Greg

Doc seems messed up now. Anybody have a copy?

Is there a way to automatically set the value of VWAP as a stop point without having to double click it. Or is there a way to even hit a hotkey and have it place the value of VWAP in the montage?

EDIT: I figured it out. I have two hotkeys now. One that buys $10,000 worth of stock and one that will set a range order stop at 1% loss and then multiple profit targets. I do have double click to trade on. 241.913 is what popped up after running the script, so thats why I think its some kind of rounding error

I am having trouble getting the hotkey to work. It keeps saying can't get valid price. It puts a number in the montage that isn't rounded to the nearest 2 digit cents. Is that problem? I've tried putting price=round2 in the formula but still can't get it to work. Any ideas?

Thank you so much Peter. I'll have to test it when I get home today. Would there be a difference if I use IB? Also If I wanted to do two range order stops. Would I just copy and paste the last part and change to POS*.5 And If I want to add a 3/1 stop change Price *.99 "RT:STOP STOPTYPE:RANGEMKT LowPrice:Price HighPrice:StopPrice ACT:BUY QTY:POS TIF:DAY+"

I want a hotkey that will risk a fixed amount $100, with a 1% stop out of the stock price and a 2% take profit. What hotkey should I use?

Should I bring this back? A 2021/2022 Full Transparency Journal. Anybody interested?

Is there a script to automatically put a stop loss lets say $100 away from an entry after I am already in the trade with share size that I selected. So if I have 100 shares it will put the stop $1 away. if I have 200 shares it will put the stop 50 cents away.

I'm looking for an accountability partner. I haven't been trading well lately. Need someone to hold me to my rules and I would like to do the same for them. Ideally I'm looking for someone who's going to be a hard ass and really force me to stick to my rules. I don't start trading until 10:15ish on most days and trade for maybe 2 hours or so. I would like someone available during that time.

Brandon, thank you so so much for checking up on me. I want to let you know that I still am trading, I am just not posting my trades on a daily basis anymore. I should have made a post about it, but I wanted to remove as many of the pressures of trading as possible and publicly posting my trades was one of them. I made some significant changes to my psychology and trading mindset. I am not where I want to be yet as a trader, but I am making significant progress. I have cut down on a good chunk of my problems including overtrading, FOMO, and my patience issues. I've started to really focus on trading well instead of thinking in dollars for each trade. I'm slowly becoming the trader that I want to be. My confidence has gone up and my trust in my trading plan and myself is at an all time high. I am taking actual setups in my trades and I am having green days. I'm feeling good about trading and my good habits that I am creating are getting stronger each day. As you can see in the calendar below, I am having more green days than red days. The biggest issue for me right now is accepting a losing day. My daily goal is $80-$100 with a max loss of $60, and as you can see I don't stop at $60. I have das risk control set to stop me out fully at $150 including commissions and I have been trading up until that point when I am losing. I set the $150 amount because it is way past my max loss and its there to stop me out when I couldn't stop myself out. That has been 4 out my 5 losing days this month. Like most of my other bad habits including doubling down and overtrading, I have had to use Das risk controls to help me beat the problem. I have just recently lowered my max loss on das to $85. On my losing days I knew that I should have quit at $50-$60 but I have ignored the feeling inside of me that knew it was time to quit. Everyone of my $150 loss days, I knew I should have quit at $60, and I just didn't. I for whatever reason don't want to end red and I needed to get my money back ASAP. From Robert's Rants, he talks about the money being gone, and there is no rush getting it back, I am trying to adopt that mindset. I checked some of my old trading days and my last 20 days where I hit -$60 or more and continued trading, I ended up green on only 3 of them, and over the 20 days my losses for trades after hitting negative $60 were over $700. My average win % on those days was probably around 25%. With the auto stop out at $85, I will eventually learn to stop out when I know I'm not in sync with the market or I will have to always use DAS to stop me out as long as a trade. Brandon, if you still have the feelings of trading in the first 5 minutes, you could always email das and tell them to lock your account until 9:35. When you know you can't trade at that time, you will lose the urge to trade at that time. It has worked for me! Das Risk controls has fixed my overtrading, my doubling down, and my breaking stop loss habits.

March 19th P&L After Commissions: -$124 Trades: 11 I struggled and I struggled hard today. I fell into a hole early, and I couldn't quit when I had one trade get me back. I have a problem with red days. I cannot accept a red day. I am doing a much better job at keeping the losers small for the most part, but I can't seem to keep the losing days small. I will keep trading and trading to try and get back to break even or better. It is killing me and my account. I have learned somewhat to stop when I am having a winning day and I am able to end the day green whether I am at goal or not. I cannot end the day red unless I am at max loss. I have turned many acceptable red days into unacceptable max loss red days. As you can see almost every red day is a max loss red day where I hit $150 plus commissions loss and DAS stops me out. The smaller red day losses are days where DAS has stopped me out after hitting 3000 shares. I think on only one of these days, did I decide to walk away on my own. Almost each of those red days, I should have quit before things got as bad as they are. I have a hard time accepting a small red day. It goes against everything you are taught in life, sometimes it is better in this game to admit defeat than to keep going and I am having a hard time accepting that and putting that into practice. One idea is to lower my DAS max loss. That is the next major goal that I have for myself. I need to learn to walk away when I am losing and I am done trading. I lose very often, but I still don't know how to lose properly. Can you spot the sim days? As far as my trading day goes, I took some major losses early in the morning. I should have called it quits right then and there. One of the things that has really helped me was sticking to my watch list stocks. Today they were WHD, STNE, MU, NVDA. I only watch 3 stocks at a time, so I was already breaking a rule by making this 4 stock watchlist. In the morning, I was flipping between MU and NVDA which wasn't a good sign. I kept 4 available in the morning in case WHD or STNE didn't move or went too out of control. That is when I should have swapped it out for MU. I shouldn't be constantly flipping back and forth between MU and NVDA at the open. I didn't trade well, but I am ok with my trading up until I strayed away these 4 on the watchlist. $NVDA - I took NVDA long when it seemed to be holding VWAP. As soon as I entered, it dropped down below VWAP and I had to exit. Stayed in this trade for 13 seconds. It doesn't help that there was a decent sized spread. It then popped up back above VWAP. The second trade upsets me. There was no reason to take this short. I am not sure what I was doing. It never closed below VWAP and was even making higher lows above VWAP. This was a long and not a short. Bad trade on my part. I'm glad to have gotten out for a small loss. $STNE - I usually stay away from wild stocks at the open, but for whatever reason I went to trade STNE. I thought taking a small share size might help, but the candles were still too big. Might have been because I didn't have a great watchlist and I believe at this point WHD was moving a too far from VWAP for me. I need to wait for a better setup when trading. I dont need to always be in a trade. Seemed to be holding the trend lines and the 20EMA. It broke above it on the first trade and I exited. Came back down and I tried again on the trade. Was not good trading. $MU - I was down $90 on my first 4 trades. Not where I want to be and I should be calling it a day there. I didn't even thinking about being done because it was still pretty early in the day. Saw MU was curling up and making higher lows. Went long with a target of $40.40. The previous day mark and where it stalled out earlier in the morning. I sold most of my shares there, but held some for the break. It did break up and I panic exited on the rest of the shares on the first red candle. I didn't need to exit the final piece where I did. I was watching my P&L and I knew how much the trade made me already, so I wanted to lock in the profits and be ~$25 down. I have had trades where they go $30-$40 in my direction and I dont take profit. they end up going back to break even or losing and I wanted to avoid that here with the final piece here. One thing I need to understand is that on the HOD breaks the stock can continue moving. I need to let the stock run more on HOD breaks. $BABA - This is where it all goes wrong. I didn't like my watchlist at this time. Low Volume and not a lot of movement for STNE and WHD. MU was still climbing, but I wasn't going to re enter. I then started searching for stocks. I checked AAPL, FB, SQ, CGC and finally landed on BABA. No reason to trade this stock and I should have stayed away. Took 3 trades, 3 losers. $AMD - After having no luck with BABA, I came across AMD who was moving fairly well. I saw it setting up for a reversal and took it when it broke the 50SMA. I took 300 shares and was targetting the 50SMA on the 5 min at $20.40. It did come down to about $20.50 which was 13 cents and about $40. I really thought it would keep coming down since it was below all trend lines. Just couldn't break the half dollar barrier. It worked its way back up to my entry and I told myself to let it go above the 50SMA on the 1 min because that is where my stop should be. It did that and stopped out. I let a trade go from being +$40 to a loser. Exactly what I wanted to avoid on MU earlier in the day. My greed got me on this one and it was because I wanted to make up my losses that I already had. I believe that if this were my first trade of the day, I would have taken some profits. I need to treat every trade as the first trade of the day. My P&L shouldn't be affecting any moves I make in a trade. Each trade is independent of the rest and the rest of my day. Goal going forward - Learn to accept red days and keep the red days small. They are going to happen and that is ok. I know that nobody can win every single day that they trade. Part of the process is learning how to lose and how to lose gracefully.

March 18th P&L After Commissions: $36 Trades: 9 Got into a hole early today. I exited my first trade early and then to decent sized losers with FIS. I was able to keep a level head and churn out 3 good winners after. The P&L for the day wasn't great, but I'm happy that I took good trades to finish the day. $FB - First FB trade was a bottom reversal after an ORB. It seemed to be holding he $161 level. The candles never closed below that level. I was in long at slightly above $161. While the candles never closed below $161, they did try to break down underneath it multiple times. That made me feel uneasy with the trade since I was already letting it run 25 cents against me which is about all I want to risk at $25. If it did actually continue downward, the loss would have been a much bigger one than I wanted. So I exited this trade at B/E when I had the opportunity. The stock did make the move up to VWAP and then some, but the R/R wasn't there for me for where and when I entered the trade. $FIS - FIS got me good today. It wasn't the best trading on my part. I thought it was a pullback so I wanted to enter for the break of LOD. It was holding the 9ema and the 200SMA on the 5 min. I wanted an entry closer to $108.20, so I wasn't too happy or comfortable with the entry that I got. It popped up against me and I had to exit. It looked like bounced off PDC and came back down so I decided to try and take the trade a second time. I got an entry I felt more comfortable with but the stock didn't break down and I exited the trade. $MU - Took me 3 tries to get this MU trade. I could have stayed in the trade from my first entry and probably gotten close to the same result. It broke under the emas and was holding under $40.25. Took it short underneath the 20EMA. I was a little skittish after taking two losses previously so I exited quickly at B/E. It still looked weak later and I got right back in for a slightly better entry. It tried to break down, but came back up so quickly. There was quite a bit of buying pressure at that point so I exited the trade for a small gain. I kept watching and it pushed down a little more and I still thought it was short. I got in at the right time and the stock dropped. Took profits at the 50SMA, VWAP and below VWAP. Got all out when it showed some strength. $FB - Again it took multiple tries with FB to get the trade. The first trade was early. It looked weak to me and broke under $163, but the stock clearly wasn't ready and I got stopped out. There wasn't a lot of buying pressure to push the stock up and it broke under the emas and again under the whole number so I took it short. I was a little premature with the profit taking. I should have only taken 1 of the first 2 profit takings that I did. I am ok with the 50SMA and the VWAP target point where I got all out. $AAPL - Last trade of the day. Wasn't the best entry. This stock just looked like it topped out to me. It tried to reverse about 15 minutes earlier but bounced off the 50SMA. It started to push up but couldn't really break above $188.25. I decided to take it short and it did come down and broke the 50SMa. Took some small profits to lock things in. Generally these stocks will retest the 50SMA after they break, but push off fairly quickly. This time it held the 50 for a few minutes, but I had a good entry so I could wait it out. Took more profits on the way down in case it couldn't go lower. It then gave me 3 straight green candles and it looked like there was buying pressure so I exited the trade. The stop out should have been above the 50SMA and above $188. I still would have been profitable at that point, but I chickened out of this trade and traded with the mentality of just locking in profits. Missed out on the move to VWAP. Overall, an ok day. I did trade a lot of stocks that weren't gapping up and I did short 8/9 trades. There wasn't a lot in the morning gappers so I did put FB and AAPL on my watchlist. I do need to work on trading what is in play. I feel my trade numbers were a little inflated because they were just me taking multiple stabs at the same trade. I do feel good that I was able to turn a red day into a green day.

March 15th P&L After Commissions: -$33 Trades: 12 There are some clear cut signs when I am trading bad. When I trade things not on my watchlist and when I short significantly more than I go long. The only thing on my watchlist on Friday was ORCL. Because of that, i was looking for things to trade. ORCL gave me plenty of opportunities, I just didn't capitalize. I should have ended my day much sooner than I did. $ ORCL - I don't really mind my trading on ORCL. It wasn't perfect but it wasn't bad. I really liked my first trade. I took an ORB after it broke the 200SMA and held it. It dropped about 20 cents and I took some minor profits. I was really hoping for the break of $51. It didn't do and I took a slightly loss on the remaining shares. I dont mind that this winner turned to a loser, because it happened so quickly and I felt the R/R was there. The second trade was a bad trade that I got out of immediately. The third trade is the one that bothers me. I wanted to take it long for a VWAP break and I did. I just didn't get the entry that I wanted. I was looking for something closer to $51.55 instead of $51.60. A very insignificant amount and not a bad entry by any means. My stop would be break of VWAP so about 15 cents. I was just scared after 3 straight losses and didn't want to take another loss so I exited out of this trade before it hit my stop loss or even tested it. It dropped merely a few pennies and I exited this trade. Absolutely no reason to exit the trade. The next minute it popped and I regretted it. I knew I messed up on that one. $SPY - I shouldn't be trading SPY at all but I was looking for things to trade. It was slow and I should have just walked away. First trade was a 200SMA break/reversal. It was holding the 200 and looked weak so I took it short. It dropped to VWAP and I meant to partial some shares, but accidently sold all. I wasn't happy about it, even though the stock didn't really go further down. I felt I exited out of a potential big time winner. When it came back and pushed off VWAP a few minutes later, I thought that would be a good entry point for me to reenter. I don't know if I would have taken this trade if I didn't exit early on the first one. For sure this was a revenge trade to get some of the potential profits that I felt were coming and I should have had. STock popped and because I didn't have the cushion for a decently entry, I exited the trade. The third trade was much better. This one wasn't a revenge trade, I took this trade for its own merits. It broke under VWAP and held it so I took it short. It didn't drop as strongly as I wanted it to and I got out after taking some minor profits. Wanted to keep the winning trade, a winning trade. Everything else was just chop for the day and poor setups on my part. I should have called it a day before taking any SPY trades and just stuck with the ORCL trades.

March 14th P&L After Commissions: $55 Trades: 9 I had a good trading day going that turned into an ok trading day. I am super happy with how I traded for the first 6 trades that I made today. I even got up from the computer and called it quits. For whatever reason when I came back to the computer I took 3 more trades and all were losers. I was greedy and I just jumped into trades without waiting a good setup. $GE - I first went long thinking it was just a pullback but quickly exited. Then I took it short when it came back to the 200SMA on the 1 min chart. It broke under VWAP and I was shooting for a target of $10 which is a lot to ask for with GE, and it never came. I took some profits along the way but got out the rest when it came back above VWAP. The third GE trade, I took long when it couldn't stay below VWAP and was pushing back up. I took it below the 200SMA which was a little risky, but I thought it was strong. It popped up and I held for 25 minutes without taking any profits. I wanted to get back to the HOD and see if It could break it. I was hanging out for most of the time I was in the trade and when it pushed below the 200SMA I exited. Maybe not the best exit since the stock did jump back up, but I wanted to be protective of profits. $AAPL - I saw AAPL couldn't hold above VWAP. I was targetting $183.35 but missed the entry. Decided to still hop in since there was a lot of selling pressure. I was worried that I chased it, but it dropped pretty easily still. My first target was the previous day mark. I first sold 25 of my 100 shares, and for whatever reason I just hit the button to get all out. I was little mad at myself for that. Not sure exactly why I did it. Maybe because the first few GE trades got away from me without me taking profits. $FB - Took FB short when it could break above the 200SMA. Dropped as soon as I got in. First partial was meant for VWAP. Bounced off VWAP pretty convincingly so I took another partial when it came back. My plan was then to hold until the stock wasn't going to go lower. It held at the previous day mark so I took partial profits. I exited the rest when it popped back above VWAP. I held the last shares too long. I saw that it was on the way back up when it started to make its move, I just didn't exit. I still need to find the balance with my strategy if I'm going to hold or take the profits and run. My last 3 trades were just bad trades. There wasn't a good solid setup and I was trying to get a quick buck. Not sure why I did it. I was at $80 after commissions which would have been good enough for me for the day. I went ahead and just took 3 bad trades that I didn't last a single minute in any of them. I wasn't at goal for the day, but I should have stopped since I did walk away from the computer and tell myself that I was done. Need to be better at walking away when I am done for the day.

March 13th P&L After Commissions: $-111 Trades: 9 Terrible day of trading. 3 losses accounted for the majority of my day, and dumb mistakes were made. It was a very slow day for me. I wasn't a fan of the gappers watchlist and I wasn't patient enough to wait for the perfect setup. $CRON - Thought it would be a VWAP break. Saw the moving average on the 5 min but still took it regardless. I then held too long on the trade. I wanted to give it a chance to move and when I exited it was at the top. I then swapped my position thinking that since it was going to break down below VWAP that I could take it long. That trade didn't work out and I exited that one appropriately. $ROKU - This was the mistake of the day. There was no reason to be in this trade. I was impulsive and thought it would bounce off the 200SMA as it had for the past 20 min. Also was holding under the moving averages on the 5 min. The trade did push back down a little but couldn't break under the EMAs on the one. I was ready to exit the trade. The spread was about 5 cents on this stock. So about $5 on my 100 shares. A little more than you want to see, but not a deal breaker. I was ready to exit the stock, but instead of exiting. I kept trying to set a limit to get a good fill and a good exit. I didn't want to eat the $5 spread. I had a few opportunities to exit for a $5 loss but chose not to. The stock then moved up to $15 loss and I chose not to exit there but instead set a limit order to fill. It popped up again and I moved my limit order up. I was chasing the stock with my exit. I was setting a trailing stop in the wrong direction. I kept worrying about the $5 that eventually the stock popped up to a $30 loss and I had to exit with a market order. I do sometimes record my trading session and I did record this one. I've attached some of the screenshots from the recording showing with me trying to get a good fill on the exit instead of just taking the minimal loss to begin with. My second limit order is where the first exit would have been if I just did a market order! When its time to exit a trade, I need to exit the trade! $CRON - I was trading my P&L at this point. I was up about $35 on this trade but didn't take any profits. I was hoping for a bigger move and wanted to capitalize with having a full amount of shares. Was shooting for it to break below LOD and down to $21. Exited near B/E. $ACB - Another bad trade. I was trying to make my money back and I took this ACB because it looked like it could be short. No reason to be in this trade either. Originally had 300 shares and added another 100 at the 50SMA. Very poor trading today.

March 12th P&L After Commissions: $53 Trades: 5 Took 5 trades today. Had 2 winners with 3 losers but finished up $53 after commissions. I had two winners who moved about $1 each but the profit taking wasn't the best on them. I could have let more shares ride for a longer time period. I was too antsy with profit taking on both trades. $MOMO Long - Took MOMO long on a VWAP break when it came back to retest VWAP. This was a bad trade. There wasn't any confirmation that the stock would hold VWAP I just assumed and wanted it to. It was not a great long and I got stopped out quickly. I took it again a second time a few minutes later when it broke through VWAP. A much better entry would have been a few candles later. I took my first profit after a 25 cent again and the second profit taking was supposed to be a $30 cent gain but I had a bad fill. I then started taking profits every minute or so. I need to let the trade ride out instead of being so aggressive with profit taking. There was no reason to take profits where I did. I also should have let the trade ride until it made a new 5 minute low. I exited near $37, just because it was a whole number. Decent entry, but profit taking can be a lot better. $MOMO Short - First attempt was when it broke between the moving averages and seemed to hold the 9ema for one candle. It popped up and I had to exit the trade. I entered a second time when the price action looked like it was going to drop back down. It looked like it couldn't hold $37.70 so I took it short there. I sold half my shares before it crossed the 50SMA and sold 25 more shares at $37 and the rest near VWAP. Again could have been a little better with the profit taking but happy with this trade.

March 7th P&L After Commissions: $40 Trades: 4 Much better trading today. I switched my DAS layout so I only watch 3 stocks at a time vs 5 stocks that I used to be able to watch. I want to really focus on the stocks that I am watching vs getting overwhelmed trying to keep an eye on everything. The goal was to stick with just the 3 stocks that I picked out in the morning for at least 30 minutes. Overall I'm happy with the entries that I took, I just didn't do a great job capitalizing on the moves and taking enough profit. Every trade had a much higher MFE than actual P&L. All 4 trades I had to stop out at B/E or just past it. $LLY - Traded LLY 3 times. First time I saw it pushing off the 20ema on the 5 min chart which coincides with $124. I felt that was a great spot to take it short. I covered a little too much on the first profit taking. I did 45 shares, could have done half that and covered more when it dropped. I only took 20 of my 100 shares at that point. The rest, I stopped out when it briefly popped up above VWAP. I entered the second time when it pushed off vwap and below the 50SMA. It looked like it was going to hold the 50 and I took it short there. IT dropped about 30 cents from my entry, but I didn't take any profit and stopped out on the squeeze. The final short on LLY was when it broke the 50SMA on the 1 min. Again dropped down 30 cents and I just sold a small portion of my shares. Rest at B/E. $BA - Went for a reversal play on BA. Took it when it broke under the EMAs. Not the best entry. I was hoping for it to break the 50SMA. It broke under for a split second but couldn't hold. I stopped out at B/E. Much happier today with my trading. I was more in control and limited myself to 4 trades on the day. Big improvement over previous days of trading.

Peter, I want to make sure we are on the same page here. First the max loss DAS stop out is a number I should never ever hit at my current risk levels. I should never have a $90 loss on one single trade. The only way that should happen is if I let something go significantly past my stop loss and/or if I double down onto my losing position and the trade continues to go against me. As you can see, I generally lose $25 or less. The $90 is just a number that I know I should never be hitting and if I do then I did something drastically wrong where I couldn't stop myself and I have to rely on DAS. It is my safety net. For the amount of shares I take, I actually take half of what is shown in the volume chart of my trade log. The volume column contains both the entry and the exit. So the 500 shares of MU is actually only 250 shares bought and 250 shares sold. That is how tradervue compiles the chart. Your point still stands that 250 shares for $25 is a 10 cent move on MU which happens regularly. Sometimes its all you need to know you need to exit the trade and sometimes you get chopped up with 10 cents. I don't trade with the risk/reward as a % of my buying power. I trade with a fixed risk style. So with that APPL trade, I entered at $174.18. I would have stopped out above the 200SMA, lets say $174.38. I took 100 shares on the trade so I risked $20. My first two profit taking points were early, I took 14 cents and 13 cents. I sometimes take profit at 1/1 and sometimes I dont. This particular time, I took it less than 1/1 and I wasn't happy with the exits. My next profit taking was $173.84 and then 173.83 which is a little short of 2/1. The final profit taking was at $173.64 which is near 3/1. The final exit at $173.71 was me chickening out of the trade. I ended with a 1.5/1 R/R on this trade. It wasn't the best trade by any means, but I want to give some clarification for why I took the trade and the risk that I am taking. As of now, I'm not focused on % of buying power. It maybe an issue down the line when I am taking larger share sizes because AAPL may be less attractive to me since I will be capped at around 500 shares for 100k buying power. And in that case this trade would have been $100 risk and $150 reward, but for now I am ok with the fixed risk method.

Johnny, Awesome post man. I definiltely have Trading in the zone on my to reread list. Struggled with it the first time, but ready to give it another go. I agree with every point your making. I do come to the market to fight. My latest post shows me taking entries based on what I want the market to do. I need to go with the flow. The A1 Setups/Winning trades are so obvious when you see them. I need to wait for the obvious trades, that is going to be my key to success. If they aren't there for that particular day, then I need to learn to walk away. I don't need to go and try and extract money from the market if its not there. I will not win, and the market will eat me up like it has been. Its ok to have a day without trading and its ok to have a red day. I have seen some progress just by working on my bad habits. A month or so ago, I would let my losers break stop loss and let them run in hopes of coming back and also doubling down on my losers. I had a hard time with that for a while and I couldn't really keep it under control by myself. I implemented DAS risk controls to stop me out if my trade ever gets to $90. This was a number I knew I never should be hitting unless a stock really goes against me and I let it. It took me a few days, but I stopped doubling down on losers and stopped letting my losers run as well since there was no point. The most likely outcome when letting my losers run will be to be stopped out with a $90 loss and it would be totally out of my control. I still have the risk controls in place, but I exit trades properaly and usually at around $15-$20 and I no longer have the urge to double down at all. When something goes against me, I don't take the wait and see approach and maybe add to my position, I exit. As far as me being addicted to action, that is one of the harder things for me to deal with. I think I do a fairly good job on most days, being patient and waiting for a good trade for the first trade of the day. It is after that point when I can lose control. I will take chop and I will take bad entries across the board. I am working on walking away after my first 2 trades for 5 min and then coming back to reread my premarket journal entry before I trade again. I need to almost take a full reset to make sure that I am in a good state of mind to continue trading. And this happens whether the first trade is good or bad. Its going to be daily thing for me. Fixing this will be the next stop to me trading consistently well.

KTW, I do watch the moring pre-show, thats where I build my morning watchlist from. I just wasn't a fan of anything today and resorted to the main stocks.

Peter, I'm going to have to try that. Clearly looking at my charts today and from the past few days, it would work. You are 100% right though that I am trying to anticipate instead of waiting for the stock to reveal what it will do. I do slightly better with this problem when I have stocks in play that I like, but yea, it hurt me today

March 7th P&L After Commissions: -$57 Trades: 9 I had a tough day today. There wasn't a lot of on my watchlist that i liked. I had two stocks and since I don't have access to the chat anymore, I resorted trading the usual suspects. This is a mistake and will more than likely be a mistake. I took a decent trade on AAPL that I didn't manage properly and other than that I traded like how I used to trade when I was trading the stocks that weren't necessarily in play. I haven't been consistently green, but I have been trading much better when I trade the stocks in play vs trading FB, AAPL, MU etc.. There wasn't a lot for me to watch today and I went fishing for trades. All of my losses today came from when I took a gamble or wanted something to happen with a stock. I took entries, not based on setups, or confirmations, but on what I felt would happen or what I would like to see happen. And I was wrong everytime! I am almost glad that I wasn't right anytime on these trades because I didn't deserve to be right. I need to wait for confirmation! This should have been a 1 trade or even a 0 trade day. I dont need to take a trade everyday. I need to learn that. One other interesting thing to point out is that I couldn't even last a minute in the majority of my trades today. That is a sign to me that I didn't take good setups and I gambled. $AAPL - I found a great entry on this trade, but I didn't manage it as well as I should have. I took 100 shares and I covered 35 shares between the first two covers for about a 10-12 cent gain. I did slightly better on the later covers. I am ok with the 3rd profit taking. The 4th profit taking is something I do often where I after a pullback I take profit again at the point it couldn't break the first time. Sometimes it bounces, but more often than not, it bowls right there like it did here. I took more profit and held 25 shares left for another break down. The reason I exited the trade where I did instead of actually waiting for the breakdown was because I traded MU poorly and wanted to lock in profits. I should only be in one trade at a time and I certainly shouldn't be letting another trade affect my current trade. Disappointed with how I covered the final share here. $SPY - The only other trade where I waited for some confirmation today. I went with the momentum and took it short. I took 150 shares and only covered 20 shares where I did. The rest was a slight loss to get me to B/E on the trade. I maybe should have taken more profits, but I thought SPY looked really weak and was going to break down further. I later realized that the 200SMA on the daily chart is at $274.80 which it broke but couldn't hold. Peter in the chat and I once took the same trade, we both held without taking any profits and exited at B/E. I asked himhis thoughts on the trade and if he regretted not taking profits. He said he didn't because the trade didn't cost him anything. That is the same approach I'm going to take here. I knew the risks of holding and I don't regret anything because this trade didn't cost me anything. The rest of my trades will be posted together. I made the same mistake on all of them. I didn't wait for any confirmation and instead just took entries on what I wanted to be pullbacks. Each one wasn't a pullback and went right through my entry causing me to exit almost immediately. I took them all at a level of resistance/support, but I they were gambles. I need to wait for the right entries and the right setup instead of trying to make something happen. First trade was a hotkey error that I exited from for tiny profit. Every single one of these was a gamble on a pullback and they weren't even great gambles. I need to wait for setups and confirmation.

March 6th (Live) P&L After Commissions: -$47 Trades: 9 Better, but not there yet. I did a great job with my patience in the morning and I traded with focus and control today. That was really important to me today because of the NFLX trade from yesterday. There were a lot of similarities with how I traded compared to yesterday but I happy to have ended green. $SE - I traded SE three times. Took it short each time at ~$32.20. This wasn't intentionally, just felt they were good shorts at that point. Last one was the one that paid off. Happy with my patience and ability to exit after taking profit and exiting the middle trade at B/E when it wasn't looking great. I was almost ready to end the day here after 3 trades and about $80, but I didnt. My goal is $100-$120 and I felt that $80 just wasn't close enough. $MU - I got chopped up on MU. This is very simliar to me getting chopped up on KSS yesterrday, this time the losses were greater than yesterday. At this point my $80 day is getting closer to a $30 day after commissions. $ANF - Again like yesterday, I decided to short a super strong stock that is up for the day. The difference is yesterday I took it after crossing the 50SMA which is usually safer, but today I saw the weakness and it topping off at $26. I got a great entry, just didn't do the best on profit taking. Like yesterday ANF broke under the 50SMA but didn't do much after came back to test it and broke above. This might be something that super strong stocks do. Need to remember this. But because I had a entry above the 50SMA I was able to get decent profits and stop out my remaining shares for a small profit. Today was a better day than yesterday, but there were some similarities which I do no like. I have lowered my share count from 4000 to 3000. Nothing good ever comes after 3000 shares. I'm usually not upset with the trades that I take during the day, its just the emotional and psychological state that I get in that needs work. I 'm not the best technical trader but it isn't what is keeping from being consistently profitable.

March 5th (Live) P&L After Commissions: -$114 Trades: 15 Super disappointed with how I traded today. I had such a hard time writing this journal in my own journal that I keep. I didn't want to think about this day. I couldn't control myself. There is just a pain when thinking about this day and even writing this now (the day after). My trades themselves were ok, I didn't trade too terribly, up until I lost control at the end. I had one bad trade that put me in a whole but I did get back to near break even. It was when i wanted to get back to green, I forced trades and made some of the most impulsive emotional moves I've made in a while. As you can see there is one big loss. The trade was bad, but I could recover and did. It was the last 3 trades and most importantly NFLX that really disgusts me when I think of this day. $HUYA - Thought this was going to be a VWAP break. Broke VWAP broke 50SMA. The only thing was the resistance on the 5 min. For that reason alone, I should have stayed out of the trade, but I went in and it dropped down pretty hard on me. I had multiple opportunities to get out, but I was trying to get a good limit order instead of just exiting the trade. The spread was fairly large on a stock of this size, I believe it was between 6 - 8 cents. I was trying to not have to market order, and the stock just kept dropping on me. Then it got down to $25 and I was hoping for a bounce there, it didnt come and I exited when it broke $25 with a market order. This was maybe 3 times the loss I want to take on a trade. I was able to mostly come back from this trade. Nothing special. Just 3 decent trades to make back the losses. At this point, I checked my P&L ( I know I'm not supposed to), and I was down $11 before commissions. I figured I could just get one more trade, and get even for the day. I went for a KSS trade 3 times and got chopped up but kept losses small. After that I couldn't find a trade. Nothing was really moving As you can see I waited about 30 minutes without taking an entry until I took a small trade on AAPL. Basically tried to make a move happen. I have DAS shut me out at Noon, so I was trying to find a trade or 2 before I was officially locked out for the day. To keep it short and get to the point. I took a trade on CTRP, which I am ok with. Never short super strong stocks, but I am ok with the entry and exit on the trade. TGT, was just a bad trade and I took it in the wrong direction. The big trade to look at is NFLX. I was getting close to my share limit so I looked for something that can move. I need to stop thinking like this because it doesn't work out and has probably cost me close to $500. It was 11:59 and I was scrolling through stocks looking for something to trade. I checked FB, AAPL, TSLA, NVDA, SQ, CGC, BABA, almost all of the usual suspects. I settled on NFLX just because it was something that I could justify entering. Seemed to be breaking and holding below VWAP. The trade itself was bad, it broke my stop loss and I didn't exit when it came back to break even. The really disgusting part of it all was that I forced this trade. I wanted this trade so bad. Not because I thought it was a good trade, but just to get some of my losses back for the day. I put a limit order in 11:59:53. I didn't love the trade, but I just wanted it. I knew I had to put the order in before noon or otherwise Das wouldn't allow it, so I did just that. I knew the rules and I abused a loophole. My trading today was one thing but this still hurts me even the day after to realize what I did. I am very ashamed with how I acted today.

March 4th (Live) P&L After Commissions: -$132 Trades: 13 My BBT subscription expires today and I received the email saying its expired, but it looks like I can still post here. I didnt have the trading day that I wanted today. Mentally, emotionally, psychologically, I didn't have it. I definitely over traded and didn't trade well. I dont think I even need to post my trades today, but instead will just post my overview and discuss my mental state. I color coded my chart and it looks a little messy but I hope it will work Green - Started off the day fine. Went long on KHC, it couldn't hold VWAP and I took it short. It was a much clearer short than it was a long. Purple - This right here is the trade of the day. I went for a quick scalp on BABA and it cost me. It was a bigger loss than I wanted and it wiped out my gains. I did learn a lot from this trade and reflecting on it. I took it as a scalp, I wanted a quick $30 and I risked a $30 to get it. So the risk/reward on this trade was a 1/1. Money wise that is a bad trade, but I knew the risk when I took it. I didn't have a real reason to short it there, just thought it was going to keep going down. The big takeaway from this trade here is that I realized there is an emotional risk/reward attached to each trade. In this case the money risk/reward was 1/1 but the emotional risk/reward was not 1/1. On this scalp, if it went my way, my good feeling and state of mind would have stayed the same. There was very little to gain emotionally. When it didn't go my way I broke down. I gave away my profits and that added to my emotional stress levels and I knew it was a dumb trade right away. I was on tilt. I risked probably closer to 3 or 4 emotional capital for 0-1 emotional gain. That is a bad R/R Put simply, winning this trade doesn't make me feel any more secure or feel like a better trader, but losing this trade takes a toll mentally and hurts my confidence. Avoid the bad Emotional R/R trades. Orange - I let two different winners turn into losers after taking profits. I saw them and let them go right past my B/E. I was hoping they would continue in the direction that I wanted. When I start to hope, its time to exit! Yellow - I was really scared at this point and exited as soon as the trade went against me. My confidence was gone and i was very skittish. Red - The worst trade of the day. I traded EA and then traded and exited SQ. At that point I ran out of shares to trade. I tried to enter another trade and saw that I was near my max. (40 shares away from 4000, which explains my 40 share AAPL trade) I was down $80 after commissions at that point and I wanted to get it back. I was going to hold EA until it gave me what I wanted. I was blind to the fact that when I was trading it, I was hoping for it to break VWAP but it was clearly holding. Eventually it went against me and I had to get out. If I was trading properly, I would have exited this trade at B/E or even a small profit. Instead I was blind to the price action and instead was just watching and waiting for my P&L. Overall I overtraded. The biggest thing is that I didn't wait for the obvious setups and entry. The setups I should be taking are so obvious when I see them. I was impatient in waiting for it and took crap after crap. There were many many clear moves later on in the day, but I was out of trades. I am very grateful for the 4000 share limit, it limits my overtrading when I am trading poorly, and it forces me to learn by missing out on easier and clearer trades that happened later in the day. Getting better one day at a time.