2021-04-09 UPDATE : added color / background highlighter on ticker symbols starting with $ PS : download files from first post in this thread......

By answering this question it has really help me put things into perspective. I have been doing better at calming my emotions after a trade does not go my way and I have been working on coping mechanisms. If I ever feel myself taking it personally or start to turn negative on myself, I lock my montage and walk away. Luckily with my kids going back to school in person, I will go drop them off. The market will always be there and there will always be other opportunities, the one thing that will disappear will be my capital. I have even proposed the same question to my wife and it has helped us both to understand why we are with the money the way we are. BBT is great it helped me have free marriage counseling, LOL. Good luck on your journey, this community is amazing it does not only help with your trading, but your life overall. Take care!

This is my first post in the community, I have been a member for approximately 8 months, been live trading for 4 months. I did a three month simulator, went live and then back to simulator for 2 months, now I am back live. In our community we put an emphasis on the psychology of trading. The more I explore this topic the more I realize this is the trenches of trading and it where battles are won and lost. A question was recently asked to me about "What is my relationship with money?", I have been genuinely thinking about this long and hard for nearly couple of weeks now and have been struggling to find a definitive answer. A little bit about my background, I grew up in a not so money wealthy family, but with all my family around it was never a belief that we were poor. There was never a shortage of anything and my mom worked hard to raise my sister and I. My father came into my life after we moved to the States from England and that is when money was a factor. At 8 years old it was the first time in my life I was away from the comfort of aunts, uncles, and cousins, everything was about money. My dad had a modest job, but was not earning a lot of money and that was the reason why he immigrated to the United States from England was to find his "American Dream" or what he felt it was. For the first time my mom was not working and everything went through my dad. He did not deal with the stress of having a family with the financial obligations it required too well. He had left England when I was 3 years old and did not have to worry much about a family for a long time. Now he had two kids and wife, who he needed to support and each had different needs. He was struggling, which at times led to a lot of arguments between my mom and him, I had never seen a husband and wife argue as my aunts and uncles must have done in their homes when I was not there. However, the argument always had something to do with money. I think this was the first time I ever felt that money was important as I did not have family around me to take my mind of it or out of focus. Time went on my dad achieved his "American Dream", with successfully buying and running 6 pizzerias. Money was coming in from all directions, we did not even know what to do with it. I was now 17 years old getting ready to graduate high school, it was not an issue of if my dad could buy me a car, it was which car did I want. Few months prior to graduation disaster struck, my folks were getting a divorce as my dad had let the money create divide between the family. He was king of the castle and ruler of all, he had money therefore he had the power. My parents split and my sister and I stuck with our mom as we had a strong enough relationship with her. My dad took all the money and disappeared, now we had no money. I started to despise money as I felt it was the cause of my family splitting up, but you still need money we did not have any. What a conundrum, I need the thing I despise. Further time has gone on, I have become financially independent and money is no longer an issue for me. I still struggle with losing money in trading even though it is small amounts, it bugs me. Why so much, why does it bug me that I am losing small amounts of money? It was expected, I knew it would be a part of the learning curve for day trading. I had established a business plan that stated if I stick to my discipline I would lose "x" dollar amount every month max and I would gain "x" dollar amount a month max. I realized through my journey to answer the question above "What is your Relationship with Money?", I do not lose money, it was taken from me and I take that personally. Which then takes me back to my parent's separation when money was an issue for me for the first time in my life. To combat this I came across a Ted Talks speech that I wanted to share the link is below. I need to not take losing money in the market as a person jab or insult to me. I need to look at it as, if I have done everything right, if I have followed my trade book, it just was not my day. The market was not out to get me, it was just a matter of circumstances that did not pan out. I would love to hear if anyone has had any similar issues and any feedback for other coping mechanism is most welcome. Thank you all for taking the time to read my post, it was probably a lot of info, but I wanted to share as much to get the most amount of feedback. Thank you again.

DAS is supposed to add a large-bid/ask level highlighter to L2, but not sure when. It'll work like the current MMID highlighter, but for lots at a price level above a certain size/qty. This won't be as clear as Bookmap's historical heatmap, but it should help on faster moving stocks. I like Bookmap (currently testing it to do a Webinar), but my big issue with it is the price. I'm sure if I was a baller like Andrew, that'd be nothing. But $50/mo is fine for Bookmap, it's the extra ~$130 you have to pay for the data .. at ~$180ish per month, you have to really find value out of it when starting out if you're using it as a secondary tool .. and I don't like the interface to use it as trading platform (instead of DAS). If DAS added a paid chart study to DAS Trader Pro [kinda like an L2 VPA study] that did the same thing (since they basically have the feed already), I'd pay for that for sure.

I use ChartLog. I was surprised how much it helped since I was really thorough with my journalling before ChartLog. Somehow it makes it more serious. I take SIM much more serious now that I use ChartLog since those trades are recorded as well and I need Chartlog to say I have a profit factor >2 in SIM before I can move to live for any strategy. And I force myself to drop the live trading if I drop below a profit factor of 1.3 for any strategy. I tried Traderview but it would not upload my trades correctly 100% of the time. Versus ChartLog always uploads them correctly. I record the trades using OBS Studio. I had some issues with DAS record app.

No problem, glad to help! I add new rules / advice to my pretrading routine every day..currently it's 3 pages long and counting:) I'm not sure I'm the right person to give actual trading advice, but this has been my experience: 1/2min candles are just noise when picking trades. 2-min are good for partials / adds, though. My favorite trades are 5-min ORBs (with a twist), VWAP False Breakouts, VWAP Continuations, occasionally Reversals. As for the twist in ORB, ideally I want to see a VWAP Retest (perhaps it's not a retest but a shakeout of the retail Stops...who knows). I want the stock to clearly stay on one side of the VWAP, and I want to always take it pretty close to VWAP on the 5-min chart. I've noticed that the 5-min chart almost always offers opportunities for entry really close to VWAP. One example of such ORB + "VWAP Continuation" from a few days ago on PLTR, and another similar ORB on INTC today see below. Andrew's ORBs are just magic to me, maybe in a few years:)

Hi Dylan, J3Lda and peterB covered everything extremely well so I have nothing I could add. But I struggled with ORBs for about 1.5 years before becoming profitable, so I will mention what I have learned about ORBs. I also work full time, so the ORBs made the most sense. So I understand the desire to trade them, even though they will take longer than trend trading to become proficient. - Only trade them in SIM until profitability factor >2. Yes I agree it doesn't feel real. But that is what I needed. After going back to SIM and even trading on DAS replay I found that ORBs are more mechanical then tactical. It doesn't matter how good of a setup, you must nail the entry. It makes or breaks a great trade and could instantly turn it into a stop/out. This took me a lot of practice. You need to predict where the price will be when the order fills and not where it is currently. You can only practice that in SIM. - Video record all your ORB trades. You can look at the chart of your ABCD trade and know everything that occurred. I look at an ORB trade at night for review and I can't see what actually happen. You will learn a lot from the recording. - Give yourself a bigger stop. Even a few pennies make a difference. I use to have this in my hot key. I would pick the most logical stop and the hotkey would add a few cents. It's amazing how many trades you will be stopped out by a penny before missing the 10R run. Essentially, all of us retail traders tend to pick the same stop. So a MM can swing the price down and gobble all of us up and then move the stock. - Choose around 3 to 6 stocks and trade them every day. When one gets cold replace it with another hot stock. You need to learn the personality of individual stocks. - A little over a year ago I was making good money on ORBs based on break of daily levels. But it stopped working for me last year. But I see Thor make money every day on this so I kept trying and losing money. I finally had to drop that strategy. Same with Andrew's break of the 1 minute candle. It worked great last year and I still see Andrew make tons of money using them, but it stopped working for me and you may be having the same trouble. - To restart just choose one strategy. If the stock is setting up a different strategy, let it go without you. Just trade one strategy. Yes the number of trades will go way down, but you will become an expert in that strategy fast. Like break HOTD or 1min ORB ONLY if the candle is a hammer, or 5min ORB only if the second candle pulls back to VWAP, etc... - Yes I had a <20% success rate on ORBs for awhile. My stops were too tight, I always got a bad fill (my fault not DAS), and I always chased (now I only enter a trade on a pull back). - Just after the open I do not look at prices at all only volume. I see which stocks get the volume, then I look at the price action. - Practice watching L2 in SIM. I hope there is something here that you find useful.

After listening to the Mastering Trading Psychology Audiobook by Andrew and Mike, I'm proud to say I've taken some very positive steps in my lifestyle choices. I got myself an Exercise Bike in February and have been doing a daily workout where I never really exercised at all (unless you count running around after 3 kids exercise). 3 Weeks ago, I was having beer almost daily, and from 2 weeks ago, now only having some at the weekend instead. And from today, I've cut out coffee during the week. Along with missing breakfast most mornings, I decided to kill 2 birds with 1 stone and make my own fruit smoothies - I get my breakfast, and my morning drink. Feel good about the changes I'm making and it's thanks to listening to that audiobook - Thanks Guys.

Hello guys, This is a paper trading account, still first week papertrading This was yesterday, March 20. Stocked gapped up, in the premarket it was showing some weakness. I decided to take the ORB break down, but got squuezed out I guess, within 2 seconds the stock was 2 USD higher. Was it a good trade and good entry, and/or what other considerations should I have taken before taking this ORB breakdown? Many thanks and kind regards,

ZM is difficult to trade, very fast moves and big spreads. Like Peter said above, it would be better to wait for a pullback. Also you have two possible resistance lines on your chart where you entered short. I made this mistake a lot. Aiman always says in trade review class. Don’t short at the support. Previous Day Close and the other red line there make that price level a possible support level. Thanks for sharing.