Leaderboard

We're having a Meetup with Andrew in Zurich on March 12th, 2023, 4:00 PM and you're invited! Venue: Aden Hotel Whether you're a pro or just starting out, this is a great opportunity to connect with other traders, learn from each other, and have some fun. So mark your calendars and stay tuned for updates!

Hey Everyone, as you know Andrew is traveling, if anyone is interested in meeting up him on Dubai, November 26 for some drinks and talk trading? Date: Nov. 26 2022 Time: 6:00 - 08:00 PM Venue: Koko Bay. West beach Palm - Jumeirah - Dubai - United Arab Emirates Please confirm in this thread!

Yes I use leverage but my rules are around trade size rather than using a certain amount of leverage. For example (not my real numbers), if I want my stop size on TSLA to be 50c and I want to risk $100 on my trade then I want 200 shares, regardless of whether that means I'm using no leverage or all my leverage that's the trade I want to take. Of course with margin you can get yourself in serious issues if you don't trade properly and abide by your stops but that's for each individual to assess their own risk of not doing that (and if you can't then trading is probably not the right career).

These are common limiting beliefs which we all have. Afraid of being wrong - usually translates in life in aiming for perfectionism, seeing mistakes as a failure instead of an opportunity to learn from them, seeking external validation that you are good enough in this case from the market and your trading. There are many others, but these are one of most common. Fear of failing and doubt in your knowledge translate in low self-confidence, lack of belief in your strategy, attaching your self-worth to your trading results. What is your automatic response in the market to these beliefs - it can range from hesitation to take a trade to impulsiveness, revenge trading, overtrading etc. One way is to write down your thoughts and feelings before and during each trade. If you didn't follow your rules or made a mistake or had a losing/missed trade before what is the action, you took in the market. For example, I felt frustrated because I took a loss on my first trade today. Next, I entered without waiting for a confirmation. I regretted and felt anxious not to take another loss. I moved my SL quickly and I was wicked from a profitable trade. Over a month or two, you will start seeing patterns and will know your triggers and how you subconsciously respond to them. This exercise brings you awareness, without awareness you can't change anything. Once you know your triggers and automatic responses you can create a plan when this happens what you are going to do. For example, you find that you jump on the next trade quickly after a losing trade. This shows you; you are not able to reset yourself quickly to neutral after a losing trade. So, you may implement a 10 min break before the next trade after a losing trade. Along with the above you must forget about the money and winning or losing trades/days. Your main focus must be following the strategy criteria and rules. The easiest way is to have a strategy with very strict rules including entries and exits. You focus on executing it flawlessly instead of winning or not and how much money you make it. When you execute a trade according to all rules and doesn't work, this doesn't make you feel as a failure because you have done all right and you know market is random and not all strategies work 100% of the time. Setting a daily goal is another tool. by that I mean not a goal of having a green day or 2R goal. These are outcome goals, and they bring only stress, and you can't control the outcome of these goals. You daily goal can be taking max 3 trades per day or taking only A+ set ups, or even as in the example above taking a 10 min break after a losing trade. You track your progress on the goal. It is better to have 1 or 2 max goals per day and work on them until you become consistent. You must be able to control the outcome of the goal. These are called process goals, they can be psychological, habit goals, trading goals. Start small and aim for a small improvement every day. by tracking your process goals, you start seeing progress and your self-confidence and self-belief start growing.

Howdy @cjames05, @DollarBill @Austin D Let's do a zoom, yall want to do a first Google Meet (I've got an account so no timelimit). DollarBill I think is saying is out until Jan 5th. How's Jan 6th Fri evening? Or Sat Jan 7th AM? Hit me up via email at [email protected] as you get this and I'll start a group email if ok? I am not always in forum. Thanks Michael (Thornton, CO)

Ever wanted to swap line styles on the fly and make a rainbow on your chart? You can do that in 5.5.0.0+. The hotkey isn't the easiest to understand, so I very quickly made a web utility for you (link below). How to Use: Go to URL: http://kaelmedia.com/projects/das-line-config/ Select a Line Type, default is HorzLine Select a Line Style, default is SolidLine Select a Color, default is Barney Select a Width, default is 1 Hit "Generate" Glance at the preview window and see if it is what you wanted. If it is, hit the "Copy" button and it'll be placed in your computers Clipboard. If you wish to share you creation, press the "Share" button and a special link will be placed on your clipboard to post in the forums. Example: http://kaelmedia.com/projects/das-line-config/?hotkey=ConfigTrendLine horzline dotline:035aab:1; Paste the copied hotkey (looks like: ConfigTrendLine horzline dotline:035aab:1; ) into your DAS Hotkey Configuration. Optionally, bookmark or save the line so you can edit it in the future (it adds the settings to the browsers URI/URL). How the Hotkey Works: The hotkey as designed will swap the DEFAULT config for the Line Type chosen, each type has one default stored for the user. So if trigger a hotkey with a horizontal line with a blue color, your very next (and all following lines) horizontal line you trigger on the chart will be that configuration (blue). Because of this, I have a "default line" hotkey and a series of colored hotkeys, this allows me to toggle back and fourth. Advanced Uses: Go HERE.

Trailing stops are a great tool for a trend trade when the price is moving slowly but inexorably in one direction for a longish period of time. A trailing stop acts as a moving stop loss to protect your profits while also allowing you to secure near the maximum profits of the trend when it reverses. I started using them in SIM today because I recognized that I tend to jump out of trends too early, leaving profits on the table. You can create a trailing stop on both the long and short side in the same way: 1. In your montage, set the order type to STOP 2. In the "Stop Type" drop down, select "Trailing" 3. Just below the "Stop Type" drop-down, the third field over from the left is labeled "Trailer Price", set the value to the amount you want the stop to move behind the price. 4a. If you're setting a stop for a long position, click "SELL" - You should now see an order sitting in your order window 4b. If you're setting a stop for a short position, click "BUY" - You should now see an order sitting in your order window A trailing stop always stays a set value below the current price, so for example, if the price is 4.20 and you set a Trailer Price of .20 on a long position your stop loss will be at 4.00. If the price goes up the trailing stop price moves with it, but only in one direction. So for example, if the 4.20 stock moved up to 4.30, the trailing stop would would move to 4.10. If the price subsequently moved down to 4.15, your trailing stop price will stay at 4.10. The trailing stop price will always be set based on the current price, so be careful to look at the current price and movement on the 1 minute chart, the stop will trigger the moment the price tics back to the stop price. For example, if you see the 1 minute candles varying about 10 cents per minute on the trend, a .05 trailer price will probably trigger too early. Make sure you're setting your trailer price to a value that protects your profits without prematurely closing your position when the trend would likely continue. I will update this thread with real chart examples. I also have a hotkey but I want to test it in SIM Monday before I post it here. Edit: How to create a hotkey to set a trailing stop.

Hello everyone, I joined BBT on January 1st of this year and it has definitely been an amazing decision! Prior to joining, I was subscribing to the YouTube channel and pre-market prepping with BBT on my Trading days (Thursday Mornings and Fridays) for about a good 6 months prior to pulling the trigger and joining BBT. October of 2019 marks the start of my learning journey. I have been on a mission for a few years now trying to find my way into entrepreneurship. I picked up some random books at the library after hitting some brick walls in my endeavor for some time. (The primary struggle being risk aversion due to my low income.) I had zero experience with the stock market and trading, but I keep a very open mind and decided to start reading a book on Trading Options. I was immediately enamored with this book and the newfound world of trading. The biggest draw being that one can learn without risking much or any capital. That concept was mind-blowing to me. I was in another trading group prior to this one and did not have a positive experience socially. I was essentially ignored or bullied for being a female. There was no in-between experience in which I felt like an actual member. Unfortunately, it is a common experience for other females in this field. In general, I have done a lot of work on myself to overcome social anxiety/low self-esteem issues so as you can imagine, the way I was treated was very damaging. I am very much a fly-on-the-wall here but am looking to change that. I know that it is essential to my success that I start socializing with like-minded individuals. I don't anticipate being bullied here but the hesitation to participate is still there. Thus far, learning to trade has helped me grow as a person. I have learned to put myself out there and take risks. In my previous group I learned to trade bear and bull triple leveraged ETF's for Natural Gas and caught on quite well, only trading the bearish ETF successfully (against the bullish trend). I was impressed, especially considering the fact I had zero structure or actual defined strategy in place. Those ETF's no longer exist, which is a blessing, because that has lead me to BBT and the concepts of finding stocks in play, structure, and probability amongst other critical things. I am currently testing my second strategy and hoping that this is it. The time and data will tell me the answer. I went into Trading with the idea that it could take me a couple of years to learn. I'm coming up on that 2 year mark, and loving and respecting the process of learning to become consistently profitable. Although I haven't found my strategy yet, I feel confident that I will. One idea I wanted to share that seems to be extremely helpful for me is recording my trading sessions. Once I started doing that a few months back, I feel that I am learning what works and what doesn't far better and faster. It is one thing to journal and look back at your trades with a snapshot and your afterthoughts but completely far more enlightening to essentially relive it as an observer. Although, I am only trading 2 days/week or less, I feel that reviewing my trading sessions via recording is really my game-changer. It truly has taught me that it isn't necessarily about the quantity of trades I am able to make, but the quality of my journaling and lessons from the experiences I've had.

Hi Zack This is a B/E stop market order: ALLSYMB;Route=Stop;Price=AvgCost;StopType=MARKET;STOPPRICE=AvgCost;StopPrice=Round2;Share=Pos;TIF=DAY+;Send=Reverse;ROUTE=SMRTL I guess you just need o change StopType to LIMIT ALLSYMB;Route=Stop;Price=AvgCost;StopType=MARKET;LIMIT=AvgCost;StopPrice=Round2;Share=Pos;TIF=DAY+;Send=Reverse;ROUTE=SMRTL Not sure if you can use Price=AvgCost+.05 maybe you can test this in the sim and let us know if it worked for you.

Hi All, I created this topic so that Trader's can share their real time experience/journey in the world of Live Trading or with Bear Bull Traders. I find myself fortunate to be able to share my story as well as my 2 cents on the learning I have had from the mistakes till date. To start with, a brief about myself : My name is Paras Jandwani, 29 yr old, basically from India but have been settled in Washington DC, USA for the past 5 years. I have been working with a Tech company named Accenture (Yep, not a full time Trader yet) as a Solutions Business Consultant for the past 9 years. From a very young age itself I was interested in Stock Market, following tickers and watching business programs etc. However, for some reason may be social pressure could never make a career in finance (no regrets though). Anyways long story short I opened multiple trading/Investing accounts back in India and invested money based on the FURU alerts or speculation. I eventually blew up my account 2 times leading me to take a break from Trading. Trading Journey with Bear Bull Traders (then "Vancouver Traders") It is always said that you can suppress your passion but can never wipe it out from your life. Since I had already moved to USA, the passion of making a living out of the stock market led me to look for options available to me to learn and explore the US Market. It was around August 2017 when I found your book on amazon with the title "How to day trade for living" which I thought exactly met my need. I immediately bought it and was impressed with the simple concise way the book was written and detailed about everything that needs to be performed step-by-step to become a Stock Trader. Currently, with the huge amount of options, with data available on google, the beginner's struggle a lot with what needs to be performed and are really confused if anything offered to them is genuine or not. The book written by you clarifies all of these confusion and give a very clear head start for beginner's trading career. After I read the book, I immediately joined the Bear Bull Traders (then Vancouver Traders) community in September 2017 and followed almost every small suggestions/guidance provided by you in the chatroom. I traded in SIM for 4 months and went live in Feb 2018. It's been almost 9 months live (every trading day from 8:30 am to 12 pm EST) and looking at the past where I was down with more than $ 6k in losses around the mid of June 2018 and gradually coming back to break even in Aug 2018 and currently sitting at a net profit of $ 3.5k.The figures might not seem big as I have always been a very risk averse Trader and when I started I used to trade with a volume of 20-50 shares for high priced stocks such as TSLA and 100-200 shares for mid-float stocks (I never traded low-float stocks, till date). Currently, I easily trade 500 - 750 shares/trade for mid-float and 200-300 shares/trade for high priced stock. I think every trader has to pass through a learning curve and should respect the process. I have made my own mistakes and learnt from it. I am still learning every day and happy to be able to lead my passion. Hope to be successful one day and trade full-time. Below are some of the items that I learnt during the process : 1. You just need to master 1-2 strategies to be able make consistent money. (I tried multiple different strategies (not just from the book) to create an edge and ended up with being more confused) 2. Volume sizing should be a privilege and should be increased gradually in 10-20% every time when you are confident enough.(At the time, when I started making consistent profits with small volume of 100-200 shares I immediately started trading with 500-600 shares at a time which led to a lot emotions taking over leading to consistent losses) 3. Say NO to Averaging Down ( This type of trading saves you almost 90% of the time but would wipe out months of profit in a single day when it doesn't work. Been there and learnt it the hard way) 4. Higher number of tickets DO NOT guarantee higher profits. (I have a rule to Stop trading once I achieve my profit target or my max loss or 30 tickets/day. Number of tickets/day have saved me rule has been a very important for me to take selective trades. I remember my reckless/revenge trading having 223 tickets on one of the trading days which cost me hundred's of dollars in losses.) 5. Rules are meant NOT to be broken. (Almost every single time I broke my rules I paid the price for it) 6. Being patient with the winners and impatient with the losers. ( Almost every single trader faces that. I was very impatient with the winners and patient with losers which made my losses bigger then my profits) 7. Setting the stop loss right to either an indicator/support/resistance level (Had a very bad habit of setting the stop loss at the level based on the loss I was willing to take) 8. Importance of Journaling. (I use a software named Edgewonk for Journaling. My past chunk of trades gave me the indication that my win rate between 9:30 and 10 am is 76%, between 10 and 10:30 is mere 24% and 10:30 to 11: 30 is 64%.This was an eye opener for me. I almost immediately stopped trading between the time where my win rate was the lowest. This really helped me in maximizing my profits) All the above mentioned experience wouldn't have been possible without a person who is a guide and a mentor, none other than Andrew!. I hope to continue learning from him and find myself fortunate to be a part of an amazing trading community.

Hi All, my name is Carlos M. I am 32 and live in Northern Jersey, few minutes from the NYC. After 12 years of working as a Senior Operations Manager, I was laid off this past December. My company purchased GE Appliances and moved to their headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky. I thought I would be more upset about the layoff but I had 12 amazing years, and I was ready to move on and try something new. The company gave us almost a year and a half notice, that was more than enough time to prepare. (Plus a nice $$$ for years of service and sticking around until the end :) ) As my work started to transition to the new company, I found myself having a lot of free time during the day. I always had an interest in trading stocks and this was the perfect time to start practicing and getting ready. I did another online course and trading that did not work out (that’s a story for another time), and then I found Andrew’s Book and Chatroom community. Signed up for the Platinum package, I did the simulator for about 4 months and when live this month (January 2018). Looking forward to possibly meeting up in the near future with others traders and continuing being part of this amazing trading community. Carlos M.

Not all cheap stocks and it depends how you play them (are they in play). Just saying it's not as easy as playing any stock in that range the way that you see the mods play TSLA, AMD etc every day even when they're not necessarily in play (they're often moving with the market), stocks in the $20-$50 range you just need them to have a catalyst to generate the liquidity on a lot them, if you're a catalyst find the trend type trader then you can follow those stocks around with catalysts and you'll likely be fine (there's just not as many around as there was in the past few years). Through Covid for example those types of stocks were played a lot because the travel sector was often in play every time there was a drop off or spike in numbers or some new variants was found or some vaccine news or whatever, however at the moment the catalysts tend to be more around economic data so the market as a whole moves and so we're more playing those big market names at the moment because that's where the liquidity is.

I am one of the traders Angela mentioned who tends to trade AMD, AAPL, TSLA etc every day. For me they are more predictable because of the higher liquidity and the types of institutions required to move them run on algos and those algos have certain behavior that you see over and over again. I will trade stocks "in play" as well because you can get big directional moves based on news, this is also fairly predictable as they are trading large RVOL because longer term participants are involved, in this scenario I can see within the T&S/L2 when things are beginning to change. The exception is the float of the stock rather than the price for most traders as once you get to a certain size in your trading smaller floats can be difficult to trade, there are some stocks which is too easy to turn the price. You basically need to be able to get in and out easily without slipping too much on the spread and you need sufficient liquidity that anybody can't just dump it 50c with a $50k account (there are a number of $20-$50 stocks where you can do that on a daily basis if it doesn't have huge RVOL on news). Companies like the big US airlines (AAL, DAL) for example have a big float so that doesn't tend to happen even though they're a cheaper stock price. That said I can still find a $3+ move way easier on TSLA than I can $0.5+ move on a $50 stock (unless it's got a great catalyst), for instance on Friday TSLA was an obvious false breakdown just before 10:30, not saying you would catch the whole thing but if you did it was a $9+ move, this is the ATR at work, a $1 move in that type of price stock and a $50 price stock are very different. To quote you, the things you may be missing are therefore, ok you can make $50-$100 or whatever on the stock but what is your end goal and is it still feasible on the stocks you're trading, if I use Andrew as an example, he just can't trade a lot of stocks with his size, he would get too much slippage on his stops because there isn't enough liquidity for him. Also you say risk management will stop the greater risk of loss but is the liquidity there on your stock to be able to get out with the risk you want? it may be fine when you're trading 100 shares but if you want to get to 1k shares or 5k shares then it's not the same thing. Not everyone wants to get there or maybe it's not an issue on the stocks you're actually trading but that combined with the predictability for me are the reason I choose higher priced stocks. If you listen to the morning show with Carlos, he says "no volume" to half the stocks he gets suggested and this is basically what he means, he doesn't think it'll move predictably/that a relatively small amount of money can move the stock. He'll also says look at that spread (or something along those lines), basically he's saying you'll be down big when you get in because you've jumped across the spread and then your risk management may not work very well in being able to get out because there's just not enough liquidity on the order book, this is the reasons a lot of us trade big stocks most days (particularly at the moment where most news is market wide news rather than company specific news)

You WILL be wrong....often... Being "right" all the time is NOT the goal. The goal is to understand that with a reliable strategy, the statistics/math favor you as a trader OVER TIME (REPITITIONS). In the world of trading you're either the gambler, or the casino. Your goal should be to identify/leverage a statistically predictable strategy/scenario (ie: "technicals"), then use said strategy to do the same thing over, and over, and over, and over again... If you flip a coin, for example, you have a 50/50 chance of hitting heads, versus tails.... on any given flip.. If you demand $1 for every time you're right, and are willing to pay $1 for every time you're wrong -- statistically, you'll end up break even. If, however, you demand $2 for every time you're right, and are willing to pay $1 every time you're wrong -- statistically, you'll end up profitable... Example with 10 flips: flip 1: you lose $1 flip 2: you lose $1 flip 3: you lose $1 flip 4: you lose $1 flip 5: you lose $1 flip 6: you win $2 flip 7: you win $2 flip 8: you win $2 flip 9: you win $2 flip 10: you win $2 In this example, you were right 50% of the time (as statistically expected). Yet you walk away profitable: 5 flips of Losses = $5 5 flips of Gains = $10 -- --- -- --- - Equation: $10-$5 = $5 (in profits). - -- -- -- --- - -- You were "right" 50% of the time, yet you still made money... THIS IS WHAT TRADING "TECHNICALS" IS ALL ABOUT. Your goal is to identify a pattern/indicator/set of variables that is statistically predictable, THEN -- apply a reward/risk scenario to said situation, and leverage math/statistics to your advantage. In essence, you're making yourself the CASINO, not the GAMBLER... In the aforementioned example (the flipping a coin example), anything greater than a 1:1 ratio is a "good" reward/risk scenario (because the odds of you "winning" vs "losing" is 50/50. I used a 2:1 scenario for simplicity. I used to have a pretty big YouTube channel discussing concepts such as this. I don't like "social media," however, so it's always been hit & miss (with my content). I do have a few videos that are still up on Youtube (the newest channel). You're welcomed to peruse a few of them, and ask any questions desired. Here is a link to a more popular video: In any case... Just maintain focus. Andrew and his crew are VERY GOOD traders. My journey essentially began here (years ago), and I will forever be grateful for the leadership & mentoring Andrew provided. Keep your head in the game...accept the FACT that you will go through ups & downs...and with the right amount of perseverance, dedication, and DISCIPLINE -- you'll come out ahead in the end... GL; STAY GREEN!

I wouldn't consider this set up for a parabolic reversal. There is a range and one 5 min candle after breaking. I am not saying it will not reverse but this is not a parabolic move. It has to be extended on 5 min, clear parabolic move, many consecutive candles in a row with no pullback. 5 min candles must be bigger than average, small 5 min candles don't count. Level on a higher TF and fake breakout on 5 min. Your entry is from 1 min, but you need at least 1- and 5-min TF alignment. Later on, a day I look at 15 min TF and play parabolic reversals on 15 min. The best way to avoid double fakes is to enter early when is still extended on 1 min and if comes back exit at BE. You need to see the momentum and must read the price action inside the 5 min candle (1 5-min candle consists of 5 1-min candles) minute by minute to be able to anticipate that the 5 min candle at the low will close as a green candle for a long for example. Win rate on Parabolic reversals is low. You will have many losing trades because you try to reverse a strong move. It comes down to be quick to exit at BE or less than 1R loss and hold the winners to target. You also need to have very tight SL to be able to cover the losses and have high R:R. Parabolic reversals are tricky because the strategy is based on excellent read of the price action minute by minute around the level of interest. My trade book on them is 12 pages so far and I continue to add different scenarios and new rules. It needs patience to wait for a perfect entry. Look at the chart I attached, you have many consecutive red candles with no pullback on 5 min, extended on 5 min, level on daily, extended on 1 min, tweezers on 1 min, hammer on 5 min and fake BO on 5 and 15 min, increasing volume at the low.

Hi, most people here use DAS, including Carlos (I used to but don't anymore). If I was choosing one or the other then I'd choose DAS but Bookmap complicated matters for me. It depends what kind of trading you're doing, if you're a scalper like Andrew then DAS is better. The executions are better so those split seconds count as you're entering at the point of the market where you often expect it to go immediately. This is what DAS is going for, quick executions. IMO the executions in TWS are fine if you're looking for more point to point moves but aren't as quick as DAS. In terms of charting TWS is missing some features that DAS has that people here use such as highlighting bigger orders on Level 2. However, this isn't a strength of DAS either vs other providers (as I mentioned their focus is execution speed) for example things like volume profile is incorrect in DAS because they use a less data intensive method for the benefit of speed rather than do it accurately (I asked them to do it properly but they refused and said they don't intend to fix it). Therefore depending on what you're using you may be fine or you may have issues with charting (with both) which is obviously a difficult question to answer for a newer trader. DAS has replay which is also helpful for a new trader but BBT now has a free replay on trading terminal so it's not as big an issue now vs when I started. DAS hotkeys are more customizable, things like fixed risk hotkeys are missing in TWS. So DAS has the edge throughout but the reason I went to TWS from DAS is Bookmap, imo it helps tremendously read Time & Sales and Level 2 and my decisions as a result are much quicker (far outweighing the benefit of DAS execution speed for me, also should point out DAS was around 200-250ms delay for me vs I think 50-100ms for some NA traders because I'm based in Australia), many members here use bookmap. It's lacking education content in BBT at the moment (but I believe is coming) because Thor is the only mod who uses it and has just started. I'm using bookmap to chart in the shorter timeframe and make decisions. DAS therefore became a $200 a month (stocks and futures) platform just for execution and I don't see the value for the type of trading I do (not scalping). I only use TWS for a little bit of charting and execution really, I won't necessarily continue executing in TWS as it doesn't give me everything I want but doubt it would be DAS either. As I said most people here use DAS so I will say my opinion isn't the consensus opinion.

If you asked me to write a trading Bot ATR is where I'd start. However, personally no, it's easy enough with experience IMO. It's not an exact science, some will work extended some won't there's not an exact cutoff line. It's where it tips into bad risk:reward trading is the key which is of course determined by where you think it can get to and the space you have to give for risk. Order flow and reading the tape experience will keep you out of more bad trades at that time that trying to draw an exact line of extended or not extended.

Kyle is the expert on hotkeys, try posting in this thread as more people will be following it so higher chance of getting someone who can help you

Hi, Nice! only really headed out that way when going to Wilson's Prom a few times, I live on Ocean Road side of Melbourne so tend to head out that side more. Yeah people say that to mean people start and look at Andrew and he'll trade for 10 minutes and be up $5k and say he's done trading for the day, everyone loves the idea but most can't trade like Andrew. I started with BBT in July 2020 I think, short version of my story is I work in Finance and had an interest in markets. Swing traded a bunch of stuff at the bottom in 2020 when things were stupidly cheap and made a decent amount (like a years salary), no real strategy just knew people were panicking like previous crisis's and things were crazy cheap. Decided to use that money to give trading a shot because I got tired of climbing the corporate ladder and the politics of it, worst case I decided I'll come out breakeven on money from the market, put a little over PDT ($25k) in the account and started directly with IB. Heard all stories of blown up accounts so I kept a lot back and was only ever going to let it get down to the $25k so I was able to top up my account a number of times if I needed to. Traded too big at the start but then really scaled back to $20 risk per trade to make sure the amount I set aside would last and give me the time I needed. A lot of time in replay and a couple of failed tradebook attempts later I have my style that I like and works for me, I still tweak it here and there to nail it down for the success % + Risk : Reward I want then I'll move onto maintaining that while scaling up. Yeah no problem, just reach out if you have questions. I'm on here everyday working on trading.

Hello BBT crew, I'm heading into my second year of trading and am reading Thor's amazing book now. Miah. I imported the think script you made for Thor's pivot points. Thanks so much for creating that! Do I have to do anything else to utilize the data? When I imported the script the candles got very small. Is that to be expected? I'm so grateful to be part of the BBT community and I learn so much from our chatroom. Thanks again folks, Tony M

Hi! I'd love to join the book club for Thor's book. Thanks! Camille (Domina Negotiatione)

Just got Thor's book (paperback). Is it too late to be part of the book study? Thank you.

I am new to BBT. I am going through the education centre and currently on the 3 section. Is it nessecary to have DAS trader Pro at this time even tho I havent even started into the simulator? Thanks, Trevor

Thank you, that was helpful I did not understand the fixed risk on the videos, if risk is $50 we should be able to chose the stop range (10c, 20c, 50c...) but on Kyle's excel sheet I could not find where to configure it but this was helpful, I think I will use this without the TP at 20%

Thanks a lot Abiel

Here https://bearbulltraders.com/trading-to-the-power-of-r/

Fellow Bear Bull Traders, I would like to share with you the Equity Simulator. Another possible name for it could be Expectations Manager. What the tool does: The tool calculates the likely Equity curve and distribution of daily R given the probability of R outcomes in every trade. It also compares the Equity curve when using a Fixed amount R vs using R as a % of Equity. Motivation: As part of my Trading plan, I've set rules for increasing and decreasing position size based on my trading results, as well as moving from Live to Sim and vice versa. But I was feeling that these rules were quite arbitrary - I was wondering how many Red/Green days a week/month I should reasonably expect in the long run, and what kind of profitability I would actually need to meet my goals. Learning how to execute each trade properly is paramount but I felt this would add some perspective and peace ("do I really have to have red days, given my win rate?":) Alternatives: EdgeWonk analyzes individual trades and seeks for potential improvement in entries, exits, and trade management in general. (thanks @KyleK29 for the suggestion) In contrast, this Simulator can't be used for tweaking individual strategies - it focuses more on the bigger picture and your average trading results. It could be however used to compare your results using two styles of trade management - e.g. Style 1 : 60% chance of -1R, 40% chance of 2R vs Style 2: 80% chance of -1R, 20% chance of 4R Further comments can be found in individual cells and on the second sheet. Please let me know any suggestions or questions. Link to the Excel file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SUEfrZskJOWpwASR7sUvB2LnOrkxgF2d/view?usp=sharing Have a nice day and don't forget to hold the line! JanJ

Hi Adam, I am interested in joining the book study. Thanks

He is just now in Europe. Would be nice if he made a Meet up here.

Looking forward to the trip and meeting all of you!

Hi AdamzTradez Great initiative and would love to be a part of! TC

Hi AdamzTradez - I'd like to participate in the study group.

+1

Interested

Sounds good!

I'm interested in the Group study

Hi All, I am new to trading and looking for a Buddy/Mentor. Please let me know if anyone is willing to help. Regards, Deepak [email protected]

Hi, Everyone, my name is Bob Pike and I'm in Barrie, ON. After 28 years with the military and 5 years with Shared Services Canada I've decided on trading as a third career. I plan to retire from SSC in two years as my pension will be at max after 35 years. This sounds great, unless you have an ex that walked away with half your pension and every penny you had, sigh. I started with some Motley Fool subscriptions and became fascinated with Coupang. I opened an account with Questrade and started swing trading Coupang, riding the bumps for 10 cents or more per share, eventually trading 1,000 shares at a time. Recently the January correction trapped me with 1390 shares at $22.63 and it's trading around $19 right now so I'm stuck for a few weeks. Once stuck, I bought Andrew's book "How to Day Trade for a Living" and realized that I have no idea what I'm doing, LOL. I want to start over and do everything you folks are doing, use the same brokers, software, methodology. I like to help people so hopefully I can learn enough to be of service to others. I have a lot of family and ties to BC so it's nice to belong to a group headquartered there. I have a new monitor coming on Monday so I'm really excited: 4K HDR display with Ambiglow 558M1RY/27 | Philips . I want to see if one giant monitor will be as good for trading as a bunch of little ones. I've read that you can go either way. I'm doing data center networking from home now due to the pandemic so spend all day in front of screens, I just accidentally broke my ASUS 49" curved monitor that I loved. Thanks for having me, I hope to learn quickly and help others if I can. -Bob Pike

TastyTrade is legit and Tastyworks is also amazing. They make the whole option process so simple. With theta being a factor in spreads, it really makes swing trading much more controllable. As for the OP, I'm assuming they are talking about Long OTM Call options. If you for some reason come across a stock that is slowly trending down, and for some reason you know that it is about to have a major bounce, then you can get OTM call options for extremely dirt cheap. Make sure that the expiration date is 56 days out or more otherwise you may not see an increase in the price of the OTM Call option even if there is a major bounce. Also make sure it is 56 days out or more because the theta really starts to work against you any sooner than that, so there is significantly less love in being wrong on the timing of the bounce. It is a good idea to have a delta of .15 or higher because of the aforementioned lack of responsiveness to price movement if it is too unlikely to hit the strike price. IMO it is probably better to get an OTM call option that has a very good chance of being in the money at the top of whatever bounce you are expecting, so that you can hold onto it if the trade continues to work. If you don't do that then the theta and implied volatility will swiftly chop your profit and your head off in the middle of the trade. Also trade management for Long OTM options (with a relatively close expiration): profit NOW is way better than profit later. Unless you are in the money: then profit now is still better than profit later. If you think you'll make an extra 15% if you hold on, just get out. If you think you'll make an extra 100% if you hold on, then consider holding it very strongly, and then sell half. Also anyone that says you can't make money consistently from long call options (including Tom Sosnoff) is almost always talking about at expiration. Duh. It is true that it is difficult to make money with OTM call options because there are lots of factors and you need to be right basically immediately. However, not for one second, does that mean you can't do it consistently. It just means you have to do it with these things in mind. I'm not an expert, but I did make 25k in two weeks from 3k with OTM options once. LOL.

Hey everyone, Below is the video on how to use the DAS Replay feature. Currently this feature is available on the BBT Simulation Version 5.4.6.0. Which can be downloaded at https://www.dastrader.com/download/fixes/DEMO.5.4.6.0.exe (When the feature is ready for production it will be release to other platform versions like IB, Centerpoint and CMEG.) Thank you

You are correct it is complicated. Remember my first reason in doing this was to learn how to write scripts and see the difference between TriggerOrders and Order scripts. Second I get you can eyeball it, I want a finite system used to enter and exit my trades. Then when I run statistics against it I know it is my subjective "add to" and "entries" I am learning from. It is your business, by that I mean your personal or your trading business that you choose to eyeball. Das Trader is a very powerful tool. However unlike Excel where you can take an adult education class for I haven't found a training course for Das Trader Pro. I'm just trying to learn all that can be done with this tool. I thought I'd share some of that process and see who on this forum would jump in and explain some of how it works. To be honest I thought there would be more people comment and explain more when I started this, but it is what it is. Das Support was very helpful and emailed in a very timely fashion to help with this.

@NikkiB I dabbled in day trading in 2019, then in February of 2020 I traded every day, but most of the days I just traded the first 45 minutes. So I had a solid 7 1/2 months before the BootCamp. But I can’t even consider the first 3-4 months in my “live” account as trading. I didn’t have an edge. So I guess I was still pretty green entering the BootCamp. The advice I would give anyone entering the next BootCamp. Leverage your coach/team leader, communicate with them on developing your rules, and TradeBook. And do it early in the BootCamp. Also have Ardi change your daily max loss to 3-4 times your risk per trade. I asked a few times at the beginning to lower my daily max loss, but was told we weren’t allowed. Then in the end another trader told me Ardi did change his daily max for him. Don’t focus on the number you need to reach, it puts added pressure on you to be profitable. Just trade well and it will show in your equity curve. Treat your TradeBook and daily review and journal like a science project. They are supposed to focus more on the mentoring this second time, so take advantage of it. Another thing I struggled with was journaling in Chartlog. I tried to just add that to my normal journaling routine. That was way too much. I was basically trying to journal in 3 different programs, I used OneNote and TraderVue before the BootCamp. so adding the third journaling aspect made me rush through my journaling to get stuff entered, I didn’t really “absorb” my daily performance like I usually do with my normal routine. I would suggest just focusing on using chartlog for your review and journal. I believe if I had dropped the other stuff and just used Chartlog, it would have saved me some time and relieved some stress. Start writing down your edge/TradeBook now, get a head start on the BootCamp Process. Feel free to ask any other questions, I’d be happy to give you my thoughts.

i have observed similar issue stated above . Could it be related to the dasTraderPro IB version ?

Hi all, So I was going through some old messages that I've received over the years, and I stumbled upon a question (and my subsequent answer to) from a fellow trader who asked If I wouldn't mind sharing the strategies I used while growing my CMEG account -- twice -- from from a couple thousand, to over $20k each time. I'm going to paste my response below, because: 1) I think it may inspire someone on the fence relative to trading by providing an over-the-shoulder look into my days, 2) encourage those of you out there who may be doubting yourselves (because if a guy like me can do it -- ANYONE CAN) , and 3) highlight the notion that trading is NOT rocket-science, and largely dependent on our own personality/psychology. I've said it 1,000 times, and I'll say it once more: Trading is 90%+ psychology. I could teach my 7-year old daughter how to trade, but I'll never be able to control her mind....That portion of her being, as it is with all of us -- is an inherent battle within ourselves that very few external influences could effectively sway. As always, questions/comments are more than welcomed.... -- ---- --- --- -- --- ---- --- --- -- ---- --- --- Hi xxxxxxxxxxx, To be honest, I didn't trade much differently than my "normal" way of going about things. During the first run, I had to take somewhat smaller positions, and I did find myself trading more of the low-float variety, but once the account was around $3-4k, trading normal is all I did. My "normal" position size varies, depending on a few things, but my ideal trade is a mid-cap stock (priced in the $15-40 range), with medium to high float, and a tight spread. I like to start with 200-400 shares, then scale in to about 2-3x my initial take as my comfort level with the trade increases; if I don't gain comfort with the trade, I'll stick with the initial entry, or stop out. Anyways..., as the account grew, I would occasionally take more chances, but for the most part -- I just kept things "normal," as mentioned... The strategies I use are both simple, yet complex. Andrew would probably laugh at my saying "simple" (he calls me a very complicated trader, lol), but that's only cuz I'm looking at so many things at once (I call it the "big picture"). The first thing I always do is get a feel for the overall markets: I listen/watch CNBC, search for headlines, and check the major indices... I start trading the premarket around 8:45 am...with very small position sizes... I call this my "warm-up" for the day; kinda' like a football player warms up during his pregame... During this time, and as I'm filtering through my scans, I ALWAYS check the day charts of the stocks I'm interested in. I ask myself, "what is this supposed to do today; which way will it end based on a swing traders perspective?" By about 9:00 am I usually know what I'll be trading on the day, AND I have a very good idea of which way I want to trade the stocks on my list (but things can, and do change). At 9:30 am I'm usually hyper-focused on 1-2 stocks. I'm waiting for confirmation that my pre-market analysis is panning out. Usually it takes a few minutes, but there's always a huge chunk of volume that'll come in and move the stock one direction, or the other... At this time (about 4 minutes in), I've usually already begun to scale in, and will add to my position on obvious pull backs. If we get a clear cut 5-minute candle (white, or red), I'll usually play that direction till about 9:45 am (scalping profits, and reentering on pull backs). Again, though, things can change...so I'm always ready to stop out... At about the end of the first 15 minutes (this time is often ruled by "flag" type patterns; which are easy to see on the 1-min chart), I'll watch the 5 minute chart for reversal dojis; I guess I should clarify that I'm primarily using the 1-min chart for entries/exits during the 1st 15 minutes. By this time (~9:45am) my attention is now spread over about 3-6 stocks, and anything that's hitting my momentum scanners. Again, I'm looking for reversal dojis on the 5-min chart (or anything else that would indicate a reversal), and using the 1-min chart to enter, scale in, exit, etc... After this reversal is over, I'll often take another reversal around 10am ish, set a hard stop, then walk away... I HATE trading after 10:00/10:30 am, so my goal is to set it, and forget it from here on... Often times I'll fall victim to more trades, though....but again-- my goal is to be done after I've closed out the trades I took at 9:45. After a short break, I'll come back to the computers, and see if there's anything else worth taking a "set it/ forget it" type trade..., and then I'll handle other business (I used to have a YouTube channel, but now that I've deleted it, I have lots of free time! Lol ***edit -- I actually brought the YouTube Channel back last week; just search my name, Daniel Thomas, and add Day Trader at the end and I'll pop up)*** EVERYTHING I do is rooted in the ideals of support/resistance. Whether it's a pattern, a candle formation, a previous area of consolidation, walls/stacks in level 2, a moving average, VWAP, etc... IT'S ALL THE SAME. We're either going to fight the support/resistance, then violently push through, Or we're going to bounce (off the supportive/resistive area). So I look at all of it....and I'm looking it all somewhat simultaneously. There is ALWAYS a very obvious sign when we approach support/resistance, so having an open mind (to incorporating every thing I'm capable of seeing) helps me take high probability trades. I think this is why Andrew calls me "complicated," because when most traders are looking for a finite "system" for taking trades, I handle it more in a more multi-dimensional way. Anyways... I think people can trade ANY "style" with a small account. Of course it's harder due to the capital limitations, but it's possible to trade whatever style you're comfortable with. With a $1,000 account, and receiving 4:1 leverage, you can take roughly (depending on maintenance requirements and leverage restrictions): 800 shares of a $5 stock, 400 shares of a $10 stock, 200 shares of a $20 stock, etc... The key is to trade within your comfort zone, and ignore everybody/everything else. If you like flags, play low floaters... If you like obvious reversals, play mid-to-large caps. 100 shares of a $40 stock that moves $2 is $200 gain/loss. And 1,000 shares of a $4 stock that moves .20 cents is the same (+/- $200). Pick what fits your personality, and run with it... Also... keep in mind that with a small account, it's almost necessary to take on more risk than you normally would. At some point there is a cost to doing business (commissions, platform fees, etc.), so making 2% on a $1,000 account isn't going to pay the bills. My point is, even though you're in a smaller account, your risk is still present. I look at "small" accounts as an "opportunity" to trade somewhat normally, with a significantly tilted risk to capital. In other words... All I need is a few good days to even out my risk on capital, but I know/understand that a bad trade on day 1 (or 2...or 3...etc..) has the potential to blow up the account. I think the $4k mark, give or take, enables me to trade nearly identical to the way I trade in a $50k account. The problem many traders run into (I know I did) is taking on larger risk as the account grows larger (primarily by taking on larger sizes). If you can moderate what you do as your account grows, and you trade anything like I do -- when you get to $4k you're off and flying... Moral of the story... Pick a style that fits YOUR personality. For me, its mid-cappers with tight spreads and respectful float metrics. I can trade the low-floater pennies too...which I do on occasion, but they're not necessary; even if you have a "small" account. Avoid over-trading, avoid jumping the gun (FOMO), and take what the market gives you. If you don't see a trade -- don't trade. The markets aren't going anywhere; there is always another trade waiting on the horizon... And I'll end with this... I have talked to a lot of people that have found success in waiting for the first 10-15 minutes to pan out before taking a trade. There's a "sweet-spot" around this time every morning where the range to come is still profitable, and yet the volatility has simmered down. And I say "sweet spot," because-- again-- I think trading after 10/10:30 leads to more problems than it's worth (namely over trading with minimal reward potential). Day traders DO NOT trade for 40 hours per week like a "normal" person works their job(s). We prepare, study, etc for 40 hours (or more) per week, but our actual trading is MOST EFFICIENT for just that first hour, or so, of the day. My biggest struggle when going full time was appreciating this reality; that the money is made from 9:30-10:30, and sticking around much longer is most often a bad idea (unless you're just watching, but NOT actively trading). This is why I'll still take a trade after 10, but i WILL NOT (I try not to) sit around and watch it... I'll put a hard stop in, then come back around 1:30/2pm to see how it panned out.. In any case... I know I probably didn't answer your question like you hoped for, but I'm not into selling pipe dreams and false "strategies." The BEST thing any would be trader can do is get in repetitions....preferably in simulator...then trade the markets based on THEIR unique personality. I swing a golf club differently than you, I shoot a basketball differently, and I even sing karaoke differently (okay, I never really sing karaoke)... We can learn from each other, of course....implement things we see others do into our personal game plans...., BUT no matter how closely you study my golf swing, free throw, or vocals -- yours will ALWAYS differ... Trading the markets is very much the same... Keep me posted as the account grows... STAY GREEN, Daniel

I know this is an old post, but I was looking for away to do this as well. You can do this by Right click on the chart - Data Config - Un-check the show pre/post Market. Now you should be able to view the charts without the Pre-market data.

Unfortunately we can't script prices into horizontal lines.... Wouldn't that be nice There is a workaround with the Fibonacci Line tool. To set it up: - Set a hotkey to place a Fib line (script = FibonacciLine) - Press the hotkey and draw a line anywhere on your chart. - Right click on the vertical line and select Config. - Chang the line settings to match this: - Now, when you enter a position and have a stop loss. You simply hit the Fib hotkey, and click and drag down from your entry to your stop. - You will then have nice price targets on your chart that will look like this: As you can see, I'm embarrassingly partialed in my trade too soon!

I just started the Van Tharp Institute Peak Performance Course for traders (home study edition). I really need to improve issues with my trading (fear, self-sabotage, over-trading, etc.). I think this course could really help. To place some accountability on myself to finish the course I plan to post my reading notes and assignments online. Hopefully, the info provided will help others as well. Van Tharp Institute Peak Performance Course Vol 1: How to use Risk Preface: The three stages of growth for a trader. 1) They think they can make easy money from trading. They think the most important thing to investing/trading is picking the right stock. 2) A substantial change has to occur where the trader begins to asks, “how should I trade to make money.” Thus, they start looking for a trading system that fits them. 3) The trader realizes that trading success does not come from external control, but from internal control. Controlling risk, profit/loss>1 and position sizing all comes from internal control. Chapter 1 Commitment means congruency. It means the whole person is working together for a common purpose. No internal conflicts. When committed, trading is no longer just a hobby. The moment one definitely commits one’s self, then Providence moves too. I translate that as: when you are committed to work hard, luck will be on your side. To develop commitment first you must determine your obstacles. Second, and more difficult, you need to determine how those obstacles reflect what is going on within you. The last step is deal with them. Make peace with the obstacles by making them unimportant. Below I created my personal obstacle table: Obstacle Internal reflection Make them unimportant Fear 1) Fear of being wrong 2) Fear of missing my stop 3) Fear the loss will affect my trading and mood. 4) Fear the little success I’ve had is due to an accommodating market. Once the market changes I will fail and quit. 1) Your supposed to be wrong at least 50% of the time. If you are wrong less than 50% you are scalping too much. 2) You are working the mental muscle, it will get easier. I do have risk controls, if I miss my stop I can’t lose too much. 3) If you learn something from the trade, it was still worth while taking it. 4) Have faith in yourself that you will learn and adapt. Self sabotage 1) Every streak of good trading is ended with catastrophic failure. 2) I take way too many partials hurting my win/loss ratio. 1) You will wind down your streaks with smaller share size and SIM trading. So it will end with a whimper not a roar. 2) With more trades, more data will be available for analysis to determine proper partialing. Data is stronger than my nerves. The math will prevail. Over trading 1) If you only take one trade the whole day, but it had a poor setup, you already overtraded. 1) I am having slow progress, but I do see progress. My trades are slowly getting better. I have the time to learn. I am in no hurry. As long as I have progress there is no issue. Health 1) Not enough sleep and exercise 1) My family is slowly becoming more accommodating. It is taking time but they will come through for me. In the last 6 months my average sleep has increased from 4.8 hrs to 5.7 hours a night. Still a far cry from 8 hours but again as long as there is improvement.

Hi there, This might be a really easy question but how to change the color of Horizontal line, mine is stuck in light yellow, I can barely see it when I try to draw support and resistant lines. Thanks!

Anthony, this is a stop for 0.10 below average cost: Share=Pos;ROUTE=STOP;StopType=Market;StopPrice=AvgCost-0.10;TIF=DAY+;SELL=SEND This is a limit for 0.10 above average cost: ROUTE=LIMIT;Price=AvgCost+0.10;Share=Pos;TIF=DAY+;SELL=Send; Please test them out in simulator to ensure they are working correctly. Andrew also made this post on how to send an automatic stop loss with your initial order.

Also, when your montage is selected, whether you select it by clicking on the montage, double clicking the chart linked to it, or having a hotkey, for me at least, it automatically selects the montage AS WELL AS highlights the ticker symbol field within the montage. So lets say I am in a position, ready to get out, select my montage, but then accidentally press some random key, it will change the ticker symbol and when i try to place a trade, a notification message comes up. . . "This order will be placed for symbol "AAA" (whatever your chart is on), but currently symbol "?" is entered in the symbol text box. Continue?" So its great that DAS is trying to do the right thing, but in the heat of the moment, and especially if you have never seen this message and unaware of exactly what happened it can be a big distraction at the perfectly wrong time. Hope this saves anyone from the fate it caused me first time I experienced it.