a hotkey. The command is: ACCOUNT=UXXXXXX

Hi everyone, I'm Mark from Pittsburgh, PA. 33 years old been working as an engineer in oil and gas for almost 9 years. I've always been interested in finding a way to make money on my own and have been investing in the stock market since college. After finding Andrew's book i knew i had to try being a day trader. Love the journey so far, look forward to many more years of hard work and good trading! Mark

Hey Everyone, I'm Chris and I found Bear Bull Trading about 4 months ago - and thank goodness - Andrew's style of trading fits my personality the best so I am trying to develop my trading style with his in mind. So far I've been trading about 2 years now, going from small caps to options then to mid-high cap stocks. Finding some success but those one/two days blow my profit streak and take me negative. My ultimate goal is to become a full time trader so I don't have to rely on other people/companies for my income. I'm borderline obsessed with trading and having good trades. Chris

Hi all! 52 y/o former teacher, current retail business owner in Nashville, TN. I hawk beads, jewelry-making supplies and cool trinkets in my little shop in East Nashville, TN. (www.blackdogbeads.com -hope that is allowed ). I decided to "get into the stock market" in June, having no idea what I was doing - looking for long term holds in what I had decided in my imagination were the "next big things." Luckily, I only dented my savings before I realized I needed to know much, much more. I have been consuming whatever education I can via YouTube, Udemy courses and books. I had decided to focus on swing trading, but as it turns out, I seem to be more of a day trader by temperament (leave my money unprotected in the stock market overnight?? Are you kidding??). I was THRILLED to come across Andrew's day trading book on Amazon. It is plain-spoken, straight forward, thorough, full of common sense wisdom along with technical knowledge, and I found it enjoyable to read. Having been a teacher myself, I like to think that I can spot a good teacher when I come across one, and so I decided to jump right in and became a lifetime member. I had my first profitable month in December, and am feeling optimistic that if I could eke some money (on longs only) out of this market in the past month, I have a decent shot at doing alright at this - as long as I keep to my trading plan and manage my risk very wisely. My initial impression is that this is the right place to help me do just that! Just thrilled to be here, and eager to get started with you all!

Hi folks! I just got around to updating my profile and thought I would post an introduction here too. I discovered Bear Bull Traders about a year and a half ago when Andrew's book caught my eye. I previously had no background whatsoever in the world of trading or investment, other than occasionally looking at my 401k balance. "How to Day Trade for a Living" really piqued my curiosity and I enthusiastically joined BBT and began learning the art of trading with a SIM account. I went live in December of 2017. Since then, I have discovered a bit of talent for spotting trends, and a whole lot of psychological barriers to successful trading. But I've stuck with it and am managing to stay green and grow my account. I work a rotational schedule that has me away from home 2 weeks every month, so realistically, I can only trade about 10 days a month. That has been both a blessing and a curse, as I do get to pause and reflect every month, but I also feel a bit "rusty" when I dive in fresh after being away for two weeks. I live in Alaska, and along with fellow Alaskan BBT member Yung K, have recently decided to host a meetup on January 12, 2019. Hope some of you can make it!

Hello everybody, My name is George and i'm from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. I'm 20 years old, and i'm willing to dedicate, struggle, and suffer for the next 10 years of my life to develop success in day trading to provide for myself, my mother and my father. Please to meet you all, and I can't wait to learn as much as I can from everyone.

Hello, my fellow traders, My name is Heemel, I am originally from Bangladesh but currently living in Regina, SK, Canada. Like Andrew, I came to Canada as a student, finished my Master's and after that started working in a bank. I did my undergrad in Finance, so the stock market was always an interest for me. I first started trading in 2016, blew up my account, but the good thing was I got an opportunity to observe the financial market and its potential. After that, I was saving money to start another stint, and I was watching the market. However, it did not interest me much as I was not engaged with the market. As a result of I kind of lost track of it. I again came back to the market in April 2018, lost money, made money to the point that I almost recovered my first account, then again lost a lot, due to fear of taking small losses that ended up hitting me with very big losses. I realized that I cannot sustain in the market in this way, so I started reading trading books and watching youtube videos, and I was also actively looking for a mentor. Unfortunately most of the mentors, I found on the internet turned out to be low float momentum chasers. I just did not want to join an alert service. I needed a community because I wanted to learn and be a part of a brotherhood of like-minded people, where I can get a second opinion if I am making a mistake. Honestly, the majority of the trades that I took were good. I did some rookie mistake like playing earning, not cutting losses at all, and FOMO. Looking back, I think had I made this decision earlier (or had I found BBT earlier) I could have saved so much money that I lost. I am 32, and currently looking to make a career in trading. I believe this is a skill, that will continue to provide, and there is no retirement age for a trader. I wish to learn from each and every one of you and wish to be of help if you need anything. Currently, I am taking it slow, Still reading a lot of books, in fact, I did not finish Andrew's book yet. I will watch and learn for a few months. In the meantime, I will take my own trades with a tight stop loss and no FOMO. Thanks for your time. Heemel

Hello BBT Community - Brian Connoy from Minneapolis, MN here. I joined the BBT Community as a lifetime member last week and will begin simulating trading next month (January 2019). I work full-time in financial reporting consulting and aiming to day trade equities on the US exchanges for the first hour to hour-and-a-half of the market. While not simulating trades yet, I am simulating my routine for the morning--testing out different aspects such as: can I get home from my morning workout in time to provide myself enough preparation time before the market opens? Can I sufficiently monitor my work email, etc., while preparing for trading and during the market...will I be too distracted? Am I eating enough before I sit down to my computer...am I getting too hungry. Is my workstation sufficient? How can I best utilize the chat in the morning? All of these things sound mundane, but I feel are important. Further, I have a big three-week trip to Southeast Asia upcoming in less than two weeks, so I figured it would be great to start the clock on trade simulating in DAS after I return. I do not have any wild ideas day trading will become a new career and replace my current job, but it is nice to think about from time-to-time. I imagine many of us think about it, and a good number of community members here have likely accomplished this. I am primarily seeking to refine another skill set and add a supplemental income. All of this said, I have not been so genuinely excited about something in a long while, as I have been about learning to day trade. I have seen the statistics that a high number of day traders fail in the first year, but I believe that can be attributed to a lack of determination and preparation. I have completed six marathons and I feel like if I can train for a marathon I can train to day trade. A little background: my first exposure to the stock market was investing in dividend reinvestment plans and direct purchase plans when I was fourteen. I remember my first two stocks were McDonald's and Norwest Bank (now Wells Fargo). I loved receiving those monthly and quarterly statements in the mail and tracking the closing prices daily. Paying attention to the markets has always interested me. I enjoy traveling. I try to make two international trips per year. I also enjoy attending concerts. Spotify just told me in their "2018 Wrapped" annual summary that my most listened to artist was Depeche Mode. May all you trades be green Brian