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Purpose: Provide a overview of the markets by using different instruments and evaluating prior activity. Use overview to understand market directionality, strength/weakness, and driving factors. Focus on areas with most potential. Outline: My process involves reviewing what the markets did last week using the Index ETFs, Index, and Futures in order to understand the day structure and market profile from the prior session. I will often mark areas of consolidation and volume acceptance as levels of interest to carry forward outside of daily levels and trends. Once an overview of the market products is assessed, I like to quickly scan the SPDR Sector ETFs for any obvious standouts relative to the current SPY Percentage Change. This is normally done close to Market Open around 9:00 - 9:15 ET. I like to have a list of candidate stocks that are good representative names for any sectors that are 'in play' relative to the markets. For example, if Energy stocks are moving independent of the markets, I would want to find a good Energy stock that has high Relative Volume and Percentage Change to trade 'the best of the best'. Instruments: Index Products: $SPY/SPX/ES Futures $QQQ/NDX/NQ Futures $IWM/RUT Index/RTY Futures Sector Products: $XBI - BioTech $XHB - Home Builders $XLB - Materials $XLC - Communications $XLE - Energy $XLF - Financials $XLI - Industrials $XLK - Technology $XLP - Consumer Staples $XLRE - Real Estate $XLU - Utilities $XLV -Health Care $XLY - Consumer Discretionary $XME - Metals Other Products: Bonds: $TLT & /ZB and /ZN Futures Oil: /CL Futures Natural Gas: /NG Futures Gold: $GLD & /GC Futures Silver: /SI Futures Volatility: VIX Index & /VX Futures Dollar: $DXY US Dollar Index

Monday - June 29th, 2020 Markets closed weak last Friday, June 26th with major index products closing near the lows after a roughly 2% decline throughout the day. Notably Technology and major names like Facebook and Amazon were sold off heavily and led the entire markets. Sunday Night /ES Futures opened lower at 2986.25 with low at 2983.5 before coming back above 3000s. Getting above 3025 area would be of interest as that brings us into the major breakdown area from last week. /NQ Futures opened lower 9785.5 with low at 9780.25 before coming slightly higher. Overall below areas of consolidation from last Friday and still showing weakness. /RTY Futures opened lower 1362.2 with low of 1359.6 before coming much higher to test 1400. Showing relative strength given already recovered the breakdown area from last week. Monday Premarket at 9:00 ET $SPY - Trending higher from Friday low, holding at roughly 0.5% higher near Thursday's low. $QQQ - Range bound between Friday's low and Thursday's low, roughly flat 0.0% $IWM - Trending higher off Friday's low attempting to test Friday high, up as much as 1.5%. Bonds are slightly lower from last week, I expect a small pullback as bonds have had a nice run from the recent lows. $TLT recovered from recent lows at 153.00 area up to 166.5 in after market last Friday, a roughly 8.5% gain in roughly two weeks. Oil Futures pulling away from 41 Gap Fill Highs, up slightly today. Natural Gas Futures very strong up 6.25% from recent selloff last week, I expect a strong bounce from these extended yearly lows. Gold Futures flat from last week, extended at 1800 resistance on /GC. I expect $GLD to have a pullback this week before attempting a breakout. Silver Futures down slightly after a major run over the past months, consolidating in 18 - 19 range. I expect silver to underperform gold in the coming months, but still remain bullish. Volatility Futures down 2.4%, with 23/51 day contracts roughly same price (slight contango). Sectors Premarket at 9:15 ET Strong Sectors: Industrials with $BA up 6%. Financials with most large bank names up close to 1%. Weak Sectors: Communications down with $FB down 4%. Things to Watch: Since major Tech was down heavily last week, watching $XLK and MAGAF names closely. If selloff continues, other potentially 'risk-off' sectors may get bought at these lows like $XLU (been weak for a while).

Hi, In Das, can a hot key be setup so that it puts a horizontal line at 2R, 3R etc? If not does anyone know how to script for it? Thanks Munish

I've been keeping a journal on SIM for the last few months. Now it's time to share it and eventually ask for feedback on some of the moves. 6/29/2020: Hit daily target. GOAL: Calm, organized, mindset. no fomo moves, look for clear signals GOAL: A clear ORB move with multiple confirmations. Watchlist: BYND - Near an important level FB - Catalyst and negative trend BYND: Entered twice at 10% of BP. Need to change that to 20% of BP as I usually take a double position. Target was my level at pre-market review level of 129. In Recap: Did a calm pre-market for BYND and FB to see levels. AVOIDED FALSE POSITIVES. When other signals are indicating choppiness, lack of follow through. Missed some moves and didn't feel FOMO. Stuck to looking for a clear ORB based on several factors including pre-market. Picked a stock I knew with, BYND, FB. Understood their moves. Only 3 trades. ORB is hard to set a target in high speed. Should have sold 50% and set the breakeven.

June 29th 2020 SIM trading This was not a good morning. I continue to struggle with having patience. Tomorrow, I am staying off the 1-min and 2-min charts (except to verify entry/stop/target), and am resolved to try and trade off of the 5-min chart and allow things to open up before I enter/exit. Here's a trade a took on Gilead this morning.

Appreciate this overview, thanks Jarad.

thanks J. super helpful explanation

Welcome @Lorin Stoll, love your back story.

I second this. DAS is excellent on Order/Transaction processing. They have an advantage here but everything else including charting is a major challenge. In the last release 5.5 they implemented order manipulation on the CHART....and RVOL display only. This is small progress as all other trading apps have these, but progress so I am thankful. Basic scanning and filtering in DAS is weak....made a number of request on this last year August...only RVOL display was implemented (ATR, FLOAT, ADV, SHT FLOAT, RVOL filtering still outstanding). Scanning on these values I see as basic requirements as taught by Mike from SMB Capital others. Quick alerts is also a prob. Mike from SMB and the other folks rely heavily on quick alerts. As a ex-software QA and dev manager, I sent a list of requests/bugs, u need to do the same. Unfortunately some traders may not be aware when something is a bug and how easy it is to fix. But folks if u need a feature u need to ask multiple times. U pay every month for the software. We should get a public thread here for DAS bugs and Request......so we all know wht is a bug and when it was submitted and when it will be implemented. Again remember we pay monthly. This may get blocked.

I'd love a webinar dedicated to the journey of our mods. It could be structured as: 1.Backstory of how they got into trading 2.Their path from SIM to Live, 3. The grueling first year 4. The intermediary phase where they became more profitable 5. All the unique pitfalls they faced along the way 6. Where they currently are at now. It doesn't have to be a webinar, but could even be a dedicated spotlight section on the website, interviewee/sleek editing style. I think it's interesting to see how far people have come, and in their stories there are always nuggets of truth that help other traders along the way. Sorry for calling you out mods! But you guys rock and love to learn from you guys.

Hi Guys - I tried to take Fallen Angel trade on DAL at market open 1/14/2020. DAL has gapped up 4% pre-market. At the Open the stock pulled back towards the VWAP and I went long. After the stock dropped further 30 cents, I stopped out. I was taking this trade using DAS replay feature so I didn't have a chance to look at L2 during this trade. Interested to hear thoughts on if this is a bad trade or if the trade just didn't work out. I am trying to analyze if I should have not taken this trade and couldnt find good reasons. Thanks.

Hello everyone! This is naveen from Texas. Been a member of the community for a few weeks now. I have been looking at ways to generate alternative streams of cash flow and interested to try out day trading. if I can get the hang of this and be successful, I am hopeful that I will be able to switch to a full time day trader over the next 12-18 months. Just want to reach out to the group and introduce myself. I am open to any new traders interested in sharing ideas and catchup in general. Feel free to message me. Looking forward to seeing you guys in the chat! Happy Trading!

I use the Tape to exclusively to trade momentum plays, especially opening range plays. When i don't use the Tape, i usually don't trade well. The Tape is much more useful than the Order Book as a lot of manipulation occurs there, although it does have some value if you know what to look for those manipulations occurring. The Tape is the actual (note we can't see darkpool activity so it's not completely "actual") supply and demand driving the price where it goes so understanding how to read it is really useful. It gives me clues where to take profits and when to stop out if my original targets/stops don't seem like they'll be hit so i can risk manage a bit better. As Lee W pointed out, SMB has good videos on this. If you want to learn how to read it, record your screen on a few stocks and don't trade. Just watch it and look at the charts at the same time and focus on the speed, print colors (above ask, at ask, in between bid and ask, at bid, below bid), and the patterns. Especially pay attention in consolidation areas vs. strong moves vs. staircase moves. Take notes and watch your recordings a few times over. It'll start to make sense over time.