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October 28, 2019 - Sim I got about 3 hours of sleep last night along with the travel into work, so I decided to trade sim today. I took three trades. 1st one was a bullish engulfing pattern on $T. I saw it selling off at the open and bouncing back from VWAP. I took it long once it broke through the moving averages and engulfed the 5 minute candle. 2nd trade was a poor setup on a 5 minute ORB on $AMD. I took the trade after a heavy sell off to VWAP and a rejection of the 50 SMA. I got a 1R and 2R partial and I let the rest run. I was looking for 33.98. I had to set a range order as I had to head to work. I almost got filled but was about .05 off. When I came back in the afternoon, I exited the trade and started looking for my strategy while overlaying Thor's price level breakout. I got a short on $AMD, with a tight stop and managed to get a 1R and 2R partial again, before getting stopped out at the breakeven. Overall today was a good day in sim to set me up for tomorrow. Sample Set Results, S P G E E P P P P G G P P P 15 16 17 18 19 20

28.Oct.19 Green day. +3r. Due to the Daylight savings, I had some issues at the open with the DAS charts. So couldn't take any trades at the open. But after few of mins, all was fine. Watchlist: $T, $INTC, $AMD, $SPOT and $WBA, $PDD, $XNET. Liked $SPOT very much. Trades Premarket: I took Premarket trades on $T and $SPOT. Half share size with smallest risk. was up 0.5r. Trade 1: $INTC. 5min ORB. Got in Long after the hammer on 5min and the next candle broke the body and the resistence above. got stopped out. Trade $T: $T was on earnings and i traded premarket too. ATR is too low, so not much trend. Trade $SPOT: I liked $SPOT today. Gapped up on Earnings, positive on Rev,Earnings. gapped up arnd 10%. I expected a Trend trade, once it broke the level of 130. Spread was very bad. Took 3 trades. Trade $XNET: most traded today. I found it to be choppy and wicky. I took a VWAP pullback short. It worked. Trade $PCG: traded off higher timeframes, long at low of the candle, sell at high of the candle. I was up 4r now. I should have stopped. but took few more trades and ended up at 3r and some more commission for IB. Good: I am looking to lock in profits and cut down the Stoploss, where possible. Lets see how that works out. Improvement: Bit of over trading today.

10-29-19 AIS 0800, got a good 5.5 hours, Feel pretty good.... normal morning routine.... PAT: Taking sub-par Trades.... Spread...... Notes: Watch out for sub-par Trades!!!... Stay with full size for A and A+ and half size for B+ ...... MU PB#1 2 trades..... B+ setups... messed up on first one and took full size so the small win on the second did not help much from the larger loss.... After further review I do not believe these were B+ setups and I was taking these on a little FOMO...... Also by watching this for a trade I missed a huge move on GRUB..... -13.00 XNET PB#2..... B+ setup..... XNET is a third day play and is only acting on general Block-chain news. I feel like it is way overextended and needs to do a pull back to a reasonable level for its price and this is why I am short biased on this.... Felt like this was a pullback to VWAP for another leg down to LOD..... I did try to enter with 1/2 size here but because of the SSR I am in for a little more..... Also there are very large BIDs at reasonable prices that can bring the price to them.... This can also hopefully be the beginning of a trend trade.... Took of 50% at my target set a hard stop for BE, the L2 is starting to balance out and I will monitor closely..... LVL2 has now flipped to the long side and price action completely flipped and this was my Reason2Exit..... +15.50 GRUB PB#3..... A setup.... 1/2 size because of how extended it is.... I missed the entry at 1002 but was able to grab it here at the 9ema on the 2min, in a clear downtrend and harmonious.... Covered only 25% at 6/1 as the LVL2 is still in favor of a downtrend.... Moved a hard stop to BE...... I am a bit disappointed in myself here as I let the Chat talk me into canceling my order and covering as speculation was a reversal..... I did reenter but of course at a lower price.... Took partials at 4/1, and 10/1.... It went down to about 15/1 but I had to go so I set a hard stop for 5/1....... I did get back before the hard stop hit and was able to monitor it again.... I seen the L2 action changing towards the ASKs and price action also was bullish and this was my Reason2Exit so I got out at 10/1...... +98.50 AMD.... Mistake...... in on accident (finger spazed to buy 100 shares) and out..... +2.00 Cons: Was not thrilled about the MU trades.... I let Chat talk me into managing my trade poorly (remember Chat does not know your entry or style)... Pros: I feel good about my trade management (except for the Chat part) as I feel like getting back into the LVL2 and Tape is something I was drifting away from recently..... Not letting my excitement get me to trade again (controlling my emotions) Favorite Trade: XNET PB#2 / GRUB PB#3 Notes: Still need to work on share size a little..... Still taking sub-par trades..... P&L Goal 50.00: +103.00

Tuesday 10/29/2019 I had a well-being score of 7/10 this morning. PG&E (ticker PCG) turned our power back on yesterday afternoon. I took 2 live trades this morning with AAPL. My watchlist today was: AAPL, BABA, MU, ROKU, AMD and GRUB. I actually had a small game plan this morning. Don’t trade AAPL <1min since the last two days it gave false setups <1min. Make sure you wait for the volume to arrive on BABA before you determine direction. And don’t take GRUB on a trade <5min since I have no idea how it trades. Of course I broke the first part of the plan. L I had BABA on my main chart, but I couldn’t help to see AAPL making a perfect setup. It open higher and bounced hard off of a tech level at 249.25 and dropped and made a nice hammer finishing breaking the PCD and going green to red. I couldn’t help it and moved it to my montage but still resisted entering the trade. But, on the montage I saw that all of its >400K volume was small size trades which I really liked. Then finally the last straw, someone hit the bids with a 10K share sale and the whole T/S tape went red. So I shorted with the LOPM as my target and with the 249.25 level as my stop. Luckily the market was good enough to teach me a lesson not to break my trading plan by instantly reversing and getting stopped out quickly for a full –R. I am even upset that I didn’t exit the trade as soon as it went against me since that is what happens when AAPL is no longer in play. It creates a nice 1min hammer than reverses. But no, I apparently prefer trying to be right than making money and held on until my stop. What the chart and T/S looked like when I took the trade: As soon as I exited and thought to myself it looks like a good long now some big buys hit the ask and I went long. I actually got a good fill with $250 as my target and 200MA-1min as my stop. Soon after I entered I created a limit order for 1.5R. The price missed my order twice by 5 cents so I was feeling some anxiety. The price finally filled my order (barely, so I felt lucky). Two minutes later I was feeling shaky about the trade and sold some more shares, then all out at B/E. Thus, I made +1R and finished the day flat. I really liked GRUB as a 5min ORB since it was making an ABCD pattern as well. Since I stopped out for a full –R and broke my trading plan today I was not allowed to take a third trade. Thus, I took the trade in SIM which turned out to be a +3R win. Score cards (live trades). AAPL AAPL 85% 95% What I did good today: Waited for my 1.5R limit order to fill. Sold some shares when I lost faith in the trade instead of waiting for B/E to sell. What I am grateful from today? I am grateful for being flat today. It should have been worse since I didn’t follow my trading plan. What do I need to improve on: Follow my morning trading plan! Must control the FOMO.

You bet, the rules of trading are a 'click' type learning curve, you either get it 100% or are completely lost, but we all get there.

29/10/19 so im back in sim and im gonna take a month or two to practice my strategies. im focusing on ABCDs the rest of this week after Aiman proved you only need one strategy. once a stock move a significant amount in a clear direction, i wait until it makes lower lows on the 5 without a new low on the 15, and then once it makes a new high i enter with stop below the low. if i take it near VWAP i want 3:1 and away from VWAP i want 2:1. im also focusing on ORBs but im looking less at the 5 min and more for ABCD patterns based on the 1 chart just at the open. im also going to start to log trades in another way so i can track my win percentage to hopefully see improvement or identify which setups i just shouldnt do.

ahhhhhh. The lightbulb went on. I totally get it now. Thanks.

SMB is arguably the most well-respected trading firm around. I don’t believe they offer a service as Brendon has described. You have to be accepted and hired (whether intern or desk trader) by SMB. You can’t just sign up and start trading. They train their interns through a full training program and ultimately you trade with their money, assuming you are given the opportunity. One of the founders of SMB Capital is the author of One Good Trade and The Playbook. There is also a video in the BBT YouTube channel that has an interview with said founder, Mike Bellafiore. Great interview worth watching. There are firms out there that will give you a funded account after you pay them x amount. I wouldn’t touch any of those firms.

10-28-19 AIS 0755 feel pretty good, Normal morning routine PAT: A and A+ Trades for full size and B+ for half size..... Trust myself.... Spreads..... Notes: No more sub-par trades!!!..... When I feel strong about a position, take it...... T PB#1.... A setup (a little early on ABCD for A+)...... full size.... 5min ORB with ABCD on 1min, bouncing off the 9ema on 2min, breaking through a daily level with lots of pressure on the ASKs and Tape going in the right direction.... First partial was 50% then the next two were 25%.... I added in for double what I had moving my stop to BE and got stopped out (in hindsight I should not add that much, maybe 50% add would be good here and this would keep my average down) +28.53 PB#3..... B+ setup..... 1/2 size.... After my stop out it came back to test the 9 and 20ema on 2min and the 9ema on the 5min.... looking for HOD.... This has gone to an ascending chop.... 38.70 has been a pivotal point so I took 50% off above that level and moved a hard stop to BE... will check back periodically and work on other business..... I returned to getting Stopped at BE, if I was here I could have taken another 25% at .80..... +6.50 AMD PB#3..... B+ setup (too far from 9ema on 2min and extended)...... 1/2 size...... took 50% off at 2/1 and 25% more at 3/1 and out at BE..... +12.47 Cons: not real happy with the PB#3 trade on T, overall entry was more speculative than what the charts were telling me.... Pros: Took appropriate share sizes... Respected my stop..... Favorite Trade: T PB#1 Notes: Watch out for sub-par Trades!!!... Stay with full size for A and A+ and half size for B+ ...... P&L Goal 50.00: +47.50

28/10/19 I am not ready for live trading. breaking rules, dont have a clear idea about how to manage my trades. still letting emotions rule me. closing my account and going back to sim for 3 months so i can build a proper strategy without blowing any more money. Trade 1: went for an ABCD on TSLA, waited for a new 5 min high, when it went my way i added more because i felt like my stop was so far away. it then started to go against me and hit my max loss per trade but i didnt stop out because it didnt hit where i thought my stop should be at the new low. then finally stopped out when the breakout didnt go my way for a 1.5 R loser. Trade 2: saw the pendant form, waited for the break with volume, set my stop appropriately above the previous 5 min high but stopped out early as soon as it went against me and then it went 2R at the time of writing in my direction so again horrible trade management.

Thanks! We will be attending - driving in from Ft. Lauderdale and making a weekend out of it. Looking forward to it.

I plan to be there (live in the Orlando area). I liked the Hooters idea. Seemed less complicated.

I am almost at my 1 year trading live anniversary. Time to evaluate if it is worth continuing this journey. I was in SIM for 6 months, so I have been trying to learn day trading for 18 months. I always planned to access my progress and evaluate if I should continue at my 1 year live anniversary. It has been quite costly in time, so it is a serious consideration. Though I feel like progress has been made in my trading I don’t see any change in profitability, so it is not an easy decision. But with some reflection, this week, I realized it is better to look at this more holistically. The change in my personality (for the better) has been dramatic. I would even say transforming. Especially, the last few months. I see improvements constantly and I would not want that to stop. Waking up at 5am and forcing yourself to face your fears, endure stress and muster the strength to make changes in yourself to improve creates dramatic results. Let us say I went a different path and started working on starting a business. I would have worked on prototypes, a business model/plan, and presentations for funding. For the most part not stressful and no internal improvements would have been made. If I feel off that day, the worse thing is I program the 3D printer wrong and the part is thrown in the trash. If I feel off while trading I could go tilt and lose a large part of my family savings, permanently altering our lives. A much greater incentive for personal growth in the latter. I like this growth in myself and I don’t want to stop. That alone it is worth continuing. Now if someone walked up to me and asked if they were training correctly, and they showed me my training plan for the last 18 months, I would say no. So way am I training this way? If you get a couch potato and you want to start training him for some track/field event, would you spend 10 minutes a day practicing in each decathlon event? No. But that is what I did. I set up my platform, and started trading different setups every day. Hoping I would get good at one of them. I would have recommended to the couch potato to first put the mileage in running. Then hit the weights. Improve your flexibility and get on a sensible diet while reading up on the events. So why didn’t I do that? And worse why am I not doing that now? Yes, I am trying to improve on some of that, but looking objectively I am still training wrong. So first I listed what I should have done the past 18 months, find the deficiencies and then I will create an appropriate training plan. So here is my should have done list: 1 Education Read enough to know you have a serious interest. Read enough to learn what next to read. Read enough to know what platform broker/SIM to use. 2 Get fit Physically (exercise and diet) 3 Get Fit Mentally (Decrease the incoming stress, able to handle stress and methods/activities to alleviate the stress). 4 Business plan Do you have at least two years to learn? How many hours/week can you devote? How much disposable cash reserves do you have to cover expenses and losses? 5 Set up Trading equipment. You can be frugal, but don't be cheap. 6 Training Plan 6 months SIM. Training during market hours and training after market hours. Mental and physical fitness should be part of the training plan. Also reading, webinars, etc. 7 Trading Plan What time of day do you want to trade SIM, for how long? Chat on/off? Risk? Max loss? Max trades? These should all be decided in SIM 8 Learn the platform in SIM Make a trade, partial and stop. Don't leave this phase until hotkey mistakes are <10% of the trades 9 Exploration phase You need 3 trades in your playbook, though only one needs to be solidly profitable. 10 Dip your toes into live trading Once hotkey mistakes are reduced and you have at least on setup in you playbook, you should go live at least once a week with very small share size 11 Discover trades that fit your personality Nothing works? Or some setups do work but you are completely stressed when you take them? 12 Reread trading books, especially psychology The books will mean more after being in SIM awhile 13 Revised trading plan At least the last month of your trading plan should mimic your live trading plan 14 Choose 3 setups Not just the one's that have worked the best, but the one's you feel the most comfortable taking. 15 Refine trades You should be now taking trades like they are live. Once you do this you will see adjustments are needed. 16 Revised trading plan This is the live trading plan, risk, max loss and max trades need to be written in stone 17 Revise Business plan If not yet, trade losses need to be in your business plan 18 Go live 50% I assume, in the beginning, you will hit max trades quickly then switch to SIM. Also make sure you take some SIM trades on setups you are still working on. 19 Work on nerves Reread psychology books, they will make the most sense once you are live. 20 Test risk management Even if you lose every trade, your losses should be manageable. If not work on risk management. Do not go past this step until complete. 21 Go 100% live Once risk management is solid, go fully live. 22 Increase fixed R Find the risk you are comfortable and slowly increase. Stay within comfort zone. With that in view I didn’t even get through step 3. In the Van K Tharp course I am taking, they give you a test to check if you are ready to handle trading. There are essentially 3 parts. How much stress is in your life now (can you handle any more like day trading)? How well do you handle stress? Do you have methods to efficiently alleviate the stress? I failed this so badly I was below the bottom of the scale. So I should have known and fixed this 18 months ago. Now I have made progress and I do noticed my nerves are better when I trade. I have set goals to improve it and I have listed those in another part of the forum where I journal the Van K Tharp course I am taking. But this must be my top priority. I am so glad I created a business plan or I would have quit when I started losing lots of money when I went live. Because I assumed I would have losses and had it in my business plan. Though I spent 6 months in SIM, I never really made it through step 8 (know the platform) or step 9 (exploration phase). I use to make 2 or 3 hot key mistakes a day. It completely disrupted my trading and was a big impact in learning how to trade. I should have spent all my time fixing the issue before moving on. This issue is fixed now and my hotkey mistakes are low, but that was a waste and caused undue stress. As for step 9, I left demo without any working setups. I tried and nothing worked. Then I chose the 5min ORB and heavily practiced it on DAS SIM and tradingsim.com with little improvement. I finally left demo just to try another platform to see if it would help my hotkey mistakes. It did. I wish I did step 10. I do recommend it for new traders. Step 19 took a while to fix (nerves). Rereading Trading in the Zone and Daily Trading Coach after you go live has much more of an impact. I tried reading lots of other books to help, I found most not useful. I did finally find a couple that helped. Essentially, I was raised that being negative was good. We would be punished as children for acting to positive, like we are jinxing the future. If we enter a task to positive and we fail my parents would love to tell us we ruined are chances because of the positive thinking. “Laugh before breakfast, cry before dinner,” was my parent’s favorite phrase. So this was a lot of programing to change. But, I have known lucky people. They enter the situation positively and assume things will go their way even though the odds are against them. And I watch how things go their way. So this mind set can really help in trading. You don’t second guess yourself and the ability to find setups is improved. There was actually an experiment that showed this. To keep an open mind to different possibilities. If you think that something positive may happen, when an opportunity, though it may be outside the box, crosses your path, you would see it and act. I would be close minded and not see it. There is actually some data for this. I once read about an experiment where volunteers were gathered. One set of people considered themselves usually the lucky type and the second group considered themselves unlucky. Everyone was given a newspaper and asked to count the number of pictures in the newspaper. The unlucky group usually took 2 or 3 minutes to count all the pictures. The lucky group usually took around 10 seconds. Because the lucky group all noticed a big sign on page two stating, “there are 46 pictures in the newspaper.” The unlucky group were focused on just looking for pictures and never noticed the sign. You can imagine how that applies to day trading. So you need to make yourself luckier by using the power of attraction. Step 20 (Risk Management). Ok, I think I got this one. I have not lost any money in the last 8 months trading live. My trading is not very good so it must be risk management keeping me afloat. Step 21 (increase your fixed R). Definitely doing this one wrong. Essentially, I increase my fixed risk/trade, during profitable time, to the maximum I can handle without it affecting my trading. That’s not really the correct way to improve one’s trading. My fixed R is currently $30. If I go any higher the impact of a full stop out is too much to handle. Thus, I am at my maximum I can emotionally stand. But, it is still too high and affecting my trading causing bad habits. You shouldn’t choose the most you can handle you need to find a sweet spot in the training phase. If too little it feels like you are in SIM and you will trade too reckless. If too high you will trade to careful. So I need to lower my R. It will take a few tries to find the sweet spot. So I am trying to determine my new trading plan. I will need at least a week to plan and experiment. I will have it fully implemented by my 1 year live anniversary. I have decided to give it one more year. If I still haven’t seen steady progress I am pretty confident I never will and should move on. The one thing that is certain, as in all changes for the better, things will get worse before they get better. Once I step outside my comfort zone and change things up, I will take losses again. I need to prepare myself for it. I have gotten quite use to not losing money. Sorry this post was a bit long winded. Thanks for reading. Have a good weekend.

David, it takes a lot of practice to plan a trade in real-time (especially in the first 30 minutes of the market open). At least a month and hundreds of attempts until you develop a process that works for you. Once you get good at planning and managing the trade, you will be able to do it faster and faster each time. Like muscle memory of sorts. Here is what works for me: Prerequisites 1. Stock is in play 2. Support and resistance identified in pre-market 3. Pre-market volume and price action is tradable 4. Know the float category (low, mid, high) and how many sharesI plan to take While watching the stock 1. Spread is manageable 2. ATR/price swings accounted for (i.e, see how much the stock ticks. Is it going up/down in 0.01 to 0.05 increments, or 0.50 to $1) 3. Price action is clean and not choppy; related to above 4. Volume is good and not dying 5. Who is in control: buyers or sellers? 6. What is the strategy/pattern that is setting up here? 7. Is the price getting extended? Finding an entry 1. Is the entry favourable (new 1-min or 5-min high), or will it be a chase 2. Did the stock pullback yet? If not, to which level could it test and will I survive that? 3. What's the target? Is it realistic? 4. Finding a reasonable stop at a technical level 5. Calculating the risk-to-reward 6. Executing the order with conviction--no hesitation Managing the Trade 1. Is the live price action still clean? 2. Are we making higher-highs and higher-lows, or vice versa? 3. Are there are levels or tops/bottoms that I missed before entering that have now become a factor (i.e, a moving average on the 1-minute chart) 4. Is the market providing new information that validates or invalidates my original criteria? 5. Is the Level 2 bullish, bearish or neutral? 6. Is it a good time to add more (if I scaled in initially), or should I take some profit off the table? 7. If scaling out, how much and at what levels? 8. Is the price action conducive to my original stop/target? 9. Is control between buyers and selling shifting? 10. Given the above, does it make sense to stay in the trade or exit at break-even, before stop, or before target? I know that is a lot to process in a short amount of time, but those thoughts go through my head before and during a trade. For others, it may be much simpler or even more complex. Best of luck.

I got hotkeys set up at -20 cents and +20 cents (Ctrl+B for short trades and Ctrl+S for long) that I enter as soon as I get into trades so the market can't screw me too much. Then, I double click on my stop order so the price and the amount of shares are filled in the boxes. Then I change the trigger price to be exactly where I want it and click the replace button. That's the quickest and safest way I found to enter a stop loss. The only thing you have to pay attention to with this setup is to remember to switch the amount of shares on your stop loss when you sell some and put your stop at break even. If not your gonna end up buying some shares to the other side. I hope this helps.