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In this video AdventureDogLA shows us how to set up Risk Controls in DAS Trader Pro. Risk Controls enforce limitations such as maximum daily loss, maximum shares traded per day, etc. Risk Control Page is a safety net to keep in control our loses, either to have an external control over our behavior as traders or due to a contingency such as failures in the internet connection, electric power outages, broker failures, etc. You can find "Open Risk Control Page" in DAS Trader Pro Account window, just right-click in any row of that window and Risk Control Page will open as a popup browser window to let you update your risk control settings. Some considerations: 1. This configuration works with real accounts and simulator 2. You can deactivate settings "Risk Control Page" anytime by leaving all in blanks and clicking SUBMIT 3. When you are using DAS linked to IB, or simulator, the Risk Control settings are handled by DAS. DAS staff updates your settings manually (the form is emailed to them) anywhere from 2 to 30 minutes during business hours. 4. In LOSS fields, enter a positive number. 5. “No new order” avoids orders for the current day 6. “Pos Loss” = Position loss. 7. “Enable Auto Stop” will automatically close your positions when you hit the Max Loss / Total Loss. 8. “Max Share - Max auto stop execution share per day” = How many shares can be sold / bought by the Auto Stop mechanism. 9. “Max Auto Stop Order Size” = Maximum size per order made by the Auto Stop mechanism. 10.“Delay for next order if exceed max order size (sec)” = Time between orders if the Auto Stop needs to place multiple orders to close your positions. 11. “Stop Gain Account Net Realized PL Thresh“, “Drawdown Percent of Max Net PL“ , “Pos Stop Gain Thresh “ and “Drawdown” - Like Auto Stop but for gains. The threshold is the profit the Stop Gain is looking to hit, the Drawdown is how much it can drop from that target before your positions are closed. Example, you set a threshold of 2000 and drawdown of 20(%). When you make 2000 in P/L, the Stop Gain will trigger, and will close your positions if you drop 20% ($400) from that value, closing you out at $1600 Net P/L.

I feel like this was a decent day of simulator. I made some trades on Friday and broke even but only had one monitor at the time and did not get screenshots of my trades. So this was my first actual day of simulator if you will. I am using an account size of $3000, because that is what I will start with once I go live. I have 12 k I am willing to put towards this, but the $3000 will be used to weather the learning curve. I will only be able to trade the open 30 minutes on Tuesdays and Thursdays while I have class this semester so I am exclusively searching for 5-minute ORBS on those days. The 3 strategies I am looking for on the other days of the week are 5 and 15-minute ORBS, VWAP False Breakouts, and ABCDS/Reverse ABCDS. I am trying to get in good habits now of always respecting my stop loss, 3-trade limit until I get more consistent, and waiting for proper risk to reward. I hit 1.07% profit on the day on my third trade. I could definitely work on patience and get better setups than what I had today. I have been reading Trading in the Zone and am trying to keep in mind the statistics at play in day trading. Even if I am only trading 50-60% profitable trades, I can still make money if I have the risk to reward I am looking for. But this requires me to respect stop losses and allow my winners to reach their potential. This is just a quick intro and I'll flesh out what I'm trying to do with this journal in the coming days. Please feel free to give me any feedback you want. If I am doing something wrong or confusing just let me know. These are my 3 trades I took today (February 25, 2019): I decided to get in on the short side for GE at $11.51 when I saw what appeared to be a Reverse ABCD pattern. My profit target was the moving average about 30 cents underneath my entry with a partial goal of a 15 cent move. My mental stop loss was 5 cents above my entry, which coincided with the break of a moving average. This was my biggest mistake on this trade. Given that I had such a small size, I could afford to have a slightly higher stop loss, perhaps just above VWAP which still would have only been a small loss of .3-.4% of my account. I got stopped out right at my stop loss, and if I had set a slightly higher stop loss I would have ridden out the movement and gotten the downward movement on the stock I was looking for. My second trade of the day was on IQ. I took a short on it at $27.44. I thought one of the moving averages was the VWAP so I mistakenly believed this was a VWAP False Breakout. I will potentially need to change the color of some of my MAs or thicken up my VWAP to make sure this doesn't happen again. My profit target was the low of the day and my stop loss was $27.7. The risk here was relatively high, at about 1% of my account. So it is not a trade I would take in the future. While the stock did not reach my profit target, I was able to take a partial out for a decent gain and then cover the rest shortly later for an even bigger gain. So while the trade itself was not a great idea, I believe I executed well and got out at a good time. My last trade of the day was on AMD. I saw a VWAP False Breakout and entered long at . My stop loss was a few cents below VWAP and my profit target was high of the day. I believe this trade was fine, and my share size was great. While my profit taking ended up being about as good as possible given the drop that happened in the price after I exited the trade, I believe I still handled the trade relatively poorly. I got spooked watching the price chop on the one minute chart for 7 minutes straight and wanted to end the day at my profit goal of 1% so I took a 50% partial well before my profit target when the price moved in my direction. I then saw the price action indicate that sellers were taking control with lower highs and lower lows and the breakage of some moving averages so I took the rest of my shares out for a small gain. \ February 26, 2019: As I said earlier, Tuesdays and Thursdays will just be me looking for a 5- minute orb. Two stocks nearly met my criteria for entering into a trade this morning, but did not quite get to where I needed them to be. So I did not take any trades today. This is very wordy but I should get more concise as I begin to understand what I am looking for and trying to do. The formatting is also probably weird so please give suggestions if you have any. I will also try to get better screentshots of my trades that includes more of the preceding price action. I just copied my notes from Tradervue and put them in here. EDIT: Added in Feb 26

Wed, Feb 27, 2019 Total trades: 2 Total volume: 200 Closed P&L: $-35.50 Sleep: 5 hours Continuing education: Still reading through and absorbing Trading in the Zone. I believe this book is the most important asset I can use to become successful as a day trader. The psychological reasoning in it is very compelling and I am trying to keep the things I read about in it in my mind even during my simulator time. When I trade goes against me I need to objectively analyze any mistake I may have made that caused this. If there does not seem to be a mistake, then I can assume that the trade went against me because of the statistics of day trading (you can't win them all) and I do not need to worry about it. I will start recording my sleep like other members do in their journals. Seems like a good idea to see how sleep affects day trading performance. I will also have a small section on continuing education. I will put things such as rewatched Bear Bull Trader vids, watched vids from the Youtube channel, and book reading under this. If anything that I learned or relearned sticks out, I will make a note of it. Reached max loss of 1% on the day, but learned some very important things. I did not get pictures of my trades today as I was planning on doing it later in the day but ended up spending 7 hours straight on a math modeling problem set instead. These are my 2 trades: BBY Feb 27, 2019 09:45 Shares traded: 100 Closed P&L: $-15.50 Saw what appeared to be a VWAP False Breakout on $BBY so I went long at $69.310. Got stopped out at $69.00. I feel like the trade was decent and I had a good RR here, just happened to have it run against me. Perhaps I need to give VWAP False Breakouts more time to develop, and not be looking for them in the first 15 minutes of the market. I will reread Andrew's second book on this section to see if that is mentioned. TNDM Feb 27, 2019 09:53 Shares traded: 100 Closed P&L: $-20.00 I was looking for an ABCD pattern here. Saw a second wick form at what appeared to be the support formed by "C". The price started to move up from there and I entered early at $64.26, just slightly above that wick. Profit target was high of day and stop loss was $63.95. I feel like the setup was great on this trade. However, my problem occurred during the trade execution. The price went up to about $64.70, and I failed to take a partial! The reason I did not take a partial here was because I thought the amount it moved up did not equal such a large percent. The graph did not look as if it moved that much. I need to pay attention to the actual percent value of price movement and come up with a loose partial target in my head before/during trade entries. I believe I got filled poorly, resulting in me going past my $15 loss limit per trade, suffering a $20 loss. Or perhaps it was the price just dropping really fast and I did not click my hotkeys soon enough. Bad mistake on my part and will be remedied by turning on the Risk Control functions of DAS. I will turn those on after this journaling. This would have been a very solid trade if I had not let a winner turn into a loser but instead I reached max loss of 1% on the day. These are important things to learn and I feel good about the information I got from taking those trades. Thurs, Feb 28, 2019 I was not able to do anything today for day trading due to being at a physical therapist for a broken arm. Will be able to trade Friday and I will have pictures of my trades this time.

Feb 28th (Live) P&L After Commissions: $101 Trades: 7 Today was a good day. I traded very well and I'm happy with the moves that I made. I got out of my losers quickly and I did a good job of letting my winners run. These are the days that I need to replicate. Good first day back live. Going back to sim tomorrow, but will be going live again March 4th. $SQ - 3 trades on SQ. I went long first since it seemed to be holding the 200SMA on the 5 min chart. I didn't like the price action at all and got out quickly. It was then a short to me, so I went short. I meant to sell half but hotkey error'd into selling all. Disapointed about that exit, but there was nothing I could do. I couldn't get back in the trade unless a good opportunity presented itself, so I let it go. Went in long for the 3rd time for a VWAP break, but I absolutely hated the fill that I got. It was maybe 8 cents more than I wanted, so I exited with a small loss because I did not want to deal with the additional risk. I was ok if the stock did move long, knowing I did what was best to protect my account. $BMY - Went for the VWAP break down on BMY. Took too few shares. I normally take about 200 shares for a stock that moves like this. I wanted to add 100 shares and add another 100 later on, but missed the entry on the second 100. Took profits on the way down to the 200SMA on the 5 min. On my last exit, you can see I covered the partial and the rest. I was about 5 cents off the target and with the few shares I had left, I felt it would be better to just get all profits and exit the trade. $CELG - I had this one my reversal watch since the morning. I saw it making its way up to a reversal and holding a ABCD pattern. I usually dont take things before they cross the 50 on a reversal like this. I liked the price action and the way it was holding so I entered in. I almost chickened out of this one even though it never really went against me. I knew I just had to make it to the 50SMA to feel comfortable and from there it would go. My target is usually the VWAP in these reversals, but instead I decided to put the target at the 200SMA that was basically horizontal. I figured that would be just as tough to break as VWAP. I sold on the way up to the 200SMA and left 25% for the break of VWAP and beyond. It couldn't break VWAP and I sold on the way down. I should have sold some at VWAP since that is the usual target, but I am happy with the trade overall. Overall much better trading today and recently. The biggest change for me was watching my watchlist that I make in the morning. It has helped reduce my FOMO significantly and I am waiting for trades now instead of searching for them. My win% has gone up and the % of long trades I take has gone up as well.

2/28/2019 Felt like I did very well today. Managed risk well, although I did have a moment where I wanted to go big. I hit the hot key to load up on shares, but luckily my hot keys weren't configured for big share sizes. I would have stopped out, but the move did happen shortly afterwards. Point is, I'm working on not impulsively going big on share sizes and instead going with the amount of risk that allows me to hold through pullbacks and still offer meaningful potential. $CGC - Price action came out the gate strong. I went long 75 shares after getting a pullback and the price action dropped. Stopped out at VWAP. Second trade.. before taking the trade I thought whether or not this was a short. I realized that the price action didn't close below the 20MA 5-minute. Instead I went long 75 shares with a stop near low of day. Price action squeezed up from there. Sold my shares after the price action pulled back near the 9MA 5-minute. Should've held a bit longer. Need to work on that. Third trade I went short looking for the 50MA 5-minute. I went short 75 shares after the price action consolidated under the 9MA 5-minute and challenged VWAP several times. Covered everything after the price action felt like it was losing steam. It did push down a bit before squeezing. $JD - Was looking for the ORBD, but the price action was so far from VWAP and the 9MAs. Waited for a pullback and got in short 75 shares on the 1-minute. Got out for a small loss after thinking the price action would squeeze. Got back in for another short 75 shares looking for the 9MA 5-minute reject. Stopped out before the price action squeezed. Gave it a few minutes and it didn't move so felt like the move was over. Went back short on $JD looking for the 9MA 5-minute reject. I hit the hot keys for 200-400 shares and glad it didn't go through. I might have stopped out. Working on not impulse and greed trading. Went short 75 shares and stopped out after the price action pushed above VWAP. Price action sold off afterwards. $SQ - Went long 75 shares on $SQ after getting in on the 9MA 5-minute reject. Sold everything at the break of a new 5-minute high. For some reason, I didn't trust the price action to run up. Got back in for a short 75 shares after seeing the roll over on the 1-minute. After getting a good push down through VWAP, I waited for the move down to the 20MA 5-minute. Covered everything at the 20. $CELG - Patiently waited for $CELG to set up for a VWAP reject. I saw it at the 9MA 5-minute and watched it not reverse and continue to uptrend. Felt in control of my emotions by waiting. After the price action closed below the 5-minute, I waited 1-minute for more confirmation and went short 75 shares. Got the move down and covered everything a few minutes later. I felt like what I got from the trade was enough and covered everything. Price action squeezed from there. Result:

Thursday February 28th, 2019 Sleep: 7 hours. Mood: good, ready to trade. determined to take setups today and not repeat the previous two days. First trade of the day was an ORBU in BOX. it made a beautiful 2min ORBU and i liked the price action so i got in right at the body of the candle. This was a FOMO move. i don't want to be trading in the first 15minutes but i really liked the price action. the issue was my R/R. i set my stop at the $19.58 level and the 2:1 R/R would have been around $20.60 and it just couldn't pull through the HOTD. i should have got out sooner but i changed my stop to break even and got when it finally gave up the $20 level. if i would have waited for a pullback and a new 1min high, i could have been taking profit at the HOTD and not holding out hope for a nice run. GOOD: got out at breakeven, planned my exit RFI: FOMO entry with a bad R/R MOOD: fine, not happy about not planning a good R/R but handled the trade well once i was in CONSISTENT: yes. Next trade was a short in JD. it did a false breakout then started making new 5min lows trending below the MAs. i tried to get in right at a new 5min low but it fell so fast i got a bad fill and it killed my R/R so even though i hit my profit target and got out, i only made 1.3R profit. GOOD: got out at profit target RFI: need plan the R/R better MOOD: happy that the stock did what i expected CONSISTENT: yes. Next i tried and engulfing reversal in JD. i shouldn't have taken this trade because it's not one of my planned setups but i liked the 15min candle and it was really extended from the VWAP so i thought it might turn around and buy back up. i got in on a new 1min high but unfortunately it couldn't make a new 5min high and then huge selling pressure pushed it to my stop. the SPY sold off and took me out of this trade and my trade in BOX. even though it's not one of my setups, it was a good R/R with a set stop so i'm happy with this trade. GOOD: planned trade, R/R RFI: not a setup i trade. MOOD: good, but not happy about losing money CONSISTENT: yes. Then i let the trading get away from me a little bit. i got in short on another pullback because it looked really week. i was hoping to get to the PDC under $26. but once i was in the trade i'm seeing that 1. it's not a setup that i trade, it's not a setup at all. 2. it's bouncing off the 200 MA on the 15min chart and then 3. it's down so much since the open it's due for a pullback and the final thing, 4. it made a double bottom. so i flipped my position and took risked the LOTD the $27.37 level. i put in a range order and had to leave my computer. i came back to find i was right on my reasoning and got filled right at my profit target. GOOD: got out of my bad trade and got in to a good trade. RFI: shouldn't have taken the first trade. MOOD: concerned about my flipping positions but glad that i could see why i was likely wrong and fixed it CONSISTENT: not on the first one but yes on the second trade. What i did good today: Did not hold any of my losers past my stop. What i did bad today: the engulfing and no setup trades in JD were unnecessary and turned a good trading day in to an ok one. What can i do better tomorrow: Only take setups Other comments for tomorrow: Trade your setups and respect your stops are the two most critical pieces to a good day of trading.

Feb 27th (Sim) P&L After Commissions: ~$65 Trades: 8 Had a fairly good today. Losses were very small and there was one big winner. I didn't trade super well though, but I am improving. Since changing to watching only stocks in play, my win % has doubled. I'm nearing 50% win percentage in sim. Much better than the 25% I had when live and trading whatever I felt like. $CRON - Not a lot to talk about with CRON. I had 3 different trades. First trade was holding the 200SMA on the 5 min so I went long. I didnt like the price action and I got out. Very happy with that exit. Then I took it long as a VWAP break. Took about 10% off for profit and added back into my position. It broke under and I got out then I quickly swapped my position to the short side. I realized this isn't how I should be trading and I exited this trade. Even though the stock broke downwards, I am still happy that I exited because It wasn't a trade that I was supposed to take. $TNDM - My best trade of the day, I wanted to enter closer to $64 but couldn't find the entry. Took it as a VWAP break. I was hoping for the break of the 50SMA so I held about half my shares on the first trade when I got stopped out. Retook it when it still looked weak. It wasn't a perfect entry yet because it still had to break the 50SMA. A little risky on the entry. When it did, it dropped. Sold my shares and got out of the trade a little quickly and a little early. Still happy with the trade. As soon as I got out of the trade I saw that someone else had took the trade better than I did and held longer than I did in the BBT chat. I keep the chat on mute and I thought it was Andrew in the trade, but I didn't see it on the recap. I was hoping to get additional insight on the trade. Kept it short and sweet today. Depending how my sleep schedule goes this morning, I plan to trade live tomorrow.

Wednesday 2/27/19 Well being score of 5.5/10. Not as nervous about trading today than the previous two days. I did follow my setup yesterday (though poorly executed) and that gave me a bit more trust in myself. My two allowable trades were with SE and BBY. The 2min ORB setup: SE created a “step” setup on the 1min chart. Though the 2nd candle had good volume, the “power” came from the separation between the 1min VWAP and 2min VWAP (almost 1% gap). I waited very impatiently to 9:31:45 EST to take the trade (my new rule). Price did pop a bit but I was getting impatient since it was hovering just below my first target, so I took a partial anyway. But, the market was good enough to reprimand me by popping 20 cents 2 seconds later. The price did reach my 2R level (there were no good levels to aim for partials so I was using xR) where I took another partial. After making a new 1min low I showed that I didn’t learn anything 2 minutes before and exited the trade. The instant I exited the price popped 2%. Which is fine, I apparently needed another lesson in patience. Since my first trade was a winner I am allowed another trade. I saw the 5min ORBs were already running and I didn’t want to chase. I saw BBY setting up for an ABCD. But, I needed to use my newly taught patience. The way I have my ABCD setup is there needs to be at least three 1min candles bouncing off the same tech level. But, it only bounced off the tech level (VWAP) twice at that time. So I waited for the 3rd bounce, which it did. The plan originally was to buy just as it bounces off of VWAP. But while I waited I was getting concerned about the 69.02 tech level (which was a premarket level – that is why it is yellow, daily levels are green on my chart). So we had a premarket level, the $69.00 level and the previous 1min candle respected that level as well. Since the entry above that level still had a >2 to 1 reward to risk ratio (with the high of the day as a target and just below VWAP as a S/O) I decided to wait for it to break of that level for an entry. So when it did I went long. Soon after I realized that I went full share size, though on 2nd trades of the day I decided I should go half shares. So just after a small pop I sold half my shares. Now this left me in an odd situation which I hadn’t thought about. In theory I am still in the same trade with the same S/O (VWAP). But I just took a profit, so my instinct is to exit at B/E. I hadn’t thought about this scenario and was torn. So when in doubt, get out. And I exited at B/E. Now that I had some time to ponder, I have set the guideline to stay in the trade with the same S/O in that situation. What I did good today: Kept to my setup rules. I kept to my 1min 45sec no trade rule. Entered the trade correctly. Waited for my setup on both trades. Kept to my 2 trade/day rule (if first trade is a winner). How did I challenge myself today? Traded outside of AMD/AAPL/MU. Did not even place them on the watch-list or give them a chart. Traded an ABCD setup. What I did bad today: Impatient on my first trade with SE. First partial too early and exited too early. What can I do better tomorrow: More patience is needed, especially on my exit. Will start to document specific exit rules for me to follow.

Hey everyone, I'm Carlos G. I've been a member for a few weeks now and I love it! I served in the Marine Corps, worked on helicopters afterwards, and now I'm a senior pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering. I've been a NASA Pathways Intern at the Johnson Space Center for the last few years, and I don't plan on giving up my career anytime soon. However, I really enjoy day trading and hope to supplement my income knocking out a few trades in the morning before work. I'm currently saving up $25k to get past the PDT rule, so I'll be in the sim until then! Good thing, too. I probably would have lost all of my money by now. lol, I'm getting better though! I hope to go live by the end of the year. ; )