What a month of trading. Today I really took a look at my trading for the month, because the last couple of weeks I was just not satisfied with my trading. What I found was interesting, when I pulled away and looked over the month, I traded extremely well each day especially in the last two weeks. I only had two days that I traded outside my edge in the middle of the month. This is definitively not the feelings I had each and every day. It was refreshing to say the least that overlooking the month, that I was sticking to my trade plan and managing my risk well. Weekly Analysis of trading I traded all 5 days this week, although I had a trading error on Thursday as I left my order setup in simulator from the night prior. I took 2 out of 4 setups this week. Monday and Tuesday I hit my profit target and got through that difficult spot of having 3 losers in a row plus 3 trades outside my edge. I traded the third setup, but I was simulator without knowing it. The 4th setup I did not see as I was watching another stock on my watch list causing my to miss the entry. The time I spent on the sample set has been worth it. It has assisted in identifying a couple areas I need to work on. (1) Profit taking execution. My profit taking plan I believe is worth while, I am just not executing it as designed. (2) When I do everything right and the stock goes against me, I am still getting frustrated. If I did something wrong, I have no issue with the stock going against me. I have to remind myself that stopping out is doing the right thing so do not get upset. Weekly Overall Self Rating: Traded well all week Daily Goal Hit – 5 of 5 Daily Max Loss – No longer tracking, monitoring just to ensure I don't go over Goals for the month 1. Traded two times inside my sample set this week live. 1 time in simulator 2. Stick to your trading rules and focus on developing trading skills, maintaining self-discipline, and controlling my emotions while in the trade. Risk Controls 1. Did not trigger Max Loss control. 2. I did not hit Max Shares traded in a day. Trading Methodology 1. Did not change any of my trading or profit taking methodology. Sample Set Results P G S G S 6 7 8 S S P G G 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 P - 1:1 than Break-even G - Hit Profit target R - Stopped out # - Trade outside my Edge

I am with CMEG, so I am paying 2.95 per trade and $150 for the platform. When I first started I would say that my capital could not keep up with how I was trading (scaling out too much), so I had to make some adjustments to how I took profit. Since adjusting my scaling, I have no issues.

Good to see you working hard Mike! Slowly coming back again, did swift to futures, holy cow, going back to stocks again. How much are you paying, in (fees/monthly) (software, for using it) where you trade? And what about you capital, can it survive those (Monthly fees?) Great day.

Yeah well this whole exorcise is humbling. It's a giant humble pie! I went back and forth a few times until I was at the point that I wasn't reacting emotionally when trading with live money. I knew that if I was going to be emotional I would not have consistently positive results so no sense in going down that path. Part of that was also managing my individual losses and down days. Hitting max loss on trades too often meant that I was either not able to read price action correctly or in denial about what I was seeing or what I should do. I also made a rule for myself to stop trading after 3 trades and at about 10:00 - 10:15. That's my window. Whatever happens happens, then it's on to the next day.

Live trading summary of week ending 3/1/19 and month of February. Though I have been trading live for 4 months, this is the first month I felt real progress was being made. I had to go extreme with my rules for this month (only 1 trade allowed per day). But, it has really helped reduce my instinct to over trade (from extreme to just bad). It was the first month I did not go hulk. It was the first month I never hit max loss. I did break the 1 trade/day rule once on a revenge trade. It was also my first month with a positive equity. For March I will stick with the one trade a day rule, though I will allow myself a second trade if the first trade was a well executed winning trade. I can’t trust myself after a losing trade. Since my equity was positive and did not go hulk in February I am increasing my risk per trade from $25 to $30. In February I reread both the Daily Trading Coach and Trading in the Zone. Stats for February: Total # of trades 21 Hulk Days 0 Max Loss Days 0 Broke max trade rule 1 Hoy Key Mistakes 1 Good Trade % 43% Neutral Trade % 33% Bad Trade % 24% As for summary of the week ending 3/1/19. Not a good week. Good Trades Neutral Trades Bad Trades 3 1 3 Four out of five days I would consider as bad trading days. Adding 2/22/19 Friday was also quite bad, I am left with only one good day out of the last six that I was happy with my trading. This has left me with very high doubts about my trading again. So next week need to work on checklist especially being careless with the Risk/Reward. Problems need to be fixed internally and externally. As for internally, I will verbally go through my checklist (I video on all my trades with mic on, so it will be recorded) before I take a trade. This is a bit embarrassing to admit that I need to do after trading for 4 months live. As for external improvements, it seems this month on DAS I never got over the habit of having my tech levels automatically listed for you the way Etrade-Pro does. So I was sloppy double checking my levels before a trade. So beside increasing my margins, I will place a note on each chart (I assume DAS has a way for you to do this) from now on listing the two neighboring major levels above and below the opening price.

Hello fellow BBT's, I have been experimenting with an automated way to manage risk in DAS. What I have so far is a set of hotkeys that can be used for trading. There are a total of 10 hotkeys, 5 for managing long positions and 5 for managing sort position. The intention is to have the the keys automatically calculate share size when entering a position and also define the exit strategy for that position based on risk to reward. These hotkeys are not trivial and require a lot of explanation. If you are interested, keep reading, beware this is a lengthy post. I would greatly appreciate feedback, especial with the math model used to calculate risk. UPDATE 20190126- There is a new version of the spreadsheet and some of the functionally has changed from the original version posted (v1.4). Background concepts The scripts are based on a number of parameters, some of which are user defined and some are obtain from DAS. Here are a list of concepts then need to be understood before using the hotkeys. Equity: Is the amount if cash in your account. DAS has this. Margin is the margin that your broker gives you. Some brokers give 1:4 some give 1:6. If your equity is $25,000 and you get 1:4 margin then your total baying power is $100,000. Buying Power: DAS calculates your buying power based on your account equity and margin. Buying power is Equity X Margin. Percentage of Buying Power to use: This is a user defined percentage to be used. In order to manage risk, the user may decide to only use 10% of the account. Adjusted Equity: This is Equity X %Percentage of Buying Power Adjusted Buying Power: This is Buying Power X %Percentage of Buying Power. From here on when we refer to Buying Power in the Hotkeys, we really mean Adjusted Buying Power. Risk Tolerance: This is a percentage which indicate how much you are willing to risk (lose) in a single trade. A good guideline value for Risk Tolerance is 1% of your Adjusted Equity. Max. Loss per Trade: This is Adjusted Equity X %Risk Tolerance Example: Equity= $25000 Percentage of Buying Power = 10% Adjusted Equity = $2500 Risk Tolerance = 1% Max. Loss Per Trade = $25 Risk Per Trade: This is value calculated using using a mathematical model that I have found to approximate the expected change in the price. It is a simple model based on a linear function of the form f(x)= ax + b where x is the price of the stock and the constant a is a percentage of the price (user defined) and b is a user Base Risk plus the Spread (Ask-Bid). I found that a=0.1/100 =0.001 (or 0.1%) works very well in this model. Base Risk: This is a user defined value which represents the minimum change that a stock can have. What this means is that a minimum a price will move this value. I have 0.05 is a good value for Base Risk. Thus be can be defined as: b=Spread+0.05 (Spread plus 5 cents) This is the model used: f(x) = 0.001 x + 0.05 + Ask – Bid The model works best with smaller spread (Ask – Bid), simply because a high spread means high risk. In general you should avoid trading when the spread is too high. I personally look for spreads that are less than 0.05. Let's do an example of the model Assume are have a stock where Ask=20.22 Bid=20.2 f(20.22) = 0.001 * 20.22 + 0.05 + 20.22 – 20.2 = 0.09022 The Risk per Trade is 0.09002. What does this mean? Well if you are considering this stock for a long position, it means that the if the stock drops more than 0.09022 in price, you should get out of the trade. Now that we know our Risk per Trade for this stock, we can define our risk to reward levels If we take a long position at $20.22, expecting the price to go up, then our stop loss is at $20.1297 (20.22 – 0.09022). At this point we should exit the trade. The reward at a 1:3 would be when the price gets to $20.49 (20.22 + 3 x 0.09022). Note: Similar math applies to Shorting a position. This Risk per Trade model explained above is used in the hotkeys to create STOP Range Order to exit a position either on a STOP Loss or on a reward ( 1:3 or 1:2) level. Risk per Trade value is also used in some of the hotkeys to automatically determine how many shares to buy and stay within the Max. Loss Per Trade value. This is especially useful to determine how many share to take when the price of a stock is low. If a stock price is less than $30, you should determine the share size using Risk per Trade. There are a couple of hotkeys that will do this for you. Long Position Keys are used to enter and manage long positions. ALT+Numpad9 - Buy X number of share based on Max Risk per Trade and staying within the Buying Power parameters. ALT+Numpad7 - Buy X number of shares where X is ½ of the shares of ALT+Numpad9. ALT+Numpad8 - Send a STOP Range order to Sell with lower price at Ask – Risk per Share and High Price at Ask + 3 Times Risk Per Share (1:3 Risk Reward). This key is based on the current Ask price can be used repeated times while in a trade. Each time that is used, the previous order is canceled and a new one submitted based on the current Ask price. So if the price is moving in your direction you could use this key to “trail” the price, thus protecting your gains and possibly maximizing the gain. ALT+Numpad/ - Send a STOP Range order to Sell with lower price at Ask – Risk per Share and High Price at Ask + 2 Times Risk Per Share (1:2 Risk Reward)This key is based on the current Ask price can be used repeated times while in a trade. Each time that is used, the previous order is canceled and a new one submitted based on the current Ask price. So if the price is moving in your direction you could use this key to “trail” the price, thus protecting your gains and possibly maximizing the gain. ALT+Numpad- - Exit the position selling all share Short Position Keys are used to enter and manage short positions. ALT+Numpad3 - Short X number based on Max Risk per Trade and staying within the Buying Power parameters. ALT+Numpad1 - Short X number of shares where X is ½ of the shares of ALT+Numpad3. ALT+Numpad2 - Send a STOP Range order to Cover with lower price at Ask – 3 Times Risk per Share and High Price at Ask + Risk Per Share (1:3 Risk Reward). This key is based on the current Ask price can be used repeated times while in a trade. Each time that is used, the previous order is canceled and a new one submitted based on the current Ask price. So if the price is moving in your direction you could use this key to “trail” the price, thus protecting your gains and possibly maximizing the gain. ALT+Numpad5 - Send a STOP Range order to Cover with lower price at Ask – 2 Times Risk per Share and High Price at Ask + Risk Per Share (1:3 Risk Reward). This key is based on the current Ask price can be used repeated times while in a trade. Each time that is used, the previous order is canceled and a new one submitted based on the current Ask price. So if the price is moving in your direction you could use this key to “trail” the price, thus protecting your gains and possibly maximizing the gain. ALT+Numpad- - Exit the position covering all share How to Use the Keys The keys are layout for easy use on a full size keyboard. Buying: Hold the Alt Key and when ready to buy press one of the Buying (“9” or “7”) from the numeric keypad. For Ask price less than $30 use “7” for higher price use “9”. Immediately after the order is executed, and while still holding the Alt Key, press one of the STOP Range Sell keys (“8” or “/”). This creates a STOP Range order. Any time during the trade, you can press Alt+Numpad8 or Alt+Numpad/ to adjust your STOP Range order based on the current Ask/Bid price. You can also Sell your position anytime during the trade with Alt+Numpad- (minus key). Shorting: Hold the Alt Key and when ready to short, press one of the Shorting (“3” or “1”) keys from the numeric keypad. For Ask price less than $30 use “1” for higher price use “3”. Immediately after the order is executed, and while still holding the Alt Key, press one of the STOP Range Cover keys (“2” or “5”). Any time during the trade, you can press Alt+Numpad2 or Alt+Numpad5 to adjust your Range order based on the current Ask/Bid price. You can also Sell your position anytime during the trade with Alt+Numpad+ (plus key). How to get the hotkey scripts and load top DAS If you made this far in this, then you are probably interested in giving this a shot. Here is how to get the scripts: Step 1: Read and agree to the license for the scripts: IMPORTANT Licensing information These hotkeys/scripts are only meant to assist traders using DASTrader to learn how to trade. They automate simple tasks like share size and creation of Stop Range orders. The scripts are experimental and provided as is with no guarantees. Use these hotkeys/scripts only in a simulator environment to avoid issues. The author is not liable for any damages. The code is licensed as open source under GPL-3.0 (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html ). Read the license before you proceed to download and use the scripts. Step 2: Get and install the OpenOffice suite so that can use the spreadsheet configure your keys. Here is the link for Open Office: https://www.openoffice.org/ Step 3: Get the spreadsheet from this link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/opzq1ws4005xii4/Trade-Risk-v1.8-beta.ods?dl=0 Step 4: The default values should work fine for most cases. However should you need to do changes, you can changes these values in the configuration spreadsheet: Account Equity Risk Tolerance Margin Percentage of Buying Power to use ROUTE Base Risk Percentage or Price to use Note: Some cells in the sheet are lock/protected to avoid changing them by m,mistake. If you need to change the locked cells you will have to unlock them. Step 5: Follow the instructions within the configuration spreadsheet to set the parameters and copy the Hotkey Scripts from the Hotkeys tab within the spreadsheet. Step 6: If your DAS is running, then exit DAS. Find the DAS Directory and make a copy of the hotkey file “Hotkey.htk”. Use a text editor, like Notepad, to open the file Hotkey.htk. Paste the content from Hotkeys Tab in the spreadsheet above to the end of the file Hotkey.htk and save it. When you open DAS you will have the 10 Alt keys available. You can examine the scripts in DAS by clicking Setup->Hot Key and scrolling down. The Alt+ keys should be together. Click Cancel to exit the Hot Key tool. Note: If you are updating your ALT Hotkeys, you must first delete the old hotkey scripts from the Hotkey.htk file. For details follow the Updating Hotkeys instructions below. Step 7: Set your DAS to operate with your simulator account for testing. The hotkeys are now available to for use from any Montage Window. The Montage Window needs to be selected for the keys to work. Updating Hotkeys If you already had a set of ALT Hotkeys, and need to update them with new scripts, follow these steps: Step 1: In DAS open Hotkey Tool (Setting > Hot key) locate the Alt+keys and delete them all the Alt+ hotkeys using the Delete Item button. The click OK to Save the file. Step 2: Exit DAS Step 3: Use OpenOffice to update the hotkey configuration file as needed and save the spreadsheet. Follow the instructions within the configuration spreadsheet to set the parameters and copy the Hotkey Scripts from the Hotkeys tab within the spreadsheet. Step 4: Find the DAS Directory and make a copy of the hotkey file “Hotkey.htk”. Use a text editor, like Notepad, to open the file Hotkey.htk. Paste the content from Hotkeys Tab in the spreadsheet above to the end of the file Hotkey.htk and save it. When you open DAS you will have the 10 Alt keys. You can examine the scripts in DAS by clicking Setup->Hot Key and scrolling down. The Alt+ keys should be together. Click Cancel to exit the Hot Key tool. Step 5: Set your DAS to operate with your simulator account for testing. The hotkeys are now available to for use from any Montage Window. The Montage Window needs to be selected for the keys to work.