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April 15, 2019 - $WFC (Stopped, Profit Target) My first trade I got stopped out. I remained calm and after the stock had a couple of indecision candles with high volume, I took my second shot at the stock when it broke the opening range again. I rode it up to the profit target. I had one hotkey mistake as I added to my position instead of covering everything. I quickly recovered and exited the trade. After reviewing the trade, my profit taking could have been much better. There was no reason to take my second out until I hit my profit target and I should have let rest run until another technical level or indicator that the move had ended. As William H would say, there was no new 1 minute lows. Sample Set Results P G S P E S P P P S G 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Tuesday 4/16/2019 I had a well-being score of 5.5/10 this morning. Nerves were OK. I think my first run (yesterday) in 3 weeks really helped. I took one live trade today with MU. I had to go somewhere early in the morning, so I knew it was going to be a one and done day so I had to really keep to my setups. I was really watching AAPL and ignoring everything else. It had OK volume in the premarket and then got really active at 9:28am. So it had my complete focus. Then it got 400k volume in the first second of the market open. It started to setup, and my finger was on the trigger, but it never met all the setup criteria. I gave up on AAPL about 90 seconds after the open and noticed MU may have a potential setup. I waited a minute and MU finally had a good “Vish” setup. I waited for the price to clear all the MAs and I went long. Even though there were three strong tech levels below my entry point, I watched (for a whole minute before my entry) the price fly through these TLs without any respect for them. The first TL that the price showed respect was the 42.19 premarket TL. So my S/O was all the way down at 42.15. Thus, I had to reduce my shares accordingly. What MU looked like when I took the trade (5min chart): Checklist: I took my first partial at the HOTD and wow what a bad fill. I essentially sold at B/E. The price arrived at the HOTD again where I successfully took a partial. Then tried to take another partial at the 42.50 level but again got a bad fill. Then I was able to take one more partial after that before the price reversed and I sold the rest of the shares at B/E. What I did good today: I liked that I was flexible with the S/O on my MU trade and not just choosing VWAP, just because. How did I challenge myself today? Same as yesterday my finger was right on the buy trigger for AAPL but the final criteria of the setup was not satisfied and I didn’t take the trade. What I did bad today: Too trigger happy on the partials. What can I do better tomorrow: Either take less partials or smaller first partial.

I got smacked today. Had a few misreads at market open that I went big on. Had long bias today so everything felt like a long since they were strong in the pre-market. Even though $ROKU closed under VWAP, I really thought that move was gonna happen to the upside. However, that squeeze and drop back down was probably a short indicator. Had an initial pop then caught a fade. I should have noticed that at the 9/20MA 1-minute because I would have taken this short in previous trades. Got 3 good long plays afterwards to make up some of that bad loss. Also, missread $RNN thinking the close above the 20MA 5-minute would cause a squeeze. Just didn't work out and shouldn't have went long under the 9MA 5-minute and the 9MA 1-minute. That was an obvious one since I did the exact opposite on $FB. Went long above the 9MA 5-minute and 1-minute. $RNN was a great short, though. I do want to mention that even with that horrible loss, it didn't stop me from still making some good trades afterwards. I just looked at $ROKU like.. damn.. I misread the hell out of that. Kept trading although I wanted to punch $CGC in the throat. $ROKU 4/16/2019 $CGC 4/16/2019 $RNN 4/16/2019 $FB 4/16/2019

Ah... I'm getting in the mojo. 5th day positive realized, but still having some negative p/l days. (Near break even mostly) Not many commissions but once I bump share sizing up I think some of that will balance out. Didn't make any mistakes today, although I missed a few moves I watched but decided to not take. Got in too early on $MU twice, but finally caught the move to make up for losses. Still working on my short bias, but I'm getting closer to a neutral state each day. Also, still working on my moving average trades. On $MU, I feel like my first attempt was good because I was trying to catch the move. My third attempt is an obvious view on what I was attempting to catch the first 2 times. Worked out perfectly. I chickened out on $WFC the second time and missed a good move. Great trading day I'd say. These wins outweighing my losses is helping my confidence knowing that what I'm doing is working. I'm off to study these charts more. $MU 4/15/2019 $WFC 4/15/2019

Monday 4/15/2019 I had a well-being score of 5/10 this morning. Nerves were better, still not good, but definitely better. I took two live trades today with AAPL and DIS. I was watching DIS on my main screen since AAPL/MU/AMD did not have volume in the premarket. Then the volume came in on AAPL with 400k in the first 30 seconds, so my attention turned to AAPL. Then about 30 seconds later MU had a really good “Vish” setup so I switched my attention to MU. I was ready to go long if it broke the 50MA on the 1min chart. But it didn’t and my attention went back to AAPL. AAPL had a “mini ABCD” setup and went long at the break of the 2min candle body. I took my first partial at the HOTD, which was only 10c away. It’s not a rule to take a partial there, but I notice I don’t regret it when I do. Then the price tried to break the 199.82 too many times unsuccessfully that when it touched it again I took another partial. Then all out at B/E. The next trade was a 5min ORB with DIS. It had an ABCD formation within the 5min. I went long when it seemed to have bounced from the 9MA which was at the same time as the break of the 5min candle body. Since DIS is at an all time high, I only had the high of the day as a target. In these situations I will use the high of each 1 min candle to take a partial until I ran out of shares. What I did good today: I really liked trading outside of AAPL/MU/AMD that alone made DIS an interesting trade. How did I challenge myself today? My finger was right on the buy trigger for MU but the final criteria of the setup was not satisfied and I didn’t take the trade. What I did bad today: That was a “B” setup on AAPL. At least it was a setup, but probably should have let that one go by. It just happen to be a small winner by luck. What can I do better tomorrow: Still need to get better letting so-so setups go by. On the positive side, if I am starting to be concerned about taking the “B” setups maybe my issue of taking trades with no setup has improved.

April 12, 2019 - $AMD (Partial + 1) Took a 5 min ORBD on $AMD. I got a partial, and took another half out near the profit target. I exited when it broke the 9 EMA. Another good trade on $AMD. Eventually, after a strong pullback it went down near my profit target. Sample Set Results P G S P E S P P P 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Tuesday April 16th, 2019 Sleep: 8 hours. Mood: good, ready to trade. First trade of the day was a sort of double top off VWAP in ROKU. i got in short below the 200 MA on the 1min chart setting my stop loss to the PDH. I was hoping it would keep going lower on the break of the LOTD but it came back up i hesitated on getting out and it ended up costing me a little more than my $10 risk. GOOD: i think the premise of the trade with the support was good, good R/R. RFI: looking at it after the fact i chased my entry. MOOD: fine CONSISTENT: yes but barely, should have got out right when it hit my stop. Next trade was in ROKU again. I felt comfortable going long again over the $58 dollar mark. added more on a new 5min high over VWAP. sold half just shy of my initial profit target. then half again on another break in an ABCD pattern. held the rest for just under $59 then moved that down to $58.90 after it stalled out. i should have got out earlier but i held on for the breakeven. GOOD: added more when the trade was going in my favor. scaled out above 2R. RFI: held too much too long, need to do the first 75% above 2R and then half the remaining at the next level then only save 12.5% for the last bit or just get all out. i'm getting killed in commissions. MOOD: glad to have a winner, wish i would have made more. CONSISTENT: yes. Not a bad first day back from a couple day break. I need to change something about my trading because if i have one loser (at stop loss) and one winner (at profit target), then i should be +1R on the day. instead i was 0.2R positive and negative with commissions. i need to at the very least ALWAYS get out of losers at -1R and be patient enough with my winners until they're at 2R then get out almost all at or above that level. i'm not going to be net profitable until i can do those things. What i did good today: Kept a level head and made a good trade in ROKU after getting stopped out. What i did bad today: Not being flexible enough in my profit expectations. should have exited my final shares well before getting stopped out at B/E. also still hesitating to cut my losers. What can i do better tomorrow: Cut losers at determined stop loss. no exceptions. keep working on scaling out on winners.

thanks Brandon! good call going long under the VWAP and catching the squeeze. i thought after it broke the 200 MA on the 1min it would be good to go lower but it wasn't meant to be.

Hey everyone! Looks like we're going to get Andrew down here for some Texas Meetups! Planning on 5/19 in Dallas and 5/20 in Austin. I could use some help organizing these if there are any volunteers. Let us know who can attend on the Facebook event pages: Dallas Meetup Austin Meetup Please use these events to confirm your attendance. Thanks, Norm

Here is the working link: Do you see your STOP in the Open Orders window?

Week 15 Recap Started off the week not by taking some bonehead trades. Wednesday was ok and Thursday was good. Hopefully i'll be able to trade Monday but it's not looking good as of today. · Weekly stats o 1.7 R/R (Goal: above 2.0) [Previous Week: 2.3] o 23/40 58% (Goal: above 80%) [Previous Week: 88%] o -$23.10 (Goal: $250) [Previous Week: -$55.67] o 7/10 70% trades with the trend (Goal: 100%) [Previous Week: 40%] o 1/10 10% Early Entries (Goal: 0%) [Previous Week: 30%] o 1/10 10% Letting Losers Run (Goal: 0%) [Previous Week: 0%] o 2/10 20% No Setup (Goal: 0%) [Previous Week: 20%] · Highlights o Made some good trades this week. MU on Tuesday and WTW on Thursday o Entries were better this week and most trades were with the trend · Ongoing things to work on o Let losers run on me and got auto-stopped. First time maybe 3 weeks. o Don’t watch the chatroom while trading. o Continuing the practice of thinking like a trader and in probabilities o Still selling too early on winners

Live trading summary for week ending 4/12/19. Definitely a better week than last week. My health improved enough that I was able to trade live every day this week. I changed my rule from 1+1 trade/day max (only trade a second time if first one was a winner) to 2 trades/day max. The first trade can be a looser but it must be a good trade and I have to have my revenge emotions in check. This only occurred once this week but it went well. My nerves were bad this week and the incident from the previous week of back to back -2R losses still haunt me. Three days this week I did not take a second live trade. I just thought I had one good trade let’s not ruin a good day with a potentially bad second trade. But this will impede my learning if I go back to one trade a day. I still had simulator switching issues this week as well and worked with DAS support again. There seems to be an overly thorough way of converting the platform to my demo account. It worked but its 65 mouse clicks to convert. That’s a bit too much. My trade evaluation by week: And SIM this week: Next week I need to work on my nerves and let myself take two live trades a day again. Have a good weekend.

Good day. Looking to understand in DAS how to place a Stop Loss and Profit Target simultaneously however the link provided is dead. Perhaps this can be reviewed and looked into? Placing Both Stop Loss and Profit Target in DAS Thank you

Friday 4/12/2019 I had a well-being score of 5/10 this morning. Nerves were better, but then I noticed my platform wasn’t setup completely (30 sec before open). Though I got everything setup by open, my nerves were bad again. I took one live trade today with AAPL. AAPL was a “simple” 2min ORB setup. The forming 2min candle had a bullish wick and VWAP break was near the top. It also had good partial taking levels above it. I waited for it to break the 200MA and went long. Got a good fill. I assume because of my nerves I took too many partials. The first partial was planned to be the 50MA. But I took one at a nearby premarket local high. Not a horrible place to take a partial if you have no other levels, but I did. Then I took a partial at the 50MA and then took a really bad partial in the middle of nowhere L Next partial was at the 200 dollar mark and the final piece when it reached the high of premarket at 200.13, but I got a not so good fill on that. I really wanted a good trading day going into the weekend. I know I am supposedly just focusing on the process, but it was nice to get a +2R winner and call it one and done for the day. I took a break and came back and saw a good setup, but I knew after 65 mouse clicks to switch it back to SIM the setup would be gone. That deflated me to take any SIM trades and so I just watched the charts and the chatroom for a while to see what others were trading and I called it a week. What it looked like when I took the trade: 1min chart 5min chart What I did good today: I like my trade on AAPL. I finished the week on a positive. How did I challenge myself today? Took two days of “simple” setups. My trading was being dominated by “step” and “Vish” setups recently. What I did bad today: Too many partials on AAPL. What can I do better tomorrow: Still need to catch up on my weekend training/reviewing. Be prepared for next week.

Hey traders! You know me as Matt R, blowing up the chat with Pivot alerts. I never traded with pivots before about a month ago, but turned them on one day by accident and man, was I glad I did. I did some research on them and it's changed the way I'm trading. I'm calling out stronger supports, taking better less risky trades, and getting out much safer than I was before. For those who don't know what pivots are, here is a great article to start on: https://thesecretmindset.com/pivot-points/ Tells a little about them, how they're calculated, and taking some basic pivot trades. In my opinion, they're just strong reversal trades, but instead of you going on your own and trying to see a W, or head and shoulders, or ABCD, or any other things that are subjective, this is a level that every single trader with a computer has access to, and is staring them in the face. They are numbers that DO NOT CHANGE!! ALL DAY! Everyone on the planet has the exact same numbers. And you know what else that means? Computers have them too. Which, in this case (and not usually the case in day trading) is great. So have I figured it out and gotten 100% success? No. There are some times that I get faked out, just like any reversal. But my stop losses are shallow and my $10 and $20 losses are manageable when the rewards are so great. And now, I've started noticing even more trends with these. Here are the two main trends that I see on these trades: 1) NEVER take a pivot trade that is going against the stock (short a stock going up, long one going down) unless it CROSSES A MOVING AVERAGE! Just because the stock hits a pivot doesn't mean it will reverse. A lot of times a strong stock will just blast right through. I have examples of this in all three charts below. 2) If you do take a trade that bounces off a pivot and then crosses a MA, beware of normal resistances, like VWAP, other resistance, HOD, Open, etc. I have found that three (3) 5-min candles in a row or a MA cross of any kind mean the trend is possibly over and the pivot reversal could be done. COULD BE. Just keep your finger on the trigger. These things are not bullet proof, and are subject to the same issues other trend trades are. People can always change their mind, or news can come out, or whatever. We will not always bounce happily from one pivot point to another. That's it so far. I attached some photos of some charts of trades I did. I took a few false pivots and tried to figure out what happened. Each time, it was because I broke one of these two rules. The other thing you need to know is that you could be buying or selling on a bounce. That is ok. Pivots bounce 2, 3, 4, or even 5 time before breaking, especially over slow periods like lunch. See the SQ example 1. You need a lot of patience with this strategy. If you took the trade at the first bounce, you would have been at break even for some time. Stop losses are your friend here. Which leads me to rule #3. 3) Set your stop at a pivot trade above the highest candle wick above the pivot, which really shouldn't be more than $0.10-0.20 or so. See, so your risk on these trades is very small, so you can price/buy shares accordingly. As far as price targets for these, obviously the next closest pivot is the end target, unless the move is breaking one of the main rules! (It's not near a MA, no supports in sight, etc) Just pay special attention to each 'obstacle' as I call them. Once you've passed another one, it's one step closer to finishing the Pivot journey. The final thing that's exciting about these is holding a position long or short that's approaching them. In the last photo, NVDA was a trade I had long from open from another strategy. I held that puppy until $144.50 because of these rules (no breaking MA at pivot, etc). I hope this article helps! Again, this is what I've seen, practiced, and read. Typical disclosures, don't listen to me, I'm a nobody, do your own research, etc etc. However, these PPs are very exciting and I hope it will help all of us be more confident and able traders. Anything to give us a leg up over those other people, right? See you guys in the chat and let me know if you start seeing additional trends for us all to become aware of! Thanks guys! Matt R

This is great info, Matt! Thank you for sharing!

Hey Matt! Thanks for sharing this, going to queue it up to read that article this weekend.

No need to set neg or pos.. Just enter the amount you want the trail stop to be and based on your position Das will execute based on your Sell or Buy.

Hi All, I'm new to day trading stocks, but have been trading cryptocurrencies for about 4 months. I've found that going through daily affirmations before I started my trading day helped to keep me focus and remind me of how I need to think and behave while I trade, and wanted to share them with you all. I built this originally with the outline from Trading in the Zone, and have added maxims from Andrew's book as well as things I found I need to work on. Please feel free to post your own affirmations, would love to add to mine as it is constantly evolving! ---- I am a Calm, Disciplined, and Consistently Successful Trader. I objectively identify my edges and strategies and master them I will stick to a single strategy until I have mastered it. I will define each strategy in great detail with if then statements I will act without emotion, and listen to what the charts are telling me. Trading is a game of probabilities, and my edge gives me the house advantage, I just need to play long enough to reap the rewards. A strong system may only give me a 60% chance of winning, which are great odds over the long term. I will only use tips from others as a starting point for my own research and will decide for myself if the conditions are met for a trade. I do not confuse brains for a bull market. I must be very careful in who I choose to follow. I predefine the risk of every trade I will not enter a trade without having a clearly defined plan on how to exit if I get stopped out and how to take profits I will not chase a trade. If I have missed the entry point, that trade is gone, and I will look for another opportunity I completely accept the risk or I am willing to let the trade pass I accept that in the market, anything can happen. I will never blame the market. The market is king and does what it wants to do. I just have to get better at listening, so I can go along for the ride. It only takes 1 person to move the chart in a certain direction, breaking support or resistance and potentially invalidating my trade. The market is very often manipulated, but if I play my cards right and stick to my system and track the path of least resistance I can still win in the long run. I am 100% responsible for the outcome of my trading. Capital Preservation is more important than Capital Gain. I will not risk more than 2% of my capital on any trade. I will always miss out on trades, but there will always be others because I'm in it for the long run. Not taking a position is often the best position to take. I will only enter a trade if the odds are greatly in my favor. I will exit the trade if the trade turns against me in accordance to my exit and stop loss strategy My goal is to make money and manage risk, not to be right. I act on my edges without reservation or hesitation I will enter a trade only when all the conditions are met, with a profit to loss ratio of AT LEAST 2:1. I will not act emotionally, but calmly and rationally at all times. It is all practice. I will only trade when I am in the right state of mind to trade. If I am feeling down or depressed or overly euphoric, I need to step away and recover. I will follow my plan throughout the trade and only readjust if there is significant new data. I will not panic sell or act emotionally, and realize that the market can often retrace against me before moving towards my targets. I recognize that sometimes I must 'pay to see the flop' (see if it moves in favor of my position) instead of exiting a position too early, as long as it is within my defined strategy. I pay myself as the market makes money available to me I will take profits and not be overly greedy which may result in me giving back those gains I will let my profits run cautiously, being sure to take back some gains first, scaling back slowly and moving my stop loss to ensure profits. Once I have hit my profit targets or have hit my max loss, I will stop trading, or trade exclusively in a simulator so I do not give back those gains or garner more losses. I continually monitor my susceptibility for making errors and being emotional I will accept my losses as lessons learned, be thankful I was able to learn the lesson, and move on. I recognize that any loss is gone forever, and I can only look towards the next trade. I will not and can not make back the money I lost on the trade. If I act emotionally to a loss, I will accept that as well, and then remove that emotion so that I can learn from it. I will be happy as long as I have executed my trade plan as I laid out, regardless of whether I made money on the trade. I will reflect on my trades on a daily basis in order to learn lessons and improve each day. I will not let other people's gains or losses affect my emotions and trading. I feel no need to be better or more right than anyone else, and am not effected by FOMO. I accept that my mind will try to avoid doing things or try to distract me in order to avoid pain, and that I will identify and eliminate any reason for reacting this way so I can do what must be done. I understand that as a Professional Trader, I have to do things that are boring such as journaling and strict trade management in order to improve my understanding and my odds. I will identify all the things that my mind will try to do to distract me (reddit, news, chatting, food, videos) and address the source of those emotions directly. I will act with Discipline and Professionalism at all times, because this is a Professional Game that needs to be respected. I understand the absolute necessity of these principles of consistent success and thus never violate them I will pay attention to how I think and how I feel at all times, and how that affects me. If I am tired, or simply not in the right mindset to trade as a peak performer, I will stay out, trade in a simulator, or reduce my position size to negligible levels. I will be constantly aware of the cognitive biases that affect my decision making, such as having a confirmation and anchoring bias. It is all practice. Every trade whether it is real or simulated is practice in my quest to become a better trader. I will learn from it and move on. I will not let the results of my trading bleed over into the rest of my life, because I am more than just a trader. Whether I succeed or fail in trading does not change the fact that I am happy with myself and how I live.

What the Bear Bull Traders promotion does is get you the $2.95/trade Active Trader rate without having to trade 750k shares a month. And the minimum account funding is $500 per above. Use code “bearbullcmeg2018” and email brokerage@cmelitegroup.com and they will take care of the rest.

You can copy symbols from Trade Ideas into the DAS Market Viewer via copy/paste. This is useful for dumping the Gappers Watch List every morning. To link symbols in TI with a DAS Montage, from TI go to Tools > External Linking. Click Add Link and follow the on-screen instructions. Keep the two boxes unchecked and don't select any rules. Click OK. It should look like this if successful. Close the External Linking window and test it out.

When markets make people do wild things Warren Buffett once said, "It's not greed that drives the world, but envy." So when you hear how everyone is making money in Bitcoin or Blockchain stocks, your envy increases and with that your fear of missing out. Suddenly you're chasing wild stocks and throwing money around. FOMO is one of the most destructive things an investor can do to themselves. Here's Greg Rieben who shared a great blog post he wrote: "Right now we are seeing large gains in cannabis, blockchain and technology stocks as well as the cryptocurrencies. If you’ve participated in these trends that’s great but don’t forget that we are no longer in the first few innings of this ball game. Bull markets can make people feel a lot smarter than they actually are. As the amount of participants increase and the headlines take over, it seems like everyone is making "easy money". Trading during the dotcom bubble, the commodity and real estate boom and the financial crisis, shaped who I am as a trader. At some point in the near future greed will take over and cloud good judgement. It's only a matter of time before most of that "easy money" will be given back. This is why you need to control your inner FOMO." Full Article: 11. January 2018 Controlling Your Inner FOMO “I just wait until there is money lying in the corner and all I have to do is go over there and pick it up. I do nothing in the meantime.” - Jim Rogers I’ve read a lot of books on trading and investing. There's no shortage of famous sayings but the above quote resonates with me because patience has been the hardest thing for me to learn. If I would’ve taken this quote to heart and incorporated it into my trading psyche, I would have saved myself a lot of money and more importantly a ton of time. Early on my extreme lack of patience led to over trading. This was always my greatest vice. I'd take marginal setups to make sure I didn’t miss a breakout or a trend. For some reason I felt like I had to catch every move in the market. If I missed anything I would become extremely frustrated. I just couldn’t miss a move. No way. Talk about FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). I had FOMO before it was even coined. I digress. Back to the quote. What does it really mean? The quote will have a different meaning depending upon your trading time frame. For me (swing trader and position trader) this is what it means: Have patience. Wait and do very little to nothing until the best possible opportunities present themselves. You don’t have to trade every day, week or month. The good thing about not trading is you're not exposed to any risk. You won’t lose money. There will always be another opportunity right around the corner. Some of the best opportunities present themselves at market extremes. When everyone is running for the exit or when you’re getting trading tips from your Uber driver or your Dentist, a bottom or top is probably very near. Opportunities take time to develop. Don’t force a trade by pretending to see something that isn’t there. Wait until all your indicators line up and the risk vs. reward is at least 3 to 1. Markets can surprise you by going much higher or lower than most people think. Wait until the dust settles and don’t worry about trying to catch that first 10 to 15 percent of a move. You want to focus on capturing the “meat” of the trend. Searching for that next big move or that great opportunity is a lot of fun and can be very exciting and profitable. However, from my experience avoiding a string of bad losses from over trading or chasing a hot trend is just as important. Right now we are seeing large gains in cannabis, blockchain and technology stocks as well as the cryptocurrencies. If you’ve participated in these trends that’s great but don’t forget that we are no longer in the first few innings of this ball game. Bull markets can make people feel a lot smarter than they actually are. As the amount of participants increase and the headlines take over, it seems like everyone is making "easy money". Trading during the dotcom bubble, the commodity and real estate boom and the financial crisis, shaped who I am as a trader. At some point in the near future greed will take over and cloud good judgement. It's only a matter of time before most of that "easy money" will be given back. This is why you need to control your inner FOMO.

Here is my setup which I hope you find useful. My buttons consist of 4 for buy and 4 for sell: Notes: BUY: places a limit order with 1/4 buying power and attaches a stop loss at 99% of last price at time of order. Note, the method suggested by Andrew at the very top didn't work for me and I found out that you couldn't attach a stop loss order with qty = position and price= av.cost as at the time of running the command there is no position to start with. So what I did is send two separate orders with one command, both with 1/4 buying power, one buy limit and one stop market Breakeven: It first cancels any pending orders (i.e the existing stop that went with original order) and then places a stop order at average purchase price Sell Half: Assuming you would do this to cash some profit (i.e you are on the profit side), it cancels any pending order, sells half the position, and then places a stop market for half the position at original purchase price. Close: Sells all and cancels all pending orders Same but opposite positions for the Short commands BUY: ROUTE=LIMIT;Price=Ask+0.05;Share=BP*0.25 ;TIF=DAY+;HANDINST=ANY;SSHARE=0 ;BUY=Send;ROUTE=STOP;StopType=Market;StopPrice=last*0.99;Share=BP*0.25;TIF=DAY+;HANDINST=ANY;SELL=SEND BREAKEVEN: CXL ALLSYMB;ROUTE=STOP;StopType=Market;StopPrice=AvgCost;Share=Pos;TIF=DAY+;HANDINST=ANY;SELL=Send HALVE: CXL ALLSYMB;ROUTE=LIMIT;Price=Bid-0.05;Share=Pos*0.5 ;TIF=DAY+;HANDINST=ANY;SSHARE=0 ;SELL=Send;ROUTE=STOP;StopType=Market;StopPrice=AvgCost;Share=Pos*0.5;TIF=DAY+;HANDINST=ANY;SELL=SEND CLOSE: ROUTE=LIMIT;Price=Bid-0.05;Share=Pos ;TIF=DAY+;HANDINST=ANY;SSHARE=0 ;SELL=Send;CXL ALLSYMB SHORT: ROUTE=LIMIT;Price=Bid-0.05;Share=BP*0.25 ;TIF=DAY+;HANDINST=ANY;SSHARE=0 ;SELL=Send;ROUTE=STOP;StopType=Market;StopPrice=last*1.01;Share=BP*0.25;TIF=DAY+;HANDINST=ANY;BUY=SEND BREAKEVEN: CXL ALLSYMB;ROUTE=STOP;StopType=Market;StopPrice=AvgCost;Share=Pos;TIF=DAY+;HANDINST=ANY;BUY=Send HALVE: CXL ALLSYMB;ROUTE=LIMIT;Price=Ask+0.05;Share=Pos*0.5 ;TIF=DAY+;HANDINST=ANY;SSHARE=0 ;BUY=Send;ROUTE=STOP;StopType=Market;StopPrice=AvgCost;Share=Pos*0.5;TIF=DAY+;HANDINST=ANY;BUY=SEND CLOSE: ROUTE=LIMIT;Price=Ask+0.05;Share=Pos ;TIF=DAY+;HANDINST=ANY;SSHARE=0 ;BUY=Send;CXL ALLSYMB

Hello Andrew, I have been trading for about 16 months. The first 6 months was on a simulator and the last 10 months has been live. I have had my ups and downs and I probably have told myself 8-10 times I was going to quit trading, but I kept persevering through. I have learned many lessons as I have progressed and would like to share two key psychological lessons to beginner traders that might help. I feel it is a 3-4-year process to learn the intricacies of the market and overcome personal psychological challenges to be a consistent successful trader. The psychology of trading is so important. It’s very difficult to maintain a level head, not get overly emotional, set proper expectations and discipline yourself. I really wished someone would have saved me from major mistakes by drilling in my head these two very important psychological lessons at the beginning of my trading: 1. SET REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS: As a beginner you just cannot set an unrealistic daily profit goal. I personally set a $200-day goal for myself at the beginning on a $10,000 account is what I started with. Knowing what I know now, that was way too much to expect. I should have just set a $20 a day goal. That would have stopped me from losing $8,000 in my first 6 months. I cannot express enough how important this is for you to do as a beginner. I would have rather made $100 over 6 months than to lose $8,000. It’s almost enviable you will lose money in the beginning so if you set the right expectations you will limit your losses or allow yourself to be even minimally profitable which doesn’t feel like a win, but it really is. If someone would have told me you should be extremely happy with making $100 in 6 months trading I would have thought you are crazy, but I realize now how great that would have been. I was like most beginning traders, I looked for great mentors and good chat rooms like Andrews to help me. But it is easy to try to immolate what they do and have the same expectations to make $700 to $1500 a day like they do. But this is just not reasonable expectations as a beginner. When my expectations were too high it forced me to do too much share size or made me push the trades too far and not take profit and let go red or break even. My winning trades started to become losing trades because a $50 win on a 300-share size trade was not enough, I wanted $100 or $150 win and that just was not reasonable. I saw my mentors or others making $700 on a trade so I thought I should be doing that, but it just did not get it in my head it was all relative. My mentors were using 5000 share size trades, capturing profit in the small moves. They were able to anticipate trades faster than me so when I was buying they are about to sell and I was holding my positions too long looking for bigger moves but that didn’t work. So, I told myself ok the problem is I am not trading big enough sizes. So, I increased my sizes to 1000-1500 shares. Guess what happened, I traded scared, could not make smart decisions, stopped out of trades too soon, made more mistakes because it just was not a comfortable size for me, so I started losing even more money. As a beginner I was unable to anticipate trades, I waited for more confirmation which is a smart way to trade, but I had to understand I was minimizing or shrinking my profit zone. I was not taking the relative profit for my share size in the profit zone that I should have been taking. I thought I was failing taking $50 profit on 300 share size trade when Andrew would make $500 on same trade so I felt I was losing but in reality, I was winning the same as Andrew. He traded 4000 shares compared to my 300 shares, it was all relative. It took me a long time to realize my expectations were wrong as a beginning trader. I could not set my expectations based on my personal needs or goals. I had to set them based on my experience level, knowledge and account size (comfortability of money I was trading). I had to learn to be patient, grow with experience, grow with proper expectations, which my expectations would align with my share sizes. As a beginner start small, start with realistic expectations and be ecstatic with $20 net profit after commissions wins! 2. Be Disciplined Trader: Once your expectations are reasonable and in-line with reality of your trading knowledge, then you must adhere to a great amount of discipline which was the second hardest thing for me to do. It is easy to write down a daily goal of $20 but it is not as easy to be ok with only profiting $20 for a day’s work in the market. It was incredibly challenging thing to stay disciplined on my share sizes, stay disciplined on my expectations and stay disciplined on only trading my top strategies. I would have an $150 profit day and then tell myself yes, I can do this, I can do $150 every day. And guess what, the next day I would lose $300 because I tried to increase my share size or push my trades too far. Then the day after that I would want to make up for the $300 losing day, push even harder and lose another $200. There is also the fear as a beginner of missing out or not maximizing your winners (buying the bottom and selling the top). In the beginning I would get very disappointed missing a trade or selling too soon. This anxiety would cause me to lose my discipline. I would take bad setup trades. I would not sell when I should be, trying to sell at the top. As a beginner this is a must to be disciplined with. You will very rarely hit the bottom and top. Don’t bet your self up on these things especially as a beginner. And always remember if you miss a trade, there will be another one right around the corner. There is always another trade for money to be made. You must learn how to discipline yourself and sticking to your realistic daily expectation regardless what happens the day before or the day before that. Every day you start with the same $20 or whatever reasonable expectation you have each day. Write down and post it on your screen or put a $20 bill next to your screen to remind you every day. Ask yourself every day would you rather lose money today or make even just $20 today? Because at the end of the day, you will either lose your money or your discipline will create the results of being a consistent profitable trader. It will be one or the other, please chose discipline! The market is extremely fickle and unkind. It will eat you alive in seconds. There are no excuses or manipulating the market, it has no emotion or feelings. You must be extremely quick and decisive decision maker. One tiny mistake, one misstep in your discipline and you will lose money every time. Be patient. Be realistic with your expectations. Trade proper share sizes that align with your expectations. Plan your trade and trade your plan based on your expectations. Trade only your best strategies. Be extremely disciplined with all above. You will be a consistently successful trader!