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I was thinking adding a post trade checklists like Mike does, in my online journal. It won't be as comprehensive and organized as Mike's but I think it will be a useful exercise. I do go over this checklist mentally before and after a trade and then give the trade a score and determine how to improve. But I will try adding it to the journal and see how it goes. Since I am mainly taking 2min ORB trades, I will start with that. Though the time range for the 2min ORB is 9:31:45 to 9:34 EST What the setup was, how was the momentum powered by and did it break any veto rules. This is how I define the setups: Simple ORB 2min chart 2min candle must: <0.25 ATR <1% move Cross VWAP near end of candle Must have strong tech levels for risk/reward Small wicks The Step 1min chart Should not look like a bull flag 2nd 1min candle should be as large or larger than the first Mini ABCD/Bull Flag Vish Candle 2min chart Very bullish/bearish candle Take trade on a break of technical level I tend to find what is powering the momentum as important as the setup. The check list has the list in order from strongest to weakest. I find "The Curtsy" my strongest "power" indicator. This is when the price reaches a technical level I drew (usually from the daily chart) then touches it and retraces. Thus it is paying its respects to the level. Honestly I still don't trust that I am drawing these levels in the right place and if they are real. So this curtsy confirms it. I usually take the trade as it breaks it and the stop out if it retraces back. Next strongest is when I see the 2nd minute have as strong or stronger volume than the first. 421 VWAP is when I see a large delta between VWAPs on the different charts. If I am thinking going long and the 2min chart VWAP is 0.67% higher than the 1min chart, that is a strong "power" indicator for me to use. DTL break is simply the break of a daily technical level Strong 1st is not only is there a strong final target, but if there is a good place to take the first partial as well, that seems help move the price. HiLo break is simply the break of the high or low of the day. Engulf PM is when the 2min candle engulfs an already large premarket 2min candle. Then I have my list of criteria that I will not take the trade at the last moment if one of them is broken. B-Bands is if the price is above the 20 SMA 4 sig Bolinger band R/R 2-7 to 1, I find if the risk to reward is too large >7 it's not real and I don't take the trade. So that's it. Sorry about the long entry. If any of you think something is very wrong with these setups, let me know. I have only been live 4 months and still have a lot to learn.

Summary for 2nd week of February  So this is summary of my 2nd week of trading in which I journaled for the BBT community to view. This was also my 5th week of trading with the solitary goal to reduce my overtrading. First week was a brutal boot camp style trading. The initial reaction seemed helpful since my second week I traded very well. By the third week I was back to my old overtrading max loss self. Fourth week I went on a self-imposed 1-trade a day maximum, which went well initially, with a week of good trading. Now I just finished my second week on the 1 trade a day and it didn’t go as well. Actually was quite disappointing. Results: Good Trades Neutral Trades Bad Trades 1st week Feb 4 1 0 2nd week Feb 0 4 2 Lots of things to be disappointed about: 1) Broke my 1 trade a day rule on Wednesday with a revenge day 2) Continue to have correct share size issues. An issue I never had until last week. 3) Not stopping out correctly. Though an issue while I was on SIM, this has not been an issue while trading live. This week I was too early or late on the stop out 3 times (out of 6 total trades is really bad). 4) Even on the 2min ORB I seem to be jumping the gun a bit. I take the first trade to setup, not waiting for a really good one, or letting the so-so ones go by. 5) Not taking my partials correctly. Not taking my 1st partial if my share size was too small. Not taking my second partial a few pennies early in case my tech level was not placed accurately. Positive things: 1) Never hit max loss 2) Journaled every day this week on the BBT site. It wasn’t easy to show my trades to everyone, especially since I was not too proud of them. Next week: 1) Continue on 1 trade/day maximum. Apparently it is not easy for me to keep after a bad loss. 2) Concentrate on execution. Correct share size, correct partials and correct stop out. Especially the share size and stop outs. These are skills I already had and do not want to lose. 3) I feel I should do more. I will still think about it during the long week end.

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?

This is the podcast Andrew recommended today in the chatroom, TRAINED By Nike. # 6 is about sleep. https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/trained/id1414073313?mt=2#

Welcome Dirk! I am still mulling over how I want to best use some type of buddy system for my own trading. We can all of course reach out to any BBT member and share/discuss trades. What I was thinking here was a way to garner the full potential of the benefits of accountability. From the trading psychology books I have been reading, being accountable to someone else can limit the typical mistakes made while trading and help build better long term habits. Would love to hear how Carlos thinks his morning show has affected his trading, my bet is that while its challenging, he is performing better because he has the whole BBT family watching him. For my part I want to team up with others trading the open with the ticker profiles I like, namely $40-$200 prices and floats above 50M. At the moment, I am still working on my own consistency.

You mean a little box of them on webcam? OBS can do that with multiple video sources! Check out this post for some basic info on OBS:

I understand that to trade based on institutional data is a standalone strategy, as discussed in Zack's Forex book, ie., ref. supply and demand trading section. The chart analysis is done via supply and demand zones and trades taken accordingly. A good discussion is presented in Zack's book, but I think a Webinar discussion by Zack will be beneficial. You might want to read Zack's book to get a better idea on price movement and institutional traders.

Week Seven Recap · Weekly stats o 2.0 R/R (Goal: above 3.0) [record: 2.7] o 85% (Goal: above 80%) [record: 93%] o $49.03 (Goal: $250) [record: $49.03] · Highlights o Green all week. o Win percentage way above average. · Ongoing things to work on o Cutting your winners short, not getting at least 2R out of your winners o Taking enough trades a day to hit daily goal. o Get out of trades on a new 5min low against your position. o Sim until I hit my profit goal five times before a red day.

2/15/2019 I think I'm on to something here. Today, I focused on the .. well, first off I'm high off coffee and having thoughts all over the place. I studied that 9MA 5-minute strategy a bit more and attempted to do that today. It worked well and I found myself practicing patience a lot today. I have a history of blowing up accounts on Friday so I was happy to know that I didn't do that today.The strategy worked with a few stop out points and my sizing was on point completely. I felt 100% comfortable and confident in everything I did today. Watchlist: Result: $CGC - This one is straight to the point. After the first 5-minutes, I waited to see what the price action would do. Price action pushed down through VWAP and on the 1-minute. I waited 2 minutes for a pullback on the 1-minute to the 9MA. I got that move and went short 50 shares with a stop above the previous 2 candles. I added 50 shares on the way down and moved my stop near break even or break of the 9MA 1-minute. Got the move down and started scaling out. I took 50% off at the 5-minute 20MA and scaled out more. Could have held longer, but started trading $YNDX and covered everything. Had some juice left in there. Great trade! $CGC - Took the trade on CGC looking for the fade back down and didn't get the move. Instead of holding till my stop loss, I covered. Felt like the price action would continue up since it didn't go ahead and make a move back down. $YNDX - This one was an interesting situation that I should point out. After getting my signal which is a reversal at the 9MA 5-minute, I went short 100 shares after 2 candles with a stop above the previous 2 candles. Price action dropped a bit and pulled back so I moved my stop closer to break even. I assumed here that if the price action hit my stop then the move wouldn't happen and I could reduce my loss. The thing I noticed, though is if I kept my stop there originally, I wouldn't have stopped out. $YNDX - Here you can see on my next trade to explain my previous point. My stop was never hit until I moved it. I went back short again 100 shares looking for the move down and did get it. However, if I held and didn't change my stop from the previous 2 candles before my entry, I would have gotten a move. The risk to reward wouldn't have been worth it, but the original stop loss would have held. I guess if anything, I would have saved commissions on it. $XPO - I attempted to short 100 shares, but had a hot key mistake. Price action did make a nice move so I think the strategy was successful here as well. The move wasn't significant and didn't fully reject, but there were several opportunities to get out.

Friday 2/15/2019 Well being score of 4.5/10. Thus, I will trade at half share size. My one allowable trade was with AAPL. Mixed feelings from my one trade today. Its too bad I went all 5 days this week and there was no day I was satisfied with my trading, though previous week went well. I was really fighting my trading demons this week. This morning NVDA was on my main chart (linked to my L2), but AAPL and AMD got lots of volume in the first minute so I moved them to my main and "up to bat" chart. I was looking at AAPL long or AMD short. AMD looked better but AAPL setup occurred earlier. But, that is really no reason to jump in. Plus, I really don't like the 1min ORB I prefer the 2min ORB. Anyway obviously the FOMO was to strong and took AAPL. Now as for AAPL, the trade was OK. The setup was adequate at best (but at least there was a setup, not like AMD and TEVA from earlier this week), AAPL had an ABCD from premarket, great 1min vol, but 1min candle wicks were large with no direction. So just a so-so setup. I shouldn't have taken it seeing that AMD was setting up nicely. Now as for execution goes, that went well. Entrance was good. I let it move a little bit farther than my usual entry to make sure it was going in the right direction since 1min candle bidirectional. I had to adjust share size due to the larger risk since I let it move a bit. So share size was right (half size), then when it reached my level for the first partial (high of the day and 1R) it was difficult to take like earlier this week. With half shares your P/L is really small when you take the 1st partial. But, I took it at the correct spot. Also, I have been bad this week stopping out, but I did stop out right at B/E as well. So should I have taken the trade? I will give the setup a bad rating. It was FOMO talking. But, I am happy with my execution since this week has had poor execution. So I will give this trade overall a neutral rating. Sad, that means I do not have a trade that I would rate as "good" this whole week. Obviously, I will have to stay on the one trade a day rule next week. I am also removing the 1min ORB off my setup list. I have only taken that setup 4 times live. First two times were winners so I had some confidence in it. But, I took this setup twice this week, when it should be one a month. That sounds like FOMO. Have a good long weekend.

Friday February 15th, 2019 Sleep: 8 hours. Mood: good, ready to trade. Only took one trade today. i was considering taking NVDA on an ORBD but it looked choppy before it broke out to the downside. The trade i did take was a double bottom on CGC. I liked the rejection of the previous and previous previous day highs. I waited for a bounce off the PDH and then got in on a new 1min high at $47.10. the initial goal was $47.90 which was 2R from my risk of $46.75. I sold a couple cents early but i don't count this against me because i don't try to nail it right on the goal and risk missing it all together. blew it on the selling though, my trading plan is 75% at the target and then 25% at the next level. i sold 50% at my target and then held my last bit through a new 5min low. and then finally bailed on a new 15min low which was below my original profit target. happy with the entry not happy with the selling. GOOD: setup, R/R, entry all great. RFI: did not sell according to my trading plan. MOOD: ok CONSISTENT: yes. What i did good today: took only trades in my trading plan. good entry What i did bad today: did not sell according to my trading plan What can i do better tomorrow: stick to the plan on selling Other comments for tomorrow: it's insane how much easier sim is compared to real trading. my sim equity curve is literally the exact opposite of my real trading curve.

Thursday 2/14/2019 Well being score of 4.5/10. Thus, I will trade at half share size. My one allowable trade was with MU. Good setup Took trade exactly where I wanted Correct share size 1st partial at the correct location, which isn’t easy knowing I am at half shares. 2nd partial a bit early. I have been burned recently just missing my 2nd target by a penny. But I took this 9 cents too early, not good either. Exit was bad. If I waited for the correct exit (at B/E) I would have a heck of run with MU. But I was so burned yesterday taking my stop out late, I exited early and missed the big run with MU. I guess it will take a few days to get my nerve back. A comment about yesterday’s journal entry (TEVA trade). I wrote the journal entry before watching the video replay of my trade. Wow what a difference. Setup was horrible, it was 3+% away from VWAP. I thought it was OK, the 1min candle was smaller than half ATR, but that was tunnel vision. I spotted the trade on a small chart that VWAP was out of view. So I guess out of site out of mind. I transferred the stock to my main chart connected to L2 and looks like I took the trade immediately as soon as it broke the tech level. So in that 1 or 2 seconds that VWAP was available to see I was focusing on the entry point instead. It instantly reversed before I could notice how far from VWAP it was and re-evaluate. So for the first 3 months of being live I used Bolinger bands to determine if the trade was too extended. They look good in ETRADE-Pro and easy to manipulate. It made the DAS chart too busy and too many mouse clicks to change the settings. so I decided not to use them 2 weeks ago when I switch to DAS. I don’t take <5min ORBs if it’s beyond the 20MA +4 sigma band , which this clearly was. What a bad setup. It was the setup for a reversal back to VWAP. See image with Bolinger bands (dotted line) added. I took the trade long at the green line, yikes! And here is the MU chart. Missed the boat on that one.

Wednesday 2/13/2019 A bad rule breaking day. Broke my 1 trade/day max rule today on a revenge trade. I was already shaky since I have been having an issue taking the correct shares lately. I have been cutting them in half at the last moment. This issue culminated yesterday by it help caused a wining trade to become a losing one because of the wrong share size. Today my well-being score was 4.5/10. That is lowest I allow myself to trade live but it must be half size. There was a 1min ORB set up on TEVA. This is unusual, I only have one 1min ORB setup so it’s unusual to see. But, it matched the setup criteria and I took it. Don’t you love when the stock reverses the millisecond you place your order? But this is still all OK. It correctly match the setup, I had the correct share size, my entrance was exactly where I wanted it and I had my stop out price planned. But, I was caught in the headlights and WAY over shot my stop out point. This is highly unusual for me. Since I have been live I have been very good about stop outs (which is odd since I was really bad about it on SIM). Taking the correct shares and stopping out right on queue was my two strong skills I had. Which really shocked me today now that I may be losing both. When you have just a few skills losing two can really knock you down. After my one trade a day (win or loss) I always step away from the computer for a couple of minutes. I just need 2 minutes to reset. Today I didn’t step away. I took a revenge trade on AMD very soon afterwards. It had no setup and would you know it I took the full share size. And again I let it go well past my stop out. After that I was able to pull myself away from the platform for a few minutes. I came back with huge FOMO and really wanted to revenge trade more but I kept control until 10am (EST) where I turned off the platform. I thought I was making more progress than that and was planning to allow more trades a day next week. Now I will stay at 1 trade a day for a while longer. At least I didn’t lose it or hit max loss. Live to trade another day.

Monday February 11th, 2019 (SIM) Sleep: 6.5 hours. Mood: feeling good despite the lack of sleep. ready and excited to trade. I've been thinking a lot about my trading after Friday and it finally sunk in that i need to write out my specific setups in order to get in to a trade and only take those setups so i spent the weekend writing out my first pass of my qualifiers for the trades that i want to practice. the first trade i took today was an ORBU in EA. it met all of my citeria so i jumped in. my selling was not to plan, i got out only half too early and then held the last half to b/e. had i stuck to my plan this would have been a better trade. GOOD: setup met all qualifications. RFI: botched the selling. MOOD: good CONSISTENT?: yes. only took one other trade. i took a 1min MA trend trade in MA. it came up over the MA on the 1min chart but couldn't hold and fell below. i saw a good R/R per my setup so i took it. i wanted to get filled right at the new 1min low but it went down so fast i got a bad fill. sold 75% at my profit target and the rest at the next level. i stuck to my plan which i'm happy with but my first profit target really didn't make any sense. i should have shot for the daily level and then sold if it wasn't going to break that recent low. GOOD: saw a setup and took it, followed the plan. RFI: first profit target was too close. MOOD: happy the trade worked out. CONSISTENT: yes. What i did good today: traded well today. stuck to my plan and only took trades in my plan What i did bad today: did not do a good job of exiting my trades. What can i do better tomorrow: stick to the exit plan. pay better attention to potential profit targets. Other comments for tomorrow: keep practicing the trading plan.

Friday February 8th, 2019 Sleep: 7.5 hours. Mood: ready to trade first trade of the day was a long in COTY. I think that my fear of losing money is holding my trading back so i'm working on getting in and out of trades with less resistance. with that in mind, i got in long on COTY with no setup. i thought i would just get out for a couple cents loss if it didn't go my way. it did not and i got out immediately. now that i'm typing this i have no idea why i went long in the first place. i pretty much just got chopped up in COTY in the first 15minutes. taking small losses and gains but really getting nowhere. GOOD: accepted the risk RFI: no setup and gave it no room. MOOD: ok CONSISTENT: no setup Then COTY looked like it was going to do an ORBD so i got in short and took a bigger loss than i wanted GOOD: was a setup RFI: took too many shares from my risk level MOOD: ok ACCEPTED RISK: yes Went long in COTY, hoping for a pop above $9 i used the 1min MA as resistance and got in. it bounced off that 9 for about 5 minutes and i got out at b/e. GOOD: got out when i saw it wasn't going to break even dollar RFI: not really a setup MOOD: ok, glad i got out. ACCEPT RISK: yes Last trade in COTY was an engulfing 5min and i knew it had resistance at the $9. it broke down to VWAP and i got out once i saw it wasn't going to sell off GOOD: nice setup, good reason to get in the trade. RFI: i could have gave it another minute and saw that the trade probably wasn't going to work MOOD: ok ACCEPT THE RISK: yes. Tried to take an ABCD in MAT that failed immediately. glad i got out when i did but that was a dumb resistance point to trade off off and it was trending down on the 5min chart. GOOD: got out with a small loss. glad i got out because it tanked after that RFI: kept making new 5min lows and didn't show any sign of buying MOOD: good ACCEPT THE RISK: yes. that was all my trades for a max loss day in the first half hour. i did not want to be done trading so i got rid of my max loss risk control and kept on trading. thought i could get in on a downtrend in MU. got stopped out twice and then i made a buck/be on one trade. then after that trade went my way i tried to get back in on a pullback and then averaged (down) and got stopped out for a $36 dollar loss. my risk controls are there for a reason and i really blew it by bypassing them. so that's it for my live trading. i'm going back to SIM for a while until i can figure out how to consistently make money. What i did good today: decided i'm not ready for real trading and decided to go back to sim What i did bad today: virtually no setups. i need to marry my risk acceptance with patience for good setups. i will work on that in my trade What can i do better tomorrow: practice setups and only taking setups Other comments for tomorrow: it was foolish to blow up like that. but i think it was bound to happen. lost all of the $250 i gave myself to lose. paid my first round of tuition. going back to sim until i'm making consistent money.

Welcome to club Dirk! Yes buddy system is beneficial. Does not have to be one on one it can also be a team, I have found that messaging app like What'sApp is really convenient. What does everyone else think?

It's called an Elgato Streamdeck. Here is a link to the Icon set I made for my station.

Link to my Elgato icons and hotkey file: I built my computer specifically for day trading (and gaming!). I share a home office with my photographer girlfriend so I wanted to make sure I kept everything quiet and contained. My corner of the office is a standing workbench I custom designed and built myself to contain the tools, electronics, and gadgets I use to build "stuff". My 3d printer is also pictured. I built a Core i7 based PC on an Asus ROG Maximus IX motherboard, 32gb of RAM, and a Vega 64 graphics card. I have a Noctua CPU cooler that operates almost silently, and the machine itself is down in the corner so it's near silent. The iMac on our desk behind is actually louder. I installed an Ergotron arm to mount the monitors (a 34 inch wide screen and a very old 24inch monitor) to my standing work bench. I have gaming mouse and keyboard because I like the feel and I'm left handed so having an ambidextrous mouse is great when I switch to right-handed to game. The last part of my setup is a Stream Deck, a customizable keypad with LCD screens on each key which I've set up to trigger hotkeys for long and short positions. Each icon is custom color-coded so I can't mistakenly short a long position when I'm trying to sell, or something similarly boneheaded.