Leaderboard

Old post, but relevant: Andrew takes off 25% of remaining in rapid succession. Personally I take off 1/2 or 2/3 after 1.5:1 risk/reward. Then I take the rest off based on the price action (holding support, no new 2/5 min lows, etc). William and Norm typically aim for higher profit potential and are more patient. It really depends on your style, strategy, and personality.

Updated: 8/8/2019 @ 12:44pm (PST) Finally out of the alpha stage and releasing this to the community, I've been using it with success. Because I had to do some musical chairs with memory I made a configuration utility as the script itself is very ugly. This is more of a BETA release for this, so if anyone wants to try this out in SIM and let me know if you have any issues with the configuration sheet or the hotkeys themselves. It's based on the work started by @fjmocke here: https://forums.bearbulltraders.com/topic/469-das-calculate-shares-based-on-account-risk/ . What it is: It's a hotkey command script that can be used to dynamically alter the share total based on: Available Buying Power (capital) Stop Location (Risk) % Account Risk OR Fixed Dollar Amount The script includes purchase power protection and won't send an order that you can not afford, it does this by calculating two factors: A - Shares You Can Afford B - Shares at Risk Parameter (e.g. $25,000 account equity, 1% risk = $250 risk, $250 * a stop distance of .10 = 2500 shares) min{A,B} = 0.5(A + B - | A - B | ) But, why male models? I just told you. /Zoolander reference You'd use this to calculate your share total based on what you're willing to risk. So instead of blindly throwing 500 shares at every setup, you can dynamically alter risked amount based on the per-trade setup. I use it on my StreamDeck (will also release the icon packs soon) with modifiers of 100%, 75%, 50%, and 25%. 100% is the A-Plus setups I see, those I have HIGH confidence in. Alternatively, if a stock has a large spread or is low-float, I may only use the 25% modifier key for those. Instructions for Configuration: Go to this link: V2.1: DOWNLOAD ^^ Recommend latest DAS version of 5.4.3.0. Requires DAS version 5.2.0.34 or above (current BETA branch as of 11/19/2018) for the physical stop portion to work. If you don't use the physical stop, you don't have to worry about it. NOTE: Thoroughly test in SIM to make sure it's doing what you expect it to do. Choose: Download the ZIP file and unzip to where you want. On "Setup & Instructions" configure your settings. Account Leverage (default for DAS is 4), this is the margin your broker gives you. Some off-shores give 6. It needs to match what is configured in DAS for proper calculations. Max Account Risk %. This is the maximum percent of equity you're willing to risk on every trade (default is 1%). You can always risk lower (more on that later). % of Total Buying Power. If you don't want to calculate based on the total buying power of 100%, you can set this to a lower percentage (example: 100,000 buying power with 60% here equals $60,000 maximum position size) Route. LIMIT, MARKET, SMRTL. Default is LIMIT. Order Bid/Ask Offset. This is the offset you use when you send the price for order, e.g. "Ask + 0.05" (meaning fill me up to 5 cents above ask) Time in Force. Default: Day+ Default Shares. This is the amount of shares you want to set as the DEFAULT SHARES for all trades (e.g. when you click a Symbol and it loads, this is the share total). You can see why this is here in the technical breakdown section below. Minimum Stop Buffer. This is an offset to the stop distance. If you set this to 0.05, it'll add 5 cents to the stop distance calculation (so if your stop distance is 0.05, it'll be calculated on 0.10). Switch to the "Hotkeys" tab. Choose your preferred style. % Risk of Equity (Dynamic) or Fixed Price (e.g. $150 risk). %Equity Risk: Use the drop down to select what you want the value to be % equity. NOTE: This is a modifier AFTER your account risk maximum %. So if you have 1% account risk, and set this to 50%, your effective account risk is 0.005 --> 0.5%. $ Fixed: Use the drop down to select what you want the value to be for dollar risk. Select "long" or "short" to flip the script's direction. Click the cell that contains the start of the command (E column) and Ctrl + C (copy). Paste it into DAS. It should look like a sample command below. Instructions for Usage: First, you must have "Double Click to Trade" turned on in Chart, Right-Click --> Configure --> Settings --> Double-click to trade. Double click the chart where you want to set a mental stop (it does not place a stop order, you can always put one in after). Hit your configured hotkey. Sample Scripts: LONG: DefShare=BP*0.98; Share=DefShare*0.25* Price * 0.01; Price = Ask - Price + 0.02;SShare = Share / Price; Share = DefShare - SShare; DefShare = DefShare + SShare; SShare = Share; SShare = DefShare - SShare; Share = 0.5 * SShare; TogSShare; ROUTE =LIMIT; Price = Ask + 0.05; TIF=DAY+; BUY=Send; DefShare = 500; SHORT: DefShare=BP*0.98; Share=DefShare*0.25* Price * 0.01; Price = Price - Bid + 0.02;SShare = Share / Price; Share = DefShare - SShare; DefShare = DefShare + SShare; SShare = Share; SShare = DefShare - SShare; Share = 0.5 * SShare; TogSShare; ROUTE =LIMIT; Price = Bid - 0.05; TIF=DAY+; SELL=Send; DefShare = 500; Technical Breakdown: DAS has basic scripting. Montage commands have access to very few read/write variables, basic operations, and only operators of addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication. To do this calculation we need additional operators (min function, and absolute function) and more memory for storage of variables. This command gets around these limitations by using user-writeable areas of memory in the program. Since DAS is written in the C++ language (from what I can tell), it's strict on what can be done in these existing memory locations. The hotkey uses the following items (plus the usual Price -- FLOAT): (Assumptions on Datatypes) DefShare -- INT (Used as a temporary variable for storage) SShare -- Unsigned INT (Behaves like an Unsigned INT in certain situations. Used as a temporary variable for storage) Share -- INT (Used as a temporary variable for storage) With the 3 INT variables, objects are moved around in memory so that we can calculate and compare with our variable limitation (be much easier if we could assign our own). To facilitate the ABS() function, we use a trick --> When a negative value is placed into an Unsigned INT it loses it's sign (thus, it becomes a POSITIVE value in memory). A more detailed technical breakdown (step by step) is located in the Configuration spreadsheet up above. Future Enhancements: If need be, I can make a step-by-step video of this entire process. I have a version that uses an AutoHotKey macro to drop a line at the stop location, I can upload that as well if people want it. ^^ Update, I discontinued this as it was too cumbersome. You had to have two sets of hotkeys for each command. I may someday revisit it if I can build out a configuration tool for it. TLDR: It does the math for you so you can risk a known amount (% or $) based on your per-trade risk position (stop distance). And yes, I'm a bit of a tech nerd. Also, longest post .. ever. Would not read again, 0/5 stars. --- KNOWN ISSUES: %Account Risk gets smaller and smaller when subsequent open positions Reason: No Equity variable, we reverse calculate equity using Buying Power. On subsequent positions, the % (e.g. 1%) calculation will be based on the available buying power and NOT the account equity. Workaround: Precalculate the %risk and use it for the $risk versions. So 1% of $25,000 equity equals $250. SSR rejection on LONG position when scaling out; rejection message (e.g. "Short marketable limit order disable due to SSR!") if using the automatic STOP trigger. Reason: DAS calculates that the position will drop below the open stop order position and reject as this can cause the position to "flip" if it was triggered. Workaround: Have a hotkey to clear the open orders (CXL ALLSYMB), clear it, scale the position (e.g. 25%). Either replace the stop or switch to a mental stop. Alternatively, you can add "CXL ALLSYMB;" to the front of the scale-out hotkeys. You just have to be cognizant to replace the stop order. Equated position size if very small (e.g. 4 or 5 shares when expected is hundreds). Reason: Wrong side was used for the order. E.g. a long hotkey is used when trying to go short. -or- Stop Distance was calculated to be a negative value (clicked too close to current price). Workaround: Be cognizant of the hotkeys used and the stop distance clicked. Clicking too close (a really tight stop) can be very dangerous if you do it inadvertently. TriggerOrder for automatic STOP placement not being sent (no stop order placed). Reason: Montage is not set to a style that doesn't allow TriggerOrder input. Styles not compatible are: Default [DAS's, if you changed it], Basic, OCO, Option, Full Fix: Use a style that is compatible, they are: Stop Order, Detail, Trigger -- I recommended using the "Stop Order" montage style. To change this, right click the montage area around where you'd enter a price and select Style --> Your Choice. --- UPDATES: 10/17/2018 - Added v.1.1 link, you'd need to use the new version to change anything. - General cleanup of the script. Added instructions for the IB issue (discussed in this thread) - NEW FEATURE: Added a new section to the Hotkeys sheet, it will now create a set up for Dynamic Scale-In hotkey commands. You'd use these by setting a scale value (say you want an additional 50% of your current position size). The hotkey will calculate the maximum share you can afford (how much you can afford at the moment) and the scale value, choosing to take the least amount. So if your current position is 1500 shares (@ $50.00) and you want to scale in at 50% your current position, it'd check if you can afford an additional 750 shares, if you can't, it'll buy the maximum you can afford. For this example, you can't afford it (if Buying Power is 100k), so it'd buy roughly $25k worth (500 shares). - CLEANUP: Cleaned up the $Dollar Risk version and removed unnecessary steps. Don't really need to replace yours if they exist, but worth noting. 10/30/2018 - Added @Michael P's suggested fixes for Excel. Configuration tool should now work in both Sheets and Excel. - NOTICE: This was a configuration tool change, no changes were made to the hotkey scripts, so no need to change any existing hotkeys. 11/19/2018 - Shortened some of the commands so we don't hit any hotkey character limit, makes them less readable, but shorter. Couldn't get them low enough to fit the montage buttons though (although removing the portions for the buying power rejection protection would likely do it). - Added a section for SELL/COVER buttons for people who just need to create those. E.g. "Sell 25% position" or "Sell 33% position". - Added @Robert H's stop suggestion. New fields on the setup page for enabling physical stops. If enabled, it'll place a MARKET or LIMIT (settings included) trigger order to go into the market once the initial order is fulfilled, these are placed at the location you double-clicked on the chart. 11/20/2018 - Added a stop-order setting to set an additional buffer for the stop price (for those that want to include or exclude the double-clicked price). - Added conditional formatting to subdue the stop settings that aren't required if you disable sending a physical stop into the market. 12/10/2018 - Added a known issues section to this post and the spreadsheet (for when a new version goes up). 12/12/2018 - Updated known issues section to include the "Montage Style" issue for TriggerOrders. 12/13/2018 - Updated to new version 1.46. Fixed a bug in the Trigger Order script which could cause it to not be interpreted by DAS's command parser on certain user settings. - Added "modifier" extra hotkeys. See instructions next to these on how to use them. - - - Set Stop to Breakeven - Long or Short - Stop Limit or Stop Market (cancels any pending orders for SYMB) - - - Set Stop to Breakeven - Bidirectional - Stop Market (cancels any pending orders for SYMB) - - - Stop - Update Price - Long or Short - Stop Limit or Stop Market (cancels pending orders, double click chart where you want stop before firing hotkey) - - - Stop - Update Price - Bidirectional - Stop Market (cancels pending orders, double click chart where you want stop before firing hotkey) - - - Stop - Update Position - Long or Short - Stop Limit or Stop Market - Replace (requires you double-click the original stop in the Orders window) - - - Stop - Update Position - Bidirectional - Stop Market Orders Only - Replace (requires you double-click the original stop in the Orders window). 8/8/2019 - New version 2.0, download the .zip file and unzip it. - Fixed an issue with some hotkey configurations that may have caused them to be inaccurate in vary rare situations. Recommend recreating your hotkeys in this new version, just to be sure. - Added Profit Target hotkeys. - Added % Scale-In Hotkeys - Added $ Risk Scale-In Hotkeys - Added Short-SSR to Long/Short dropdown for SSR hotkeys (DAS Simulator) - Added Range Order hotkeys - Added Y-Margin Scale Increase hotkey, Y-Margin Decrease, and Y-Margin Reset - Added new sheet "Example - Equity%" and "Example - $Risk" to give a more workflow outlook on what is happening. - Included a ScaleOut worksheet to manually simulate what different scale percentages / scenarios look like (instructions will be in the video). ALSO: Video is done and rendering, I think it comes in at 45minutes with 3.4gigs (4k), so it'll need to be optimized before I upload it to YouTube. Will try to do it today and will update this when done. 9/10/2019 - New version 2.1 released. Just general clean up (UI) and bug fixes. - FIXED: Issue with the Scale-In $Risk hotkeys. - FIXED: Issue with the Stop Update Price long and short hotkeys> ^^ If you use either of those, please regenerate them and replace in your DAS to avoid issues. UPDATES: The majority of this side project is completed and besides a few requests I have in with DAS developers to optimize a few things, out of any major bugs or improved scripting features, I'd say this is about done. I'll provide any edge-case support as need, but I want to move on to other BBT-community projects. So what do I have cookin' for you guys, gals, and cat? You'll see a glimpse in the video of an early prototype (buggy! I programmed that in a few hours, so bugs are expected) of a DAS calculator side program. The newer version (need to finish the UI) will incorporate a lot more in ways of tools for you, including automatically calculating changes without a hotkey intervention. It also allows you to mass-process trade log .csv files you may have exported and compile it into Excel or .CSV for import into other programs. Configuration is drag/drop friendly, so rearranging your columns is as easy as click and holding. I'm also going to shift my attention to finishing my ORB-strategy research. Right now, my datapool encompasses 15000 news article, gaplists for 2011-2019, and 1second data for stocks in that range. It's a data store of roughly 80 gigs. The idea is to test for hidden signals we may not see that can indicate a potential direction of an ORB strategy (if no rare outside influence occurs, like a terrorist attack) by leveraging a consortium of machine learning algorithms to give us a higher probability of success for each day. Depending how the research works out, the end product would likely be a probability predictor for each day. I'll share the research results with the community and may incorporate some other tests as well. VIDEO: Ok, so I may have gone down an editing rabbit hole and that took longer than expected. The videos are up, came in quite long so I chunked it down. Sorry it's a tad scattered and not one-linear cohesive unit, but I tried to mark it up as best as possible. Part 1 - Config / Math - https://youtu.be/YrRrydwGyRY Part 2 - Setup, Quick Examples, Tips - https://youtu.be/pXLlWF7T6hw Part 3 - Sim Trade Example - https://youtu.be/SO9UhJh4dTc Bonus 1 - Scale/Price Excel Calc - https://youtu.be/KTr_iJ2p0TU Bonus Tips - https://youtu.be/sNHXFMoia7A

Week 12 Recap Happy with my progress this week. i'm going back to live trading again so i'm excited to start working on becoming profitable in real trading. I've been struggling with getting in to trades too early the last couple weeks but this week i'm really starting to nail the entries. Goals for next week are to not worry about P&L and just take good trades with great entries. · Weekly stats o 2.0 R/R (Goal: above 2.0) [Previous Week: 1.8] o 48/52 92% (Goal: above 80%) [Previous Week: 93%] o $32.16 (Goal: $250) [Previous Week: -$3.50] o 12/13 92% trades with the trend (Goal: 100%) [Previous Week: 71%] o 1/12 8% Early Entries (Goal: 0%) [Previous Week: 43%] o 1/12 8% Letting Losers Run (Goal: 0%) [Previous Week: 0%] o 0/12 0% No Setup (Goal: 0%) [Previous Week: 14%] · Highlights o Green week this week with 4/5 days green. Going to try going back to real trading. o The rule of trying to enter within 15cents of my stop loss has been a big help this week. o I’m going to keep taking quick partials on ORBs, that seems to be working well. · Ongoing things to work on o Selling needs to be better, even though I’ve improved my accuracy, I’m not taking enough out at my profit targets. Increasing selling to 75% at initial target then 12.5% at next level then the rest on a range order to let run. o Still making hotkey errors! o Revenge trades on stop outs first thing in the morning still needs work. o Got Auto stopped out on a trade this week, need to work on never doing that.

Tonight, added some more hotkeys, and put stickers on the buttons. Even though Andrew stresses in his books that traders need to use hotkeys to be successful, I didn't realize how much of a difference it makes until I started using them.....and its only been one day. I'll never go back to point and mouse click.

Correct @hailchaser2

Friday 3/22/2019 I had a well-being score of 5/10 this morning. My nerves were on the bad side. I took two trades, both on AMD. AMD was setting up for a reverse to VWAP. Actually so was AAPL, but it reversed too quickly, so I switch my attention on AMD. The checklist I used for this is: 1min candle >1%, well beyond Bollinger band (20SMA 4 sigma) and has a strong tech level to reverse on (which it did at 27.25). I took it after it reversed (always some slippage): Just after I took the trade. I really thought there was a good chance to break VWAP so I only took a partial instead of scalping it at VWAP. It reversed and I exited when it broke the 27.42 tech level (a premarket level and the 200SMA from the 5min chart). AMD then beecame immediately bearish. I was hesitant to flip postions, because I never know if it is correct due to emotions. But then I thought that I just had a winning trade, so I can’t be feeling revenge trading. Then I went short, which ended up simultaneous with Andrew. The moment I took the trade: My checklist: There was a strong first tech level to take a partial on, though my target was the tech level at 26.9. I took a few partials and my final exited more on nerves than anything else. What I did good today: Traded well on a Friday!! Which is usually my worse day of the week. How did I challenge myself today? Took a reverse to VWAP trade. It’s been awhile since I have done that. Did my first “flip” trade since I have been live. What I did bad today: Exited a trade due to nerves. Share sizes were a little light. What can I do better tomorrow/next week: Keep a better eye on SPY. Somedays I am on it, others I am not. Today I was poor at it even though it told a lot today. I have a whole screen dedicated to SPY. I need to always look at it.

March 21, 2019 - $CAG (Stopped Out) Some days you just pick the wrong stock out of the bunch to trade. All three stocks on my watch meet my trade criteria. 2 of the 3 worked, 1 did not. I would have gotten a partial out of $CAG had I not had another blind spot trading error again. I put my entry and stop loss line using the first candle on the 5 minute chart thinking it was the open and close of the 15 minute chart. This caused me to get a later entry with a lower risk to reward. When the stock did not move right away and broke below the 9 and 20 SMA I got out and said I would re-enter if the stock broke my entry point. It did but I did not get a fill due to not simultaneously press "Ctrl N" instead the "N" went into the symbol section of the Montage. After that I said I was not chasing it and cut my losses. Best part was emotional at all. Just moved on to look for another trade. Unfortunately, $MU and $FTDR already made their moves. Sample Set Results P G S G S 6 7 8 S S P G G S G S S P S 20

3/21/2019 Got chopped and racked up commissions for days. Made about 10 hot key mistakes. Took a lot of trades on $CAG. More than I should have. Trash stock reward of the day goes to $CAG. $CAG - Went short 300 shares after the price action consolidated after a drop. Didn't think that bull run would hold. I covered a minute later feeling like it wouldn't go. Got back in short 200 shares then added 75 more on the way down. Covered half at VWAP. Covered the rest on the pullback. Got back in short 200 shares looking for a fade down through VWAP. I felt some bearish pressure on the 5-minute with a lower high lower low, but the price action closed above VWAP. Stopped out after the price action squeezed. $CAG - Went short again 200 shares again thinking that move was finally coming. Got in under the 9MA 1-minute, but didn't feel the short love. Stopped out again. $CAG - GOT THE CLOSE BELOW VWAP/9MA 5-MINUTE. THIS WAS IT. Nope... Trash. Went short 50 shares (hotkey'd 50 instead of 200) looking for that push down. Set my stop at 25.43, but didn't feel it. Cut the trade off early before the squeeze. $CAG played games. Then of course, the move happened. $MU - Super strong today. Caught a 9MA bounce on the 5-minute. Went long 300 shares and sold 50% in 3 steps. Sold everything afterwards. I think my sell points were maybe too close, but then again, you don't know what's gonna happen. I'd maybe let my first partial go a bit further since there wasn't a sign of a sell off. But, I sold it because it was filling the bearish gap on the 5-minute. $MU - Annnd stupidity struck. Or was it stupidity? I went back short on $MU looking for a reject of the 9MA 5-minute. I went short 75 shares (hotkey'd 75 instead of 300), added 300 more and looked for the move down. Should have waited for more confirmation since the price action closed bullish above the 9MA 5-minute. Got squeezed up and stopped out. Got back in short 50 shares (hotkey'd 50 shares instead of 300) and added 300 more looking for the move down. I covered half at the 50MA 1-minute, then took everything off at break even. Then the move happened so missed that opportunity. Came back with one more trade. Went long 400 shares after the price action closed above the 9MA 5-minute thinking we'd get a move back towards HOD. Stopped out at break even. Sold half on accident then sold all. Lot of hot key mistakes today. Result:

Thursday 3/21/2019 I had a well-being score of 6/10 this morning. My nerves were good. I took two trades, AMD and MU. AMD was a 1min ORB. 1min candle was strong, then I tried to catch the pullback bounce off of VWAP. The bounce was so fast I had about 5 cent slippage. I took a first partial at HOTD. It immediately reversed and I S/O at B/E. My second trade was with MU. It had a really good “step” 2min ORB. But data is showing that I should wait for the 2min candle break for “Step” setups. The price finally made a clear break after 9:33 EDT. Price immediately reversed after I went long I was stopped out. I thought this was a good trade that didn’t work out until I reviewed it later and saw the 2min candle was larger than 0.5 ATR. Thus the trade should have been vetoed. I don’t measure the candle exactly, I usually just eye-ball its size and it seemed large but OK when I was trading. But it was 65% of ATR and thus trade should not have been taken. What I did good today: Good execution today How did I challenge myself today? Waited for the completion of a setup. I was dying to enter MU early. What I did bad today: I shied away from trading AAPL, which had the best setup, because I thought I have been trading it too much lately. AAPL of course was a really good ORBU. Not the first time I have done that. Also, inadvertently broke a veto rule. What can I do better tomorrow: Choose the best setup, it doesn’t matter if I have traded it every day this week. Be more mindful of 2min candle size compared to ATR. Measure it you have to.