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Hi All, I found a classic chart patterns graphic after seeing that Michelle and Carlos have this up on their wall and really liked the idea of having it as a reference. It also coincides with Robert's video on wedges and triangle patterns. Here's a link to high quality sections of the chart examples: https://www.behance.net/gallery/27641581/Classic-Chart-Patterns-Print Added the Japanese Candlesticks chart which is really useful too.

8-30-19 Slept 7 hours and feel OK..... SSS and a coffee, no sugar (not a very good one today) PAT: Use my Playbook for trades........ make sure I read and follow all my Sticky Rules...... Walk away before I take a revenge trade........ CPB 5min ORB, confirmed with ABCD on 1min.... Gotta terrible fill with a bad spread, I thought I took a small size until it got filled so when I got stopped out is was for a full position...... (53.00) MRVL 2 trades first .... 15min ORB with confirmation on 2min ABCD... small share size and scaled in, took profits at 25% each and all out at BE.......... second...... ABCD continued.... took small share size and added small as I did not feel as good about this one and this is why I am here right now..... took profit of 50% at 1R and all out at BE..... +76.59 Done for the Day..... open pos. and any future is maybe a SIM of SIM but I don't think Ill be back home before the close Cons: On CPB The spread was worse than it was when I looked at it earlier, I need to look at the spread right before the trade..... Pros: I did follow my Playbook, took small share sizes and added with confirmation... I did respect my stop losses......... R= 50.00: +23.59 Week end goal 5 R : +564.28 This of course was SIM of SIM I took NUGT for VWAP Lightning..... entered on the bounce of the 9ma on 1 and 2min, along with an ABCD, above 50 on 5min... no new low on 5 or 15min .... my avg cast 40.56 and my stop was the ABCD pattern at 40.47 and target was several bounces off 40.79 on the 5min intraday.... partialed out 50% - 25% - 10% then all out for a profit of 54.85 (risk 36.00)

I contacted Alliance Traders today prior to Andrew sending a group email and received this response that may be useful for the group. I also asked if they have a method to import stock transactions into Intuit TurboTax that they answered at bottom. Today I found a company called form8949.com that has integration service for $10 with CMEG and would need to investigate a way to do same with Alliance. That's all I know but thought it worth sharing... Good day, Thank you for your interest in opening an account with Alliance Trader, as a BearBull member you will receive the following special commission and software rates: Commission à $0.99 up to 300 shares (min $0.99 per ticket) (the rate over 300 shares will be communicated shortly) Software à $120 DAS software fee, free after you make over $500 in commissions Margin à 6:1 margin (intraday), 2:1 margin (overnight) on accounts $2500 and over Margin fees: daily margin interest 10% per annum, margin call $25 and overnight short position fee 10% of the value of the position. Funding à By bank wire transfer, subject to a $30 incoming wire fee Withdrawal à By bank wire transfer, $35 for domestic and $70 for international Please use the following link to open an account: https://www.alliancetrader.com/open-an-account (for Corporate Accounts please use the joint account form and provide the required corporate documents listed on our website) Regarding taxes, your back office login will give you the access to generate reports for you to file your taxes. 7 Belmont Road Kingston 5 Jamaica, W.I. Tel: (876) 960-4321-6 Fax: (876) 960-4327 US Line: (786)-267-9745 Website: www.alliancetrader.com

Hey Traders, It's been almost a year since that last Florida meetup so it's time for another one! We will have moderators ThorYoung and Andrew Aziz in attendance! Date: November 16th 2019 (Saturday) Time: 3:00 PM (Updated) Location: Clearwater Beach FL Venue: Bob Heilman's Beachcomber (Updated) Address: 447 Mandalay Ave, Clearwater Beach, FL 33767 Parking: The restaurant has valet parking Theme: A fun event to discuss trading, get free drinks and meet fellow traders. Attendance: Open to everyone including Non BBT Members. Please sign up using the attendance sheet link below. BBT will be providing free drinks and swag for those in attendance! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YVlR5VEH6Fn3SJp4JQYyjkC0mBgaIwX_34vWSDqNLhw/edit#gid=0 https://heilmansbeachcomber.com/

Live trading summary for week ending 8/30/19. An unusual week. It’s my best week for score card since I have been tracking that with an average of 88.4%. But it was my worse week, for profitability, in 7 months. Which strikes me as very odd. I took 8 live trades this week. One trade was really bad, I was slow entering the trade compounded by a bad fill and as usual I can’t get myself to bail on the trade. Thus I took a -2R. I had only two trades go for a good run. One I was stopped out by 1 cent and missed the run and the other took only 1/3 the appropriate shares. So I only made +2R from winning trades this week. Since I took -5R on the losers it was a bad week, even though my win rate was 50%. I took quite a few SIM trades (5/10/15min ORBs) and my SIM trades improved throughout the week. I did take some non-AAPL trades, this week, with TSLA. Back test data shows AAPL still in play at the open, though still acting more like a scalp with little chance to run. TSLA and MU were marginal last week at the open and will be removed from focus at the open. BABA had a really good week at the open, though this is unusual for BABA. Here is my plan for this week: P/L will be closed and not looked at until the end of the month to help focus on process and score card, not on W% and P/L AAPL is still in play at the open. Make it the primary focus. Take heavier partial profits, assume it’s a scalp at the open. AMD, TSLA, MU and FB are marginal. Do not trade at the open until better data. Keep $30 risk per trade. You can look at BABA for secondary focus at the open. If there is a really good stock in play it can be made the secondary focus. If I trade BABA I will use small share size until I learn the personality of the stock. Keep trading 5/10/15 min on SIM Don’t add to any trade, even winners. Continue with the Van Tharp’s Peak Performance Course for Traders.

don't want to think about it. could have been much worse!!

Van Tharp Institute Peak Performance Course for Traders Vol 3: How to Control Losing Attitudes Chapter 1 The writer of the course believes that there are certain characteristics essential for trading success: 1) A strong mathematical ability 2) Gamesmanship 3) The ability to focus on the big picture as opposed to all the detail 4) Making decisions based on logic rather than feelings 5) The ability to be organized and see things through to the end as opposed to the tendency to get totally absorbed in something until something else grabs your attention. 6) The ability to commit to being a trader 7) The ability to totally recognize how you create your own results as a trader. You never trade the markets directly. You trade your beliefs about the markets. If one person can do something, any other person is also capable of doing it, although it will be easier for some. Chapter 2 The course asks you to take an online test to try and determine what type of trader you are. https://www.vantharp.com/trading/free-resources/ The test describes me a Strategic Thinker. The three core qualities of this type: 1) The ability to see the big picture, new possibilities and connections between things 2) Making decisions based on logic and analysis 3) Being decisive, orderly and doing things sequentially The strengths: 1) Originality and follow through 2) Quickly see patterns and ability to rapidly hypothesize Challenges: 1) You may be so logical that you don’t recognize when emotions are causing you to be self-destructive. 2) You have a strong desire to be right. 3) You may not honor your stops Wow the challenges for this type are really dead on. There are a few models for why traders lose in the market. The Hydraulic Model describes traders that are driven to lose in the market because of negative subconscious forces. Freud describes these forces like water against a dam and can break through any weak points and produce irrational behavior. People lose money when their defenses weaken, break down and when they direct the forces inappropriately. The author thinks this model doesn’t work in practice. But I think this is very valid when describing a trader going Tilt/Hulk. Behavior Theory approaches the market in terms of effectiveness of how the trader is rewarded or punished interacting with the market. Superstitions can be created from previous rewards. Frustrations produce rigid behavior. Once you become aware of your behavior one can begin to determine how to control it. That is why adding the psychology to your trading journal. The Trader as a Servo-Mechanism (like a thermostat) who tries to keep him/herself in the comfort zone. The most important Servo-Mechanism as a trade is your self-image. You have a comfort zone with respect to yourself and your behavior tends to act to maintain this comfort zone. Your self-image sets boundaries for you. If you think you are an average trader and you go on a winning streak, your self-image will have you start to lose so you can again become an average trader. If you keep telling yourself you are an excellent trader, you boundaries will start to expand allowing the better trading to occur. Self-Sabotage models: 1) The faulty programming model (matrix model). 2) The unwilling to experience feelings model. 3) The unwilling to experience my creations model (broader). 4) The oneness model of self-sabotage. This is the most advanced and, for most people, the hardest to work from because according to this model most of how we operate is self-sabotage. Recommendations: 1) Find similar traders to you that have already overcome the difficulties you are having now. Learn how they used them as a springboard to success. 2) If you give yourself a label, use that as an opportunity to overcome your challenges rather than as an opportunity to avoid taking responsibility for your trading. 3) Keep a regular journal how you respond to the environment. This will enable you to spot consistent mistakes in your trading and correct them. 4) Divide your goals into parts and reward yourself for the completion of each part. 5) Negative info that you feed yourself results in feelings of unhappiness and failure. Positive info results in the motivation to accomplish your goals.

Same thing with me Mark. It's the worse week for me (live trading profit) in 7 months, but it was my best week for my score card (the rating that I give to each trade) since I have been scoring my trades. Can you imagine how bad it would have been if we traded poorly this week in these market conditions?

Friday 8/30/2019 I had a well-being score of 6.5/10 this morning. I took 2 live trades with TSLA and 2 SIM trades. It was actually a good trading day though going through lots of emotions. So AAPL and TSLA were on my market open watchlist with MU, AMD, BIG and DELL on my 5min ORB watchlist. I had a little bit of a short bias on AAPL and no bias on TSLA. Right after the open both stocks looked like they were setting up for shorts and both triggered my entrance criteria. TSLA reached the criteria first, though a few seconds later AAPL did as well so I have to admit my focus was not entirely on my TSLA trade. TSLA created a tombstone and found support, multiple times at the 228.50 level. The plan was to short on the break of that level. It broke that level 3 seconds before the end of the first minute on OK volume. I shorted with my target the 225.85 daily level and my stop all the way back to VWAP, thus I didn’t take that many shares. I also liked the PM low and the 200MA-1min was not far from my entry. Hopefully these levels would pull the price lower. The price instantly reversed when I got filled and never looked back. I hate when that happens. And I got stopped out as planned just above VWAP. Watching my video I see it only broke my entry level by 5 cents that’s not really enough on TSLA to call it a break. When it broke VWAP I was considering TSLA for a long. Then I saw a big L2 Ask signal and quickly went long. The problem was I had to react so quickly I had no time to calculate my share size. Which is surprising since I pride myself on being able to do this very quickly. So I just took the last share size I used, which was for a $1.20 stop. Now I have a 30 cent stop and should have three times the share size. But there was no time for that and for good reason. The instant I got my fill the price flew up fast. My first two partials were small. My third and fourth partial was the same partial. I wanted to take a large 3rd partial but you never know what type of fill you are going to get. So I watched the bid and split my partials into two in case I get a bad fill on one of them. The fills were fine and I was able to take another partial before the price dropped. Sadly because of the small share size I am still slightly red for the day instead of having a very green day. I took two SIM trades DELL and TSLA. Both big winners Score Card (live trades) TSLA TSLA 88% 90% What I did good today: Actually, I traded well today. What I am grateful from today? Finished the month on a good day. What do I need to improve on: The poor share size on my TSLA is unusual. Correct share size is usually the one trade management skill that I usually do well. But I will be more alerted to it.

@Glenn Budde I updated the attendance sheet to include your wife and friend. It looks like we are going to have a really nice turnout! If you type the @ symbol and then start typing the person's name that you want to tag, a drop down list appears and you can select their name to tag them.

Thanks so much for leading this @JD I am looking forward to my first ever visit to Florida! And fellow BearBull and Non BearBullTraders, we hope to see as many of you out there as we can! I have insider information that most likely Andrew Aziz is going to attend! Dont want to miss it.

@Andrew Aziz@WilliamH@Thor@Atom@Glenn Budde@Steph@Britt C@Jambazz19@mrohde@Vladimir P I've tagged everyone that signed up or showed interest in the Tampa meetup thread. It's official now! We have the area and date, we just need to find a venue and finalize the meet time. @Steph@Atom If you guys find a location "where we are in somewhat of a semi private/private spot so we can have group discussions instead of only 1 on 1 or talking to the people immediately surrounding us" let me know. I found that Sea-Guini and Shor both have separate rooms for large groups so I'll give them a call to see if they require a minimum tab or not.

Van Tharp Institute Peak Performance Course for Traders Vol 2: How to control stress Chapter 8 This statement (if one can say it’s true) is a good predictor of trading success: Each week I spend 4 hours exercising. Fit people are more successful on average since they have more protection against the stress of trading. And they are less likely to be disturbed by a loss and have higher tolerance for long periods of mental stress. 1) Exercise is a way of burning off the stress-related byproducts and minimizes the need for a fight/flight response. 2) Exercise releases endorphins 3) Exercise increases one’s resistance to disease 4) Helps you relax 5) Serves as a form of mental release and helps improve a person’s self-image. Aerobic exercise raises the rate at which your body will convert glycogen to glucose. The air contains 21% oxygen. An average person exhales air that contains 19% oxygen. A fit person exhales 17% oxygen, indicating the increased efficiency of the lungs. A fit person may have up to 60% more red blood cells than an unfit person. The rest of the chapter was describing methodology of exercising. I am reasonably comfortable on that subject so I am not recording any notes. I will reiterate my exercise goal. I will By October 15 achieve a VO2 Max of 48. This was my fitness level only 10 weeks ago. I am currently at 44. My VO2 MAX was 51 last September, though I do not have a time line to reach that yet, though I am thinking of next May as goal to re-achieve that fitness level. Chapter 9 The previous two chapters discussed two ways for effective stress protection. Some other ways are: recreation, mental relaxation and learning to perform automatically under high stress conditions through mental rehearsal. The course recommends spending 2 hours a day or one whole day a week on recreation. That amount of time is almost mind boggling for me. I always feel like I have something I need to do. This week I have tried to relax more. Last night I spent 20 minutes reading to my kids. And next month my schedule changes and I get Sundays off. I will try to make that day a family day and not fixing things around the house day. The course recommends traders taking 2 weeks off for vacation every six months. This will also be a tough one for me. Besides not having the available time, vacations are quite stressful for me. I am essentially the tour director for our family vacations. And my family does not like to lounge around. They want to be on the go all the time. After a vacation is over I always say the same thing, “thank goodness I am back at work so I can rest.” Relaxation is a form of self-control and is a skill you need to practice (course includes a relaxation CD). They recommend listening to the CD twice a day. I have not listened to it yet. They don’t recommend listening to it while driving (may cause drowsiness) so I need to work it into my day. They recommend using it for 2-4 weeks until the technique is memorized. Practice successful behaviors so often that they become natural and can be performed even under stress when you feel mentally out of control. Self-sabotage “You get exactly what you want out of life.” You are stressed because, at some level, you want to be stressed. The question is asked, “if you owned a million dollar race horse, would you give it coffee to wake up in the morning? Not give it enough sleep? Give it poorly balanced meals? Not exercise it enough?” Of course not. So why do we do that to our billion dollar bodies? Chapter 10 Each person experiences life differently because each person’s thinking is unique. We have our own automatic way of talking to ourselves. Psychologists call this self-talk. Self-talk can be supportive, but it can also be venomous and self-deprecating (like worry). Self-talk can be illogical like, “why me?” But, it still has a large impact. If you are a worrier, it is due to your self-talk. Worriers anticipate the worst in any situation. First you must understand your stress. Where does it originate? What do you rationalize? How does it affect you? So they recommend keeping a stress diary. Then rate your self using a scale called a Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS). Zero is at peace and worse case stress is a 7. Keep the diary and stress scale for 2 weeks (at least). You probably spend many hours charting the markets, why not your stress? They ask you to plot the SUDS versus results of your trading for results for 6 months. Coincidentally I was doing this but with a simple -1, 0, +1 scale (see my weekly summary posted 8/25/19 in the trading journal forums). When I tried to correlate it to trading results I saw little correlation. But now they ask you to give yourself a SUDS rating at the moment of the trading decision. Then after 30 trades look for patterns. Is the opening of a trade more stressful than closing one? Are you less stressed on successful trades? Was the stress from trading or something outside of trading? So they recommend 3 exercises: 1) Reliving a past emotional experience related to trading a. What was the situation? b. What were your thoughts? c. When you feel emotional from the memory, what self-talk do you hear? d. Did your emotion fit the experience? e. Can you interpret the situation in a positive light? 2) Keeping a stress dairy 3) Charting stress So I will start a stress diary for each trade. I don’t think I will post it, though I will post the final chart of stress versus trade outcome. But I will try the first exercise now: reliving a stressful trade. This was a recent trade (last week). My first live trade of the day went well and was a small win. Though it didn’t make much it had a good score card. So I was switching to SIM and then I thought, “I am negative for the month I need to trade more.” I really didn’t want to but I forced myself to trade more. I wasn’t thinking about only the process anymore. I did find a B setup. Which means I will probably get a poor score card. When I was just about to take the trade I balked to double check the Y-scale which looked odd. I determined my stop and share size was find but the price had moved beyond an acceptable entry point by then. So I should have stopped the entry but momentum took control and I entered the trade. I realized it was a terrible trade the moment I took it and thus I am supposed to get out. I usually find this difficult and to make things worse the price went against me the moment I took the trade. But, I thought the price already fell and is close to the S/O I might as well test it and was stopped out. Self-talk: 1) Keep trading, you are behind this month. 2) There is an “OK” setup you need to take it. You were positive last month (for the first time) you need to keep that. 3) Am I choosing the right number of shares? I am not use to this stock, did I read the Y-scale correctly? I have read that wrong before. 4) I just took a horrible trade I should get out. But then I ruin the day and I will be wrong. 5) Had to stop out, made a good day bad. It will be a bad score card. 6) This will be embarrassing to post this trade on the forum. 7) Does this trade show how poor of a trader I am and the few winning trades I have had are really to a fluke that stocks like AAPL and FB are temporarily easy to scalp at the open. This setup may disappear at any moment. 8] It’s easier to scalp then to make real trade setups which I have not been able to do yet. 9) And as usual I think is this the trade that starts the avalanche of bad trades to my inevitable road to quitting? I waited a day to be distant from the memory so I can write on interpreting the situation in a positive light. The trade described above and some others made me to finally decide to remove my P/L window permanently from my platform. I will look at my balance at the end of the month, that’s all. It’s all about trading your setups and getting a solid score card. Trades like above is the push I need to go in the right direction. Intellectually I can’t imagine that trading 6 months in a row, without losing money is luck. There must be some skill accumulated by now. That is just silly to think I am on a lucky streak or a funny anomaly in the market. Yes, the lack of profitability definitely impacts me and will cause my confidence to wither. But let’s be real about this.

Van Tharp Institute Peak Performance Course for Traders Vol 2: How to control stress Chapter 7 So another option, when you are sitting in a fire, is to wear asbestos. Thus, increase your stress protection. The SPI test taken earlier quantified the level of stress protection in each of the area. 1) Health and Nutrition 2) Exercise 3) Recreation 4) Mental Relaxation 5) Learning to perform under stress 21 things the course recommends you can do to move toward peak performance health. 1) Daily journal everything you consume. I did this two years ago with a fitness app. 2) Develop a plan to improve your diet. I also did this 2 years ago when I was tracking my food. 3) Begin each day with a breakfast of organic oatmeal. I have researched and experimented a lot on the best breakfast for me. Oatmeal was good but intermittent fasting was better. And even better was a late small breakfast of only bone broth. Since it contains no carbs it doesn’t interrupt the fast too much and still starts the day with a slow digesting food. Plus, it’s a good time to get your daily collagen. 4) Drink 64oz of water a day. I do. 5) Don’t drink anything when you eat your food. I didn’t know about this one, but it makes sense that you are diluting your stomach acid when you are trying to digest your food. So I just started this week of drinking 30min before the meal and 90min after. It has been tough so far but I will get use to it. 6) Give up all vegetable oils. I do use cold pressed avocado, olive and coconut oils. Mostly avocado. From what I have read this should be healthy. 7) Give up all wheat based products. I tried a gluten free diet a couple of years back for two weeks. I always thought this was a fad diet so I never tried it before. I didn’t notice any difference except the unexpected side effect of my acne disappeared. I tried it for another two weeks with the same results. So I have been gluten and acne free for 2 years. Avoid all dairy foods except Kefir and an occasional piece of cheese. Cheese is my favorite food. Though a couple years ago I switched to eating only raw, aged cheese from 100% grass fed cows. I just tried reducing my cheese consumption by 70% this week, it’s going OK. 9) Avoid excitotoxins and preservatives. I do eat some sugar substitutes once or twice a month when I bake. Though the ones I use I thought does not fall under as an excitotoxin. But I will double check. 10) Avoid all antibiotics if at all possible. Sadly my life has been filled with countless prescriptions of antibiotics. I trusted doctors a bit too much and never question a prescription. I even had one doctor prescribe a continuous dose of antibiotics for acne. Finally after a year, after I was growing moles due to sun sensitivity, I decided I preferred the acne. Doctors seem to be more cautious now and currently I try to ride out the sickness before heading to the med center. But, I have noticed I don’t get sick as often with my new diet so it’s not much of a concern. 11) Give up alcohol. No problem I don’t drink. 12) Give up all caffeine substances. I started reducing this last week. I am down to 2 coffees, one soda and one tea per day. Yes, that is after I cut down. I plan to be down to one coffee and one tea in 30 days, then I will go from there. 13) Give up all tobacco products. No problem, never did, never will. 14) Give up all recreational drug use. Again, never did, never will. 15) Give up sugar. I’m on a low carb diet, so I already gave up sugar some time ago. 16) Only grains you should consume are oats, millet, wild rice and quinoa. Actually, the only grain I eat is wild rice and not very often. 17) Eat organic. I do. 18) Take a high quality vitamin. Took some time to find a good one (stay away from Centrum). But I have and I take them regularly. 19) When you cook your food, avoid frying or baking in an oven or microwaving. Instead steam or pressure cook. They didn’t mention why. But I assume two fold. Breaking down of molecules, especially oils and creating carcinogens on meat. I do only cook using avocado oil which is stable to 500F. And I try to steam my veggies. I am also cautious not to over cook meat. I think this is enough. 20) Avoid combining food as much as possible. This is new to me. I need to research this. They recommend the book Fit for Life which explains this. The problem is I looked it up and there are many books with that title. 21) The less food you eat the better. Yes, the data for this has been validated for some time. I have always struggled with this. That is why the intermittent fasting has helped me. But I will focus on this more.

Van Tharp Institute Peak Performance Course Vol 2: How to control stress Chapter 6 (part 2) The planning board for my goals took awhile, so I had to split the postings of this chapter into two parts.

Van Tharp Institute Peak Performance Course Vol 2: How to control stress Chapter 6 (part 1) This is the longest chapter so far with numerous and time consuming exercises. So I have split this chapter into two, since it will take a few more days to finish it. When you have stress related losses, you have a number of choices open to you: 1) Ignore the problem. This is equivalent to sitting in a fire. 2) Minimize the effect that your current stress has on your trading performance. If you must stay in the fire, wear asbestos clothing. Increase your stress protection. 3) Change your beliefs and attitudes about the stressful event so that it no longer is a problem for you. Thus, put out the fire around you. Have the belief that it is OK to lose. This is the simplest and hardest to implement. 4) The most obvious choice is to avoid situations that tend to be stressful for you. Try to get out of the fire. Stop trading, go back to SIM. 5) Reduce your risk exposure. Reduce your fixed R. Reduce your leverage and account size. Reduce number of trades. Have a brokerage lock your account on max loss. To get out of the fire you must determine where is the fire. I sadly scored high on every category in my life stress inventory test. So I can’t say it’s my job or health that is causing the fire. I need to address all the categories. Though job-related and family-life stress are the least of them. This chapter has quite a few exercises. First. Write down my top 5 stressors based on the LSI test (most to least, based on the test). 1) Financial 2) Health 3) Personal 4) Job Stress 5) Family-Life Then it asks for three possible actions that will alleviate the top stress. For me that’s financial. For some reason, the last 20 years, I have always worked in an environment that continuously had a threat of layoffs. I did experience a whole division closure in the middle of those 20 years and immediately found a job with no interim. But this lack of security has always been a stressor. My three actions to try and alleviate the stress: 1) Learn to day trade 2) Online school to add to my skills 3) Find another job with more security I chose to learn how to day trade as my solution. Little did I know it would add (hopefully only temporarily) to my stress. So I had been working on this stressor for some time. My 2nd worse stressor is Health. My actions to relieve stress: 1) Must increase sleep. 5.5 hours a night for years doesn’t cut it. Will need to rearrange family schedule. 2) Increase exercise 3) Increase mediation – I just signed up for MindSpace app. My lack of sleep has been my number one stressor in my life for many years. Ever since my daughter was born with extreme sleep issues. The amount and quality of my sleep has improved over the years. But I still have about 1.5 hours deprivation every night. This causes chronic fatigue, drop in metal abilities and chronic dizzy spells. I try to squeeze sleep in without effecting my family. I see know it’s not a selfish thing to ask for and I will start to update my family daily schedule this week. My 3rd worse stressor is Personal. My actions to relieve stress: 1) Improve attitude. Why always negative? Why worry about everything? 2) Don’t always feel responsible for everything 3) Organize life. Don’t live from fire to fire. I already started on my negativity and its working out quite well. My 4th worse stressor is Job Stress. My actions to relieve stress: 1) Work schedule change to spend more time with my family 2) Complete headache project 3) Stick to 5 days a week My schedule is about to change for the better (discussed more below). The headache project I have been dealing with this paste year is finally making progress. Being onsite at work 7 days a week really takes its toll. Need to cut that down. My 5th worse stressor is Family-Life. My actions to relieve stress: 1) Work schedule change to spend more time with my family 2) Better time management at home 3) Help spouse improve her health My work schedule has been an ongoing stressor with my family and me for 5 years. I was fine working the weekend schedule as long as it was promised only for 5 years. That was 5 years ago. Actually my manager has really tried to get a schedule change for me during those years. The good news I will finally have a free Sunday with my family starting this autumn. So I hope that will reduce the stressor substantially. Getting to sleep on time has been a stressor for at least 10 years. My family has made some efforts improving it but it is still far from what I need. Looks like I will have to take it the rest of the way with time management. Definitely starting with earlier dinners. My family prefers very late ones. My wife’s health has deteriorated recently. Though I was helping whenever I can I have to step this up as well. Then the course asks to make resolutions of these changes. I have actually started a few of them before I started to take the course. The one I will start today is promising we will be eating as a family on time tonight. Even if I have to get take-out to do it. Winners are people with a clear purpose in life and a clear plan for getting there. The goals you set for yourself should be reachable, but lofty enough to seem worthy of attainment. The course now asks you to write down your goals. 5 year goals: 1) Have a bond with my children that will carry us through their teenage years 2) Make sure my children are enjoying their lives 3) Help in ensure my kids have at least one hobby and one sport they enjoy 4) Improve trading skills that it could replace my primary income in 5 years 5) Be in good health 1 year goal 1) Spend lots of time with kids. I am aiming for 50 days, devoted for them, in the next year. 2) I want to be consistently profitable as a trader by end of 2020. 3) I want to be in fit by next year VO2Max of 52 or higher 4) I want my sleep not to be an issue. Consistent 7 hours or more. 5) I want a dog 60 Day goals 1) Improve sleep >6 hours a night 2) Improve health VO2Max >48 3) I want to have a second successful setup in my playbook 4) I want to finish the Van Tharp course (~90 days) 5) Take another trip with my family Then the course ask you to write 5 goals if you knew you were going to die of natural causes in 1 year. 1) Get my life/property/finances in order so my family doesn’t have to deal with it later. 2) Write letters for my family to read when I am gone. 3) At least 4 big vacations with the family 4) Have some alone time with each family member at least once a day 5) Find peace Then the course ask to specify 5 “special” goals with an ECD. 1) By end of September get a consistent 6.5 hours a sleep a night (with a min of 3.5 hours of deep sleep). 2) By October 15 achieve a VO2 Max of 48 3) Improve trading score card monthly average, every month to the end 2019. 4) Spend 20 full days with family by EOY 5) Finish the Van Tharp Course by before Thanksgiving holidays.

Van Tharp Institute Peak Performance Course Vol 2: How to control stress Chapter 4 People have a limited capacity for dealing with information that comes through the senses. The requirements of highly demanding tasks can exceed available capacity, so one can only concentrate on a small portion of the information. Understanding the limitations to processing information, therefore, is the key to understand how to be successful as a trader. The trading decisions (open/close a position) must be made by human beings with a limited capacity for handling information and expectations that limit information they do process. Three factors are essential to successful trading: 1) A healthy psychological profile 2) The ability to make accurate decisions from a large amount of information 3) Position sizing and discipline The successful trader might describe him/herself as follows (It’s amazing how much this describes Andrew – who is climbing the Matterhorn at the time of this writing): 1) I enjoy life to the fullest. I am constantly exploring new ideas, visiting new places, experiencing change and having fun. I try to get everything I can out of life and eagerly look forward to each day. 2) I am in the best of health because I eat proper foods, get plenty of exercise and sleep well. I am never overly stressed because I do not fell pressure – only challenge. 3) I have an open attitude. (This will help a trader in the market because it enhances information processing capacity). A losing trader might describe himself as: 1) I am really unlucky. Every time I try to trade, something goes wrong. I end up losing. Other people make it impossible for little guys like me to be a winner. Perhaps that is why I seem so depressed all the time. Money sure has been my downfall. 2) Trading is very stressful to me, perhaps because I worry about what will happen all the time. But I also worry about what will happen if I get out of the markets. I’ll probably never be able to get ahead in life. People have natural inclinations or biases in their decision making. These biases are called judgmental heuristics (shortcuts). Chapter 5 Stress tends to narrow the number of alternatives that one can consider, it impairs the selection decision. The information that must be processed to make a successful selection decision may already exceed one’s capacity unless one has developed as adequate model for handling the information. But reverting to primitive decision making models or well-practiced modes of behavior is also inadequate for investment decision making. Normally your brain gets about 50% of the blood flow from the heart. But under stress that goes down to 20%. Physical danger does not appear to reduce the processing capacity of worriers any more than people who seldom worry. But when a situation involves a threat to an individual’s self-esteem, worriers show a large capacity reduction. Thus, people who fear failure lower the odds of trading success dramatically. Incentives behavior have an effect on trading. Thus, the difference in trading performance between paper trading and live trading. Real money is an incentive. Incentives tend to impair performance in complex tasks, by focusing on the outcome and not the actual task. An experiment, with a group of students, showed that financial incentive actually caused the students to need double the time to create a solution to a problem than the group without an incentive. Thus, the trader is too preoccupied with the potential results of what he is doing, rather than the process of being a trader. They have become results-oriented. The course lists “Questions for Thought” and I have listed my responses: 1) How much of a factor do you think the fight/flight response is in your trading? My pounding heart, usually after I enter a trade, convinces me the fight/flight response is quite active in my trading. It’s the dominate factor when I trade. 2) List several ways worry might affect your ability to function as a trader. My decisions become rash and 1st order responses. I lose the ability to think on my feet and make the simplest decision. FOMO is high. Too impatient to wait for the setup. Take partials too quickly because I am worried about the winning trade becoming a loser. I take too small of a share size. 3) How do you think your interpretation of a loss will affect your ability to function as a trader? What interpretations will serve you best? I always consider a loss that it will be the first of a string of continuous losses that will lead me to determine I cannot become a trader and quit. Of course I should think of a loss as a successful trade. If I waited for the setup, got a good entry then determined it wasn’t going to work out this time and exit at the best time. That was a good trade. 4) What models do you select information for making the basic trading decision? What information do you ignore by using these models? Is that important to you? I am predominately a resistance/support trader. I look for a break of resistance or support and a tech level close enough to help pull the price to it. I do ignore weaker levels. Though I use price action, volume and L2, it is to a lesser degree and sometimes inadvertently ignored. 5) What models do you use to select information for making a decision to close an open position? What information do you ignore by using these models? Is that information important? I use price is hitting my original stop, hitting my B/E or crossing a new support/resistance level. Any level for partialing or just running out of shares. This method causes me to be price dependent and I ignore volume a lot when I am already in the trade. 6) What distraction conditions exist for you that might interfere with your ability to use these models. I over stress myself and it makes it too difficult to make decisions since mine are split second since I trade at the open. Keeping a negative attitude so I inadvertently sabotage myself. 7) Why is greed so deadly to a trader? How do incentives affect your performance as a trader? I have an issue always focusing on the end result. I just don’t want to be stopped out and thus disrupts the clear focus I need to make the quick decisions. 8] Why might all stress be psychological stress? How might this effect you as a trader? This reminds me of my trip to Hawaii. Wow, I was totally relaxed by the end of the trip, which is amazing for me. The day we were leaving we were running late, hit traffic, took extra time to return the car, the X-ray found something it didn’t like in out onboard luggage. Essentially, we were going to miss our flight. But, I was never the slightest bit stressed. I was just too relaxed. For some reason I was quite confident we would make to our flight somehow. And as they were closing the doors to our flight we just made it. It was my perception and beliefs that made it not stressful. Can you imagine trading like that? The most notable outcome of my stress is lack of patience. Both entering a trade early and taking partial profits too early. 9) How does your self-esteem affect your ability to perform as a trader? Low self-esteem will make the stop-outs tough and painful. It may be a very well planned and executed trade. But if it is a stop-out the low self-esteem may have me think of it as I was deficient in trading skills. 10) Tasks I need to resolve the issues raised. Reduce worry, decrease external stress and build resistance to the stress. Sleep, exercise and mediation. This past week I was successful increasing my exercise and mediation. I also started using the Headspace app. Started using my slackline a lot. Slacklining is really mindful and a great stress reducer. Still need to improve sleep, not successful yet. Also, need to concentrate on the trade score card. You can still have a great score though you stopped-out. Utilize law of attraction to a point it’s instinctive. As of now I need to make a conscious effort to use it. And give thanks (gratitude) for what went well that day.

Van Tharp Institute Peak Performance Course for Traders First an update on previous assignments. I finished listening to the audio book The Secret and I am trying to apply the methods. It teaches you how to use the “Law of Attraction”. Thus, attract the things you want. Essentially, it is about positive thinking. The book wants you to assume the best thing will happen. Ask for what you want, then assume you already received it then give thanks (be grateful) for receiving it. They do explain the process in a new age spiritual context, but it’s OK if you don’t believe in that. This method seems to be working already and I think about it scientifically. Yes it has been great getting the best parking spot, when I go home each night, 3 nights in a row now by just assuming I will get the spot (and being thankful for it). But this method is much more than that. I usually face a problem by thinking of worse case scenarios and determine ways how to prevent them. But for the last few days instead I have tried to think how grateful I am that this problem is going to be solved with little effort and stress. I woke up this morning feeling very positive about the day. This is highly unusual since I usually wake up dead tired and dreading the day. I was even searching why I feel so positive, until I realized because I have been thinking positively. Later in the day I then realized I haven’t taken a No Doz pill in 3 days. I pop these things every day. Why is that? I am still getting the terrible 5.5 hours of sleep a night, why do I have all this energy. Apparently, negative thinking is draining on the body. So I do recommend the book The Secret and be prepared for the new age spiritual thinking. It’s OK either way you take it. As for my great parking spots was it the universe feeling my positive vibs? Or just that I never get those spots so I haven’t looked in a year. The person who always takes them might have moved away months ago and I never would have known unless I tried to look. By thinking positively it opened up the possibility. Can you imagine how well that would work when looking over charts in trading? You see what you want to see. As for my complete failure in the stress test, I am hoping the course work and the books will help with my worrying, but I can help with the stress protection right away. I have already stepped up my exercise and I have tried to increase my nonexistent recreational life. I stopped listening to books on trading and psychology and will alternate with a fun book to read. I have installed an 8 foot slackline in my home office, which I think is essential to all home offices J I was feeling guilty about it at first, but it seems my daughter likes using it too so I feel better about it. And I will start watching movies that I want to watch. I always just watch what my kids or wife is watching. Though I will probably only have about 20 minutes a day to watch (while I am eating lunch) I am going to start. Avengers 2 is first on the menu. My wife had no interest in watching it so I never did. Vol 2: How to control stress Chapter 3 There are two divisions to the autonomic nervous system which is the part of the brain responsible for the fight-flight reaction. The sympathetic nervous system which is responsible increasing your energy (like heart beating faster). And the parasympathetic nervous system which is the calming part (lowers blood pressure). There are several theories about the relationship of stress and the autonomic nervous system 1) Arousal Theory which assumes that anger, fear and pain were associated with the response of the sympathetic nervous system which produce stress. If no activity occurs to use up this energy created for fight/flight response, the result can be destructive to the body. This is what happens during trading and a stream of market losses can leave you “stewing in your own juices.” If you stew too long enough, the result will be destruction to the body or physical illness. 2) The General Adaptation Syndrome where it is theorized that every demand on the body produces two kinds of bodily responses, those specific to the demand and those that are general. When distress exists in sufficient quantity, it produces the alarm state, which is similar to the fight/flight response. If this reaction persists long enough the body adapts to it. So the body can appear “normal” even though it’s combatting stress. Both models assume: We all experience stress, since any demand on the body creates a stress. Stress effects on the body are cumulative. Each person has a breaking point, beyond which powerful reactions occur in the body. Stress is harmful to the body if it occurs in high quantity or lasts long enough. Other theories which suggest the mind plays a major role in stress production: 1) Jacobson’s Muscle Tension Model. Dr. Edmund Jacobson noticed that muscle tension always seemed to accompany anxiety or stress. He concluded that mental images of uncertainty caused muscle tension. He also believed that the problem was not some stressor in the environment, but one’s thoughts about the stressor. If this theory is correct, then stress comes from our interpretation of an event rather than from the event itself. 2) Ideo-Motor Theory is that people’s emotional reactions are a result of the way they interpret reality. A trader than would become anxious over a loss only because he thinks the loss makes him a victim or in some way lowers his status as a human being. The interpretation of the event, rather than the event itself, produces the stressful experience. Many a trader fear a loss long before it occurs. The trader who decides that he lost because he was “defective” or a “victim” of circumstances will get an entirely different perspective than the trader who decides he lost because he needed to learn something. 3) Two-Component Theory is the concept that the stress one experiences actually consists of two components (emotion and worry). Emotionality is like the fight/flight response. Worry involves a conscious concern for one’s performance and its consequences. Research has shown that worry has a greater impact on human performance than emotionality. A study shows that people who worry about their performances on an important examination spend at least 25% of their conscious thought worrying about the outcome of the exam, rather than devoting effort to taking it.