Sorry it didn't work out today Matt. Take stock and figure out where you went wrong. This is all part of the journey remember! One general comment overall, as opposed to looking at any of the trades here (your notes are pretty clear already) - at which point here would you say 'you know this isn't working out, let's stop for today'? Your second ORB entry is better than the first (I think the first entry is too tight for an ORB), and it does move into profit before falling back and stopping out. Ok, so two trades didn't work out on the open, but they were disciplined trades that followed a strategy. The third trade, yep that's a bit of a chase and you did well to come out B/E. So three trades in, none of them have worked out and the third one was beginning to lack a little discipline. Is this the point where you either say 'I'm done with BBBY today', or even 'I'm done today'? I speak from experience, in the past I've wondered why I've kept digging once in a hole!

Was bored and wanted to nail these down since these are the current hot flavor of the week in the chatroom I thought others might be interested. Change it to your liking since I made it super low energy. It's UGLY. I just got it on paper so you don't have to. The VPA section is stolen from Anna Coulling's book. But I couldn't remember in real time what each anomaly meant. This is meant for someone whos read the book otherwise it might not make sense. If you haven't read it, I can send the book to you. Just PM me. Also almost any other TA book. The camarilla pivot point cheat sheet is just to remember what and how to use each as S/R and trade off it appropriately. VPA&CamarillaPP Cheat sheet.pdf

-- UPDATE: 2021/02/10 If you haven't done so already, please fill out this very quick 3-4 question survey: https://forms.gle/8SwAwEW37kVHH9DY8 I'd like to get over 100 responses before filling out the plans and topic schedule going forward. ---- As part of me joining the team it was decided that I help round out the technology side of BBT education with either stand-alone webinars or a weekly (part of Carlo's Onboarding) show for members to get valuable tips and tricks that may not otherwise fit in a webinar. The proposed format for the show would be to focus on a "Topic of the Week" (as voted by members in advance) for approximately 20 minutes, a related-to-topic Q/A session, and then an open Q/A session for other items that members bring up in the class/webinar. I'd like to hear the members thoughts on some of the things you want to learn (related to trading technology). I have a lot of ideas, but want to hear from you people first. So what say you? Good idea? Terrible plan? Long GME to the moon?

Summary: To remove all trend lines, you may delete the GlobalTrendline.dat file from the DASTrader Pro folder I recently ran into an issue with DAS Trader Pro where anytime I went to insert a Global Trend Line an error message popped up stating that I had "exceeded" the number of Global Trend Lines allowed. After attempting to remove the lines myself without success, I contacted DAS Support for further advice. The result, all Global Trend Lines can be deleted by opening up your computer's DASTrader Pro folder (downloaded onto the computer from the initial download) and deleting the GlobalTrendline.dat file. Then, simply relaunch DAS and you'll be able to place new trend lines! Hope this helps someone else! Joe

Dude, this was a beautiful trade, look at the arc on that thing!

Thanks man, I think today was a bit of a perfect storm, and it caught me off guard since I did so well yesterday. I like your thinking, and no I don't have any rules yet for when I need to stop trading a particular stock, or stop trading for the day, or even just needing some time out, go run around outside for 10mins or whatever I need to do. Today highlights the importance of that, so thankyou for bringing that up. The other thing I think I need to do is start developing my playbook. I have 2 main strategies so far (ABCD and 5min ORB) and although I've been working hard on them, I am yet to write a down a list of rules for me to strictly follow, but rather I've been following mental "guidelines". Defining my rules would hopefully decrease my error rate, and also help me know if I am trading well or not (because a win or loss on it's own does not define that).

If you're looking for a place to start studying ABCD set ups then the 5 min chart is a great place to start! There are a series of them, and yes for me it would be a very clean 5 min set up.

Date:1-26-21 Stock: BBBY Strategy: ORB 5min Long/Short: Long Entry: 30.32 S/L:30.05 Risk: 0.27 Plan of attack: 5 min ORB take partial out at 2R and move S/L to 1R Why did you take the trade?: Price action broke through the VWAP and all of the EMAs, previous day low. Wanted to make my entry a little bit early b/f it broke the top of the 5min candle. How did you feel after taking the trade?: - n/a What did you do well?: ID which direction the stock was going to move. What can you improve on?: - watch out for slippage. My entry was way above what the price action was at ( MARK). - Calculate the amount of risk necessary to not get stopped out form the noise. If I had traded a smaller share size I could have had the same amount of risk and place my S/L below VWAP.

Date: 1-26-21 Stock: WKHS Strategy: 5 min ORB Long/Short: Long Entry: 28.76 S/L: 28.35 Risk: 0.41 Plan of attack: On 5 min chart make entry when it breaks the top of the opening and 2nd candle. Take partial out at 2R and move stop up to 1R Why did you take the trade?: ORB on 5 min. Held the 26 EMA. Rising volume with rising price, anomaly present. How did you feel after taking the trade?: Confident. What did you do well?: Manage risk, have a plan and sticking to the plan. What can you improve on?: After I make a trade don’t go looking at other stock right away. See if the current stock present any other setups. Question? Would this be an appropriate ABCD set up on the 5 min. Haven’t sat down and studied this strategy yet.

Date: 1-26-21 Stock: AMD Strategy: Directional Entry: 94.74 S/L: 94.31 Risk: 0.43 Plan of attack: Take profits at 2R which as around the previous day high. Why did you take the trade?: On the 5min chart candle was holding above the 26ema, slow stochastic crossing over, MACD on 15 min very bullish and lines crossing over ( at the time), volume was confirming price action for the most part. How did you feel after taking the trade?: confident. What did you do well?: I made the trade solely off of the 5 min 15 min chart. I didn’t look at the 1/2min chart which was a good thing but also a bad thing. Looking at the whole picture is something I wanted to work on., Today I looked at 75% of the picture instead of 25%. What can you improve on?: Stop hesitating, I jumped in later than I wanted. Looking at it on the chart it looks like I was chasing the stock. I promise I wasn’t . I got caught up in wishful thinking for my exit. I thought that it would break the previous HOD. Sill looking at the whole picture Pay attention, I changed a feature in my hotkeys and ended up screwing up an order and limited my trade.

I also had a few trades like this today where I entered, and bailed because of lack of confidence.

OK, BBBY was the major part of my disaster of a trading day this morning. I lost 4R on this thing. Started off with ORB that got stopped out. Fair enough. I re-entered then bailed after 5mins when I thought to myself "this thing isn't breaking out, I don't have a strategy here". In retrospect it would have worked out, but I had no way of knowing this. I made a chasing trade of an ABCD that I bailed on at break even. I made two 1R loss trades by ignoring double bottom/tops. I tried to trade VWAP, and to be fair this was only my second attempt. I had convinced myself that the price had made a W shape, and was doing a VWAP reversal, but as you can see it ended up being a clear lightning bolt pattern that I did end up taking short, It was just unlucky the move was so small. My final trade was a long on a potential ABCD. I need to make a rule that after say, 10am, any ABCDs have to be backed up by the 5min chart. This would have been a good trade, but I just entered too early. After the price formed a reverse hammer I bailed on it.

I actually like your second entry much better than your first. In your first you are entering after very little pullback when the price is extended from the 9ma. You were just lucky that the price didn't reverse earlier. The second looked entry looked good, there was an appropriate sized pullback, the price dipped below the 9ma and you entered. Could have gone your way, however the biggest thing that was going against you was that PLTR had already had a $5 move, and the ATR of PLTR is only $2.74. The best ABCD entry for this setup I feel was on the 6th bar.

Stock: PLTR, second entry Result: Break even Strategy: ABCD Long/Short: Long Entry: 38.70 Risk: 20c S/L: In theory 38.50 but I stopped out break even in the end. Why did you take the trade?: The trade in question here is the second one. The first one was a nice ABCD which although I took a first partial a little too quickly on gave me a nice 2R profit. The second trade is of interest. PLTR pulled back and appeared to hold 9EMA on the 1min chart. After a brief dip it gained ground again. Sensing a retest of HOD I took a long. What happened next?: At one point I was +1R, but the price fell back to break even. The next candle opened, and I decided to come off this position and not wait to be stopped out. The candle where my entry was showed a spinning top, a possibly reversal signal, which after the previous reversal up at 39.60 made me concerned. I felt this was now a coin flip and no longer confident of my entry I chose to come out early at pretty much break even. This ended up proving to be a good decision, the stock reversed and went on to sell off heavily. How did you feel after taking the trade?: Quite pleased I reacted well seeing weakness in the stock. This was my second and final trade of the session. What did you do well?: I do think my decision to come out of this position was a good one. Sure, 'what if it'd have popped up?' - well then I'd have had to shrug and say 'oh well, shit happens' and move on. What can you improve on?: I'm not sure the original entry was correct. I'm very much learning about this pattern. Questions?: What would you have done? Exited and protected your capital, or held on until your stop was triggered?

As I'm practicing with ABCDs, I'm trying harder to get entries deep within the range, providing good tight stops. One potential issue here is your entry is right on the breakout of the range. Where you end up having to stop out - you're technically still within the consolidation range and the set up might still be valid, but you've rightly stopped out once your R stop is triggered. Your second entry is better, I think, and provides a much tighter stop. Can I ask what the horizontal line is right below your first entry? Is that a PM / daily level you've got marked? It seems to have been acting as support.

I guess I see a descending triangle, given the flat bottom running along what I imagine is VWAP. However, as Matt also said... Given the support also provided by VWAP, which had been tested and proven several times, this was a very strong set up. You could call it any number of things: a descending triangle, a VWAP break, a bull flag, an ABCD pattern, a 3-bar play on the 15 min chart... I'd look closer at the fact there was strong buying followed by confirmation of VWAP support and then a spike in buying volume right before you entered. Altogether, very good stuff, well done!

I would post my two losing trades however I didn't have a plan let alone remember what I saw. Don't want to waste your time with shenanigan's. Date: 1-25-21 Stock: BBBY Strategy: Price Action Pattern (Descending Triangle) Long/Short: Long Entry: 38.73 S/L: 38.12 Risk: 0.61 Plan of attack: Go long on the triangle. Take 50% of profits out at 3R, move S/L up to 1R. If breaks Hod use VPA to determine final exit. Why did you take the trade?: Initially I saw a triangle forming on the 2 min chart jumped in short previously twice, I don’t remember why I did but I was getting tunnel vision and didn’t look at the longer time frame charts. I am not super familiar with triangle patters. I thought that descending triangles move in the opposite direction ( so move up). I looked it up and sure enough descending generally breaks out to the short side. How did you feel after taking the trade?: I got lucky that it moved on the long side. What did you do well?: - patience, for exits. -Keeping psyc in check after 2 loses in a row. What can you improve on?: - Don’t trade a pattern you’re not very familiar with. Questions? Do you see the descending triangle? Or do you see a symmetrical triangle?

I would suggest using LIMIT and/or MARKET with CMEG. This is what I tell people every day in the chatroom as a conversion for CMEG. I believe that you still also need to use DAY and not DAY+ in for normal market hours to get the discount, and the discount only works during normal hours. Try an order with LIMIT and DAY, then log onto CMEG to make sure you're receiving the discount before making a bunch of trades. You can also try refreshing your route list, to make sure you're seeing all of them that you should. File menu, setup, trading settings, "refresh route list".

I don’t look at anything prior to Monday. Maybe I just let the moderators do all the work for me haha. However, I will kick up DAS replay and pick a random day from the previous week with a random symbol from the moderators’ watchlist on that day to make sure my mind is ready to be patient and do things for a reason. It’s just to be sure that I am not rusty at all prior to the week starting.

Thank you Bryan, this is the sort of info I was looking for. Can I ask, do you know if that reduced fee (0.004 per share, minimum $0.5 per ticket) applies for trades involving any number of shares, or does it only apply to trades with more than 'x' shares (their normal fee structure has different tiers, where if you buy a certain number of shares, you get a better fee)? I ask because my share size (given my small account), is often around 50 to 200 shares depending on price. Do you think that I will get the BBT discounted fee given my small size? Thanks again for taking the time to answer my question! Thank you Abiel for pointing me in the right direction, much appreciated!!!

BBT Scanners settings are here https://bearbulltraders.com/downloads/

I was browsing Farnam Street when this article caught my attention: What You Can Learn from Fighter Pilots About Making Fast and Accurate Decisions about the OODA loop, a practical concept designed to be the foundation of rational thinking in confusing or chaotic situations, developed by strategist and U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd for fighter pilots. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. Boyd intended the four steps to be repeated again and again until a conflict finishes: 1: Observe The first step in the OODA Loop is to observe. At this stage, the main focus is to build a comprehensive picture of the situation with as much accuracy as possible. A fighter pilot needs to consider: What is immediately affecting me? What is affecting my opponent? What could affect us later on? Can I make any predictions, and how accurate were my prior ones? A pilot’s environment changes rapidly, so these observations need to be broad and fluid. And information alone is not enough. The observation stage requires awareness of the overarching meaning of the information. It also necessitates separating the information which is relevant for a particular decision from that which is not. You have to add context to the variables. The observation stage is vital in decision-making processes. 2: Orient Orientation, the second stage of the OODA loop, is frequently misunderstood or skipped because it is less intuitive than the other stages. Boyd referred to it as the schwerpunkt, a German term which loosely translates to “the main emphasis.” In this context, to orient is to recognize the barriers that might interfere with the other parts of the process. Without an awareness of these barriers, the subsequent decision cannot be a fully rational one. Orienting is all about connecting with reality, not with a false version of events filtered through the lens of cognitive biases and shortcuts. Including this step, rather than jumping straight to making a decision, gives us an edge over the competition. Even if we are at a disadvantage to begin with, having fewer resources or less information, Boyd maintained that the Orient step ensures that we can outsmart an opponent. 3. Decide Having gathered information and oriented ourselves, we have to make an informed decision. The previous two steps should have generated a plethora of ideas, so this is the point where we choose the most relevant option. Boyd cautioned against first-conclusion bias, explaining that we cannot keep making the same decision again and again. This part of the loop needs to be flexible and open to Bayesian updating. In some of his notes, Boyd described this step as the hypothesis stage. The implication is that we should test the decisions we make at this point in the loop, spotting their flaws and including any issues in future observation stages. 4. Act While technically a decision-making process, the OODA loop is all about action. The ability to act upon rational decisions is a serious advantage. The other steps are mere precursors. A decision made, now is the time to act upon it. Also known as the test stage, this is when we experiment to see how good our decision was. Did we observe the right information? Did we use the best possible mental models? Did we get swayed by biases and other barriers? Can we disprove the prior hypothesis? Whatever the outcome, we then cycle back to the first part of the loop and begin observing again. Boyd developed this strategy for fighter pilots. However, like all good mental models, it can be extended into other fields. So I googled OODA and Day Trading and our good buddy Brett N. Steenbarger, author of The Daily Trading Coach, came up. Right in his website there is this 11 page article "Trading as Mental Warfare" (a new window will open to download a .doc file). In this article, Steenbarger explains how trading, like the battlefield, offers an environment typified by risk, danger, and uncertainty, rewarding the efficiency of mental processing. The successful trader is one who can rapidly observe market conditions, orient himself, integrate information into effective decisions, and quickly act upon those decisions. So, lets watch Top Gun again!

Anyone interested in the OODA loop needs to read or listen to the John Boyd biography. It is an amazing story about a fascinating and complex man

Check out William's video on Kyle's hotkey. I basically copy the scripts and adjust a bit. https://bearbulltraders.com/course/technology/lesson/setting-up-das/topic/dynamic-hotkeys-equalized-risk-per-trade/ In order for it to work, make sure do the following in your chart Config setting.

Hi Denis, New trader here as well. If you are with Das and IB, please check out Kyle's hotkey (fixed risk ) thread and it has been a game changer for most of us.

What up Brandon! After 3 months in SIM I remember feeling like I was ready to go live (definitely was not) and thankfully the few trading days before my 3 month subscription ended I did horribly and decided to re-up for another 3 months. Then after 3 MORE months in SIM I thought I was ready (definitely was not still) and had a rough couple weeks prior to my 2nd 3 month subscription ending, then I re-up'd for another 3 months, and after that 3 months I KNEW it was time to go live, for better or worse. 9 total months in SIM, I had months of journaling and data on my weekly R counts. I was pretty good at all the main strategies and decided to focus only on parabolic reversals. I was very confident I would at least not lose money (I did lose money 😛 ) after about 4 weeks I was down 10R with commissions and it became obvious to me I had to go back in SIM. So I went back in SIM and re-read Ana's book on VPA, but this time REALLY read/applied the concepts and a lot started to click for me. I went back live after about 2.5 weeks in SIM and I'm on my 3rd week live right now doing WAY better than my first go around. I might crash and burn again, but I'm improving everyday, and that's what this whole thing is all about. It takes time, SIM is such an excellent resource, don't rush it. So to answer your question... you'll just know. Message me anytime if you wanna chat! GL!!! -Chris

Hi BBT, I've recently added another 3 months to my DAS simulator account. I was 3 months in and contemplated on going live, however I just don't feel 100% ready yet. For those of you that have made the decision to go live as a new trader how did you know when it was the right time? Thanks!

Yes https://www.tradeinsights.net/ + OneNote. I import trades into trade insights and OneNote for charts screenshots and notes: What did I do well / bad, what could I improve, what did I learn and how I will implement learnings. I also have a daily table for mistakes / broken rules to make sure I improve my discipline in the most frequent errors / broken rules. I have a page for daily summaries and a calendar where I use colors to grade my days so in a glance I can see how my month is going. (Each month is a Notebook and I use the sections (like tabs) in the top for each trading day, summary, errors and final performance at the end of the month.

@Abiel Out of curiosity do you use a service such as chartlog/tradervue for your trade metrics? If so how do you incorporate your playbook or do you use something such as Microsoft One for that? Thank You!!!

Hi Brandon. I recently went live, and the most important change I've noticed is how sometimes in the sim you simply "don't care" if it goes very bad because it's fake money. I went live in september, and since then I've came back to sim 5 times because my mental struggles get in the way while trading live. I guess the most important thing you should have is to be aware of the amount of money you are willing to risk per trade and have that risk in control. The first time I went live I did not have that risk matter under control, I thought I had, but I didn't. I ended up losing $3k in the first two weeks, but going back to sim has helped to correct some heavy issues. Be aware that the sim is always going to be available, but it's crucial that you go live, at least one day in the week, so you can experience the thrill of risking real money and start developing the mental skills to handle it. Also, don't look at going back to sim as a failure. The first time I decided to go back to sim I was feeling defeated but it's far from a loss, in fact, going back to sim has given me new skills to improve my performance in live.

There are three more I would recommend. Anna Coulling - A complete Guide to Volume Price Analysis Mike Bellafiore - One Good Trade Mark Douglas - Trading in the zone.

I shared my thoughts on the classic ABCD/Flag strategy. This pattern presents itself in virtually every move, across multiple timeframes. The formation consists of: 1. Run-up/sell-off 2. Profit taking/consolidation 3. Continuation Let me know your thoughts!