Monday August 19th, 2019 Sleep: 7:30. Mood: good, feeling like not wanting to do anything this morning. i'm typically on vacation around this time so my body is in relax mode Only took one live trade today. i took an ABCD in NVDA. great entry, but the r/r was a bit of a stretch. i added the ATR to my daily chart and i saw NVDA was already over it's daily ATR so i was concerned that it would not hit my profit target. I got out at break even with a 2min shooting star with volume and a new 5min low. i'm happy with that exit, I want to work more on minimizing my losses. improvement for this trade was i could have got back in when it was holding the MAs on the 2 min pretty much exactly where i got in the first time. GOOD: entry, exit management RFI: R/R was far for NVDA ATR could have changed it to 2R MOOD: ok, not pleased i got shook out but it's something i'm working on, should have got back in CONSISTENT: yes i followed the plan and exited when i didn't like the price action. tried some SIM reversals, NVDA triple top didn't work and PCG double bottom that did work. What i did good today: managed the trade all the way to the end What i did bad today: didn't get back in the trade when it turned around What can i do better tomorrow: practice getting back in to trades that end up working.

I had my stream deck set, then formatted my pc and was lazy to set it up again lol, after reading this post I decided to get rid of my laziness and make something good out of it lol

Just a quick update, what I've learned so far: Just finished my 5th month in sim and no improvement. In fact I feel I am getting worse over time. I know Andrew often says some people just cannot do this and I am seeing why. I have spent over 40hrs a week full time on this and have nothing to show for it. I have learned so much and could teach a course on it but cannot get it to work in the real world. Most of the time the patterns and strategies fail. It is easy to cherry pic setups after the fact but in reality I find most setups fail miserably. ORB's go the wrong way, ABC's fail, VWAP breaks are false, bull and bear flags go the wrong way. Support and resistance are non existent. For every setup that works I can find 10 that don't. The instructional videos are great but they are cherry picked stocks that the setup in question worked beautifully. Why not post a video on the 10 that failed . My wife who knows nothing about trading just picks a stock because she likes the name, goes long or short and has a better win % than me. This tells me trading may come down to dumb luck and is just gambling. You really have a 50 / 50 chance of success on each trade and patterns / setups are meaningless. Andrews style confirms this because his accuracy is only 50% or less. He jumps in and at the first sign of failing gets out and tries again and again till he gets it right. Random! He gets it to work because he takes a big size and can make good profits on a .12 cent move. For most traders this strategy will not work. Even with 1000 share position you need a .20 cent move to make it worth your time and in this market that is very difficult. It is frustrating because I do have a passion (or maybe obsession, same thing I guess) for it and would love to con't but after 5 months I would think some improvement should be evident. I have recently started intraday trend trading and having some limited success but still no better than 50 / 50 guessing. I tried a coin flipping experiment and my trading reflects the same outcome, about a 30% accuracy rate. Sorry for the long rant but I think most traders are going through the same thing and It's good to vent. Thanks everybody.

Just a few recommendations: 1) never base your stop loss off a dollar amount (ie: a $0.10 cent move) Use technical levels (patterns, moving averages, areas of previous consolidation, high/low of previous candles, etc...). I have a saying directly related to this, which is: "TRADE TECHNICALS, NOT P&L'S." $0.10 cents as a stop trigger is arbitrary, unless it coincidentally lines up with a technical area. 2) always aim for a minimum of 2:1 reward/risk ratio. And if the risk to a technical level (as mentioned in point 1 above) is too much to stomach, then take a smaller position, or find a different trade. Again, find a technical area for your stop (not an arbitrary dollar amount), then take a position commensurate with the amount of money you're willing to risk if things don't go your way on the trade. A 2:1 reward/risk ratio only has to pan out slightly more often than 1/3 of the time for you to make money. If you've read Andrew's book, and/or studied other technical literature, you can easily be more accurate than this. I would guess that my accuracy is well above 80%. 3) stop trading all day. 90% of "day-trading" money is made from 9:30-10:00. From 09:30-09:45 there is a significant amount of opportunity, but it also comes with more risk. From 09:45-10:00ish, there is still plenty of opportunity, but less risk... From 10-11 you'll find plays worth taking, but the movement will rarely parallel the opportunity you had from 09:30-10:00. Frankly, trading between 11:00-14:00 is, in my opinion, the source of many Day-Trader's demise. It leads to overtrading, which leads to giving profits back, as well as overspending on commissions. If you insist on seeing as much action as possible (for learning and repetitions), yet being efficient in the process, trade from 09:30-11, then again from 14:00-16:00; but leave during "chop," which is the window between. And just a little nugget for ya: The best moves/pivots are at 09:45, 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, 14:00, 15:00, 15:30. 4) learn to trust yourself. I'm willing to bet that there have been MANY trades that, had you just stuck with your intuition rather than stopping out -- you would have made money (cuz you were correct on the move). You must trust yourself in this game..., and back to a previous point - a $0.10 stop is taking control (trust) away from yourself, and basing said control on arbitrary metrics (as opposed to the education/wisdom you've acquired). 5) The final point I'll make is this: the more repetitions you get in, the more comfort and wisdom you'll develop. Trading is much like everything else in life, in that the more exposure you get to it, the more repetitions you experience, and the more practice you employ -- the better your acumen will develop. Nothing in life worth anything comes easy. If you want to be a successful trader bad enough-- the only person in your way is the person you see in the mirror. Keep your head in the game, keep persevering, and you WILL develop into the Trader you want to become. Gl; STAY GREEN!

I was looking for the daily score card that Brett Steenbarger suggests but couldn't find anything to incorporate in my journal so I came up with my own custom journal. I borrowed a lot of what Robert has in his journal template and made an excel file that is formula driven when the trade log is exported and pasted into it. I copy the day tab that is currently labeled "04.25" and pull in my trade log from Das in there, then update the Summary sheet tab using the existing Hlookup formulas. Here's a copy of the file if anyone is interested. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WcUmRE2lMy3jyf8UICQXdRXU1m7LUFgk

candlesticksmadeeasy (1).pdf Hey guys, my friend, a very happy options trader, sent me this book on candlestick analysis. Some of what is in here is covered in Andrew's videos, and some of it is new -- and he goes into a "how and why it works" explanation when discussing candlestick patterns. A few people in the chat wanted to read it so I am posting it here. Enjoy