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We have a new scanner layout for our chatroom that includes two new scans. Kurt has tested and has been successfully using as indicators for possible trades. If you missed the video explanation live in the chatroom, here is the recording! If you want to get Trade Ideas we’ve negotiated a discount, so you can get their scan software for 15% off. Just click the button below and use “VANCOUVER15” at the checkout. http://trade-ideas.com/referral.html?p=vantrading&w=download Scanners Kurt.mp4 Scanners Kurt.mp4

July 24, 2019 - Did not Trade Well on my original watch list today I had $SNAP and $AMRN. Everything else was outside my normal pre-market screening because of price or ATR. I marked up $AMD as a standby, since I did not have shorts on $SNAP or $AMRN. $SNAP bought off quickly and never looked back. It never gave me an opportunity to enter and $AMRN sold off, so I had to resort to trusty old $AMD that got band from Andrew's list. lol. I knew it was not in play today, but I had a feeling that it might breakout from the range on the daily and head to either $34 or $34.21. For now the $34 level seems to be a strong level. I got a decent setup for a 5 minute ORBD, but just like the past three days it broke VWAP, test it a couple times and bought off. At this point I knew it was going to 34, so I simply walked away from the platform as I needed to reset after seeing the same pattern three days in a row and not taking it. $MU stop out, $KO went to moon, $AMD went right to my planned target. I came back after calming down and got an okay setup for a 15 min Orb at the tail end. I hesitated a little bit as I knew the stock was not in play, but I said to myself it is your setup and it meets your trading plan, take it. I implemented my knew routine after entry to help with holding to around the 1R and even though I broke some rules today, I could notice it helped a lot. As you can see from the bottom 5 minute chart, if I had stuck with my trading plan of taking a partial at 1R and exiting the rest at 2R, it would have worked out and I would not have gotten stopped out. Overall a good trading day and a lot was taken away for tomorrow. I have had 3 straight losing trades, so I think a little bit of the urge to take some profit and stop at break even was I just needed to walk away in the positive today. Sample Set Results, S E 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

24.Jul.19 Green Day. 2R Profit. Watchlist: $AMD, $MU, $SNAP, $TXN, $CAT, $AMRN. Later I also included $ROKU, $IRBT, $TER. I traded a lot today, including $FB after earnings. Trade 1&2: $FB. Took short at 200MA on 1min, stock was too strong and stopped me out. One of the failed MA bounce setups. This is fine. After 1min crossed 200MA and created a hammer, took it long just one partial near PCL. Trade 3: $IRBT. Fallen Angel setup, but Poor entry. stock was very volatile and didn't get my move immediately, so got out for a small profit. Trade 4: $SGEN. Long above 200MA (1min) and 50MA (5min). Had 1.5R didn't take it as the target was $72, missed by 3c. Got stopped out. Trade 5: $TER. I was done for the day. not planning to take a Live trade. so just watching $TER, and noted MA cross reversal on 1min. Price bounced off the inside of 50MA (very good indication for good setup). Took it short on SIM, realized it was Live. But the setup was valid so traded this. This was a very good trade. Trade 6: $CAT. Took VWAP bounce for Long, got stopped out. Then went Short twice before getting stopped out. 3 losing trades on not so great setups (C- setups). Good: I was able to try out different trading setups, including post earning $FB. Still only trading with small share size, within my risk. $TER was my best trade of the day, although it happened by mistake (thought I was in SIM). Improvement: Overtraded $CAT. It was not a great setup, still went back trading 3 times. Biased on $CAT, that had an impact. Partials need improvement, as I am missing 1.5R moves and getting stopped out. There were some great moves today, I just didn't catch one.

Hey guys Got an email from CMEG that we got a new route SAGSM. Looks good. Better commissions than what we get with the coupon code. I can see that I have SAGSM route in my DAS route dropdown box. Did anyone try this route on 24/07/2019 as looks like they introduced it this morning? If you did or are thinking of giving it a try, please post your feedback. Thanks! Jay

even though it's sim that TSLA trade was still awesome

25.Jul.19 Red day. I was very tired today and almost skiped the session. But I traded with too much distraction anyway. I was 2R up before hitting 4R loss. Watchlist: $FB, $TWTR, $T, $SNAP, $PYPL, $MU & $AMD. Watched $SNAP and $MU at the open. Trades 1&2: $SNAP. This was similar to my $FB trade yesterday, Took reversal at the open near the MA/PCL/Daily level (expecting a Double top on the daily). Price moved a little bit, but was too strong at the open. Small profits. Trades 3-5: $FB. Once again, looking for MA bounce reversal. Trusted this as it was 200MA on 15min. Took it long, got stopped out. Took it long again, after the bounce, got stoppe dout again. It was knife catching. $FB was very bearish today, although my bias was Long and that affected my trades today. I did take 2 more Long trades and made some small profits. Trades 6&7: $SNAP. Stock pulled back to 20MA and made a hammer. Took it long for HOD, BE stopout. Took another long after VWAP bounce. Partial and BE stop. $SNAP just couldn't break the $18 level today. Also creating a shooting star on Daily. tomorrow will be very interesting for $SNAP. Trade 8. $PTC. $PTC was bearish at the open. Pulled back to VWAP, created a VWAP false breakout setup. I took it short, very confident as there were MAs as resistence too. But price chopped and stopped me out. Very volatile after the Open. Trade 9: $MU. This was not a smart trade. Saw the doji hammer on 5min and went long, looking for ABCD pattern, realized I am caught in Double top setup on 1min. Got out for a loss. I should not have taken this setup. Good: I think I traded setups, but today, I think the MAs/VWAPs were not respected (including 200MA/15min). I had good setups on $PTC and $SNAP, but they just didn't work out. Improvement: Could have avoided trading today, being tired, or reduced the share size. Knife catching at the open on $FB, it was a 50;50 setup, could have avoided. $SNAP was exactly like $FB yesterday, din't give all the move. I could have waited for a confirmation, $SNAP also created the 3c setup on 5min, I just didn't notice it.

Thursday 7/25/2019 I had a well-being score of 6/10 this morning, a bit of a headache. My nerves were fine. I received my results of Van Tharp Institute psychological inventory test (176 question test). Wow, my results were really bad. Bottom 13%. I can’t imagine how bad it would have been if I took the trade last year before I improved with my discipline. It’s essentially telling me I shouldn’t trade. But too late I’m hooked. Plus I see personality improvement in other areas of my life so I am going to keep at it. See link for gory details: https://forums.bearbulltraders.com/topic/1286-van-tharp-institute-peak-performance-course-for-traders-my-journey-through-the-course/ I took three SIM trades with FB, TSLA and AAPL. I decided this morning to trade SIM the rest of the week. I was concerned about it, since the first 3 days of next week I will be in hotels and was planning trading SIM due to using just a laptop and uncertain WIFI. So trading SIM today and tomorrow means a week without live trades. The reason for trading SIM is as follows. I am usually positive profits going into the last few days of each month. Then my self-sabotage behavior kicks in and I give all the profits back and ending up flat for the last 5 months. Last month I was up big enough that even if I stop out every trade my last few days I will still be positive. But, my self-sabotage behavior was too strong and it found a way to give all the profits back. I REALLY didn’t want the same ending this month. So the simple solution, don’t trade. Call it a month and say yes after 9 months of trading live I have a positive P/L at the end of the month. Since I knew I would be trading SIM most of next week it was planned that the end of the month of July would be tomorrow (Friday). Today I thought I would like to trade TSLA at the open, since it has been in play lately but I want some SIM time on it before trading live. My other focus was FB since it was definitely in play. FB setup first with a nice hammer in the first minute, but it was still a red candle. Waited until the 2nd 1min candle was firmly white and went long. I gave it a large stop since the price movements were large this morning. My stop was the bottom of the candle. I would essentially bail on the trade if the candle goes red. I had a target of the high of premarket which gave a R/R~3 but there was the 200MA-1min standing in the way at 1R. But, the volume was so large I thought it was worth the risk. What’s odd about this trade and the next two is the moment I entered the trade I forgot I was in SIM. You can probably tell by my usual poor partialing L. But, that made today’s trading more useful than the usual SIM day. I took partials at the 50MA then 200MA. It never quite made it to my target and I exited when the price broke back through the 200MA. What it looked like when I took the trade: The entire trade: The next trade was a 5min ORB with AAPL. I like that it bounced from the PDC so it made a good stop level and shorted soon after the bounce. But within a minute I got out at B/E. Actually, if I would have held on, the price never broke my stop and would have been a good trade. My final trade was an ABCD on TSLA. The price was holding onto the 231.39 daily level that it respected (bounced from) multiple times. After it completed a red candle I shorted. My stop was the daily level (231.39) and my target was the 227.09 daily level. The R/R ~4 which is remarkable for the setups I usually take. The price action is much more volatile than I am use to causing me to partial even worse than usual. The price actually reached my target where I exited due to lack of shares. What I did good today: Took 3 good trades. How did I challenge myself today? Once in the trade it felt real so got some good training. What I did bad today: I feel a little wimpy trading in SIM. What can I do better: Since I will be on SIM the next 4 trading days I will work on experimenting with my partialing and trading TSLA at the open. I wish I thought of working on my partialing today. It would have been a really good day for it. It’s possible I may not get any trades that run in the next 4 days that I can practice on.

Van Tharp Institute Peak Performance Course Vol 1: How to use Risk Chapter 2 What happens to you in the market is a terrific mirror to what is going on inside your head. You will not be able to duplicate the success of the best traders until you duplicate their thinking. The main assignment for the chapter is to take the 176 question Investment Psychological Profile. I did quite poorly on the test, ranking in the bottom 13% of the traders who took it. I thought I have improved, psychologically, in the last 15 months. So I can’t imagine how I would have scored on the test last year. Here are the results:

I have recently requested that DAS place ATR and FLOAT in scanner and Mkt Viewer, at CEO level. This is one of 20 enhancements/fix I have requested since reviewing and testing the DAS platform. Some enhancements have already been done and released in the last update. Hoping to have more in the next update including ATR and FLOAT. We will see.

Please only take it as a suggestion my friend!. Very nice trade on $SNAP today.

Wednesday July 24th, 2019 Sleep: 7 hours. Mood: good, ready to trade. I have time to focus on the market at the open. Only trade today was an ABCD in SNAP. i missed the ORBs out of fear. i've been getting stopped out often on ORBs the last couple of weeks so i wasn't ready to jump in on this ORBU but it would have been a good one. instead i waited for the pullback and traded this as an ABCD with an entry on a new 2min high after a doji. my stop loss was a new 2min/5min/5min low. I had to leave my desk to travel for the day so i set my 3R range order. got within 2 cents of my profit target at around noon GOOD: good entry RFI: could have waited and got more shares. profit target was a bit far MOOD: good, I didn't have a choice but to hold on but i'm glad my order got filled. i was going to pull over and get out of the trade at 3:50 if neither my PT or stop loss was hit. CONSISTENT: yes, exactly as planned.

Wednesday 7/24/2019 I had a well-being score of 6.5/10 this morning. My nerves were fine. I was looking forward to the opening bell. Wow, I wish I knew why. I seem to have little understanding of my nerves. I would like to mention that I just started taking the home study version of the Van Tharp Institute Peak Performance Course for Traders. I really need to improve issues with my trading (fear, self-sabotage, over-trading, etc.). I think this course could really help. To place some accountability on myself to finish the course I plan to post my reading notes and assignments online. Hopefully, the info provided may help others as well. See link: I took one live trade with AAPL. Then three SIM trades: FB and NVDA. I was focusing on FB and AAPL at the open. FB was in play so I replaced MU to watch it at the open. I created my opening scenarios again. The long scenario for AAPL was identical to yesterday, where I got stopped out. But, the plan was to go long if it broke 200MA-1min, 50MA-1min, VWAP and finally the high of premarket on volume. It did just that, but on just enough volume to call it in play (300K). But, I was concerned due to my stop out yesterday. Then it dropped twice to test the high of premarket and bounced both times. So I felt better about it and went long. Target was PDC with S/O at the 200MA-1min. R/R~2. The price did make it to my target but didn’t move much after going red to green. I exited the last of my position when it went back green to red. What the chart looked like when I took the trade: The complete trade: I then took 3 SIM trades. One big loss, one small win and one solid win. The big loss was due to not treating the SIM trade as real. I got a bad fill and thus my share size and R/R were now wrong. So I needed to exit trade immediately. Instead, since it was SIM, I stayed in for a -1.8R loss. My solid win would have been a big win, but I decided to experiment with adding to my position. This seems not to work for me, so I thought I would try it in SIM. SIM confirmed it. I had a big winner, then I added to my position and the price instantly reversed hard and I lost almost half of my profit. Score card for my live trade. What I did good today: Created viable scenarios to follow at the open. Waited for a confirmation that it was not going to reverse back through the entry level. How did I challenge myself today? Took the same trade as yesterday even though I got burned with that setup yesterday. What I did bad today: The usual. Partialing could be better. What can I do better: Need to wait for the target for the 4th partial. Not really pushing myself that hard. This is an incremental improvement it shouldn’t be that hard.

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

That is great advise, forget the losses and let's focus on the process not the outcome on future trades you take.

@Fernando Samora We've all been there! You are definitely not alone. I would suggest forgetting about that loss. The moment you start thinking about "making it back" is when emotions enter the equation again. Focus on trading small and trading well. Your recovery plan sounds like a good start. Also look into Risk Controls to prevent these types of days from occurring. Best of luck.

Keep your head up, Fernando. We've all been in that place at one point in our trading careers. You have the right thoughts moving forward. Reduce size and goals as you get a feel for trading live money.