Rob C

Wednesday 2/13/2019 A bad rule breaking day. Broke my 1 trade/day max rule today on a revenge trade. I was already shaky since I have been having an issue taking the correct shares lately. I have been cutting them in half at the last moment. This issue culminated yesterday by it help caused a wining trade to become a losing one because of the wrong share size. Today my well-being score was 4.5/10. That is lowest I allow myself to trade live but it must be half size. There was a 1min ORB set up on TEVA. This is unusual, I only have one 1min ORB setup so it’s unusual to see. But, it matched the setup criteria and I took it. Don’t you love when the stock reverses the millisecond you place your order? But this is still all OK. It correctly match the setup, I had the correct share size, my entrance was exactly where I wanted it and I had my stop out price planned. But, I was caught in the headlights and WAY over shot my stop out point. This is highly unusual for me. Since I have been live I have been very good about stop outs (which is odd since I was really bad about it on SIM). Taking the correct shares and stopping out right on queue was my two strong skills I had. Which really shocked me today now that I may be losing both. When you have just a few skills losing two can really knock you down. After my one trade a day (win or loss) I always step away from the computer for a couple of minutes. I just need 2 minutes to reset. Today I didn’t step away. I took a revenge trade on AMD very soon afterwards. It had no setup and would you know it I took the full share size. And again I let it go well past my stop out. After that I was able to pull myself away from the platform for a few minutes. I came back with huge FOMO and really wanted to revenge trade more but I kept control until 10am (EST) where I turned off the platform. I thought I was making more progress than that and was planning to allow more trades a day next week. Now I will stay at 1 trade a day for a while longer. At least I didn’t lose it or hit max loss. Live to trade another day.

Yes a Garmin watch. Its helped my sleep tremendously. I bought it for running (has a very good GPS), that after a couple of months I happen to find a really good book on sleep improvement. I would try something in the book for a few days and the watch would let me know what affect it had. Took a couple of months but I got my sleep back in order. Though with demands of family life I can only get 6 hours a sleep a night (I rather have 8), I am usually in deep sleep for >60% of the night. Its also really good on the days you wake up really groggy and think you had a bad sleep. Then the watch informs you you had a good sleep but you accidentally woke up (by alarm) in the middle of a deep sleep cycle. Thus I know in 1 or 2 hours I will feel back to normal.

Daily Trading Log Tuesday 2/12/19 Well being score of 5.5/10. Still on self-imposed 1 day a trade max. Good 2min ORBD setup on AMD but not well executed. Actually did two mistakes on the trade today. I did short exactly where I wanted on the new daily low on a very bearish forming 2min candle. But again I cut my shares in half at the last moment again. Got to stop doing that.Then AMD dropped to my tech level (23.31 which I drew in yellow before the start of the market - see chart below) for my first partial. But, because I took so few shares, I did the usual rookie thinking, "there was not enough profit yet." Yep definitely watching my P/L. I saw the next level was only a few cents away so I waited. Now the 23.31 level is already at a 2R profit. So this is really ridiculous not to take some profit. AMD then retraced to my planned S/O. Unsure why I see two cover arrows, I only covered once and I don't see any open positions (accidental long). Hopefully I don't get charged an extra commission. I went 3 months live with taking the correct share size every trade as one of my few positive things that I did. Since I have switched to DAS I seem to have the instinct to cut my shares in half. On Etrade-Pro I would calculate the shares mentally based on price/risk/ATR. On DAS, since we can, I have it programmed into my hotkeys (my buttons only show the risk amount). Now that I don't go through the math anymore I feel as if I don't believe the share size is correct and I instinctively halve it. Correcting this will be my main focus this week.

Daily Trading Log Monday 2/11/19 Well being score of 5 (calculated in last post). Still on self-imposed 1 day a trade max. More nervous than usual knowing I will be posting the trade later. First thought is I really need to take profits a penny or two earlier. This was almost a good trade. AMD was forming a very bearish 2min candle. So I shorted on the new low (VWAP was my stop loss), but took half shares (cut my risk in half). I don't know why I did that at the last second. Need to search my psyche why I did that. Took 1st profit early, before the 22.88 tech level I drew (in yellow) because I am usually nervous before my 1st partial. After that I relax (too much) and patiently wait for my 2nd target, 22.8 on the 5min chart (200MA) which missed by a penny. Then got out on a new 1min high. So I need to take those partials a couple of pennies before any target. So instead of a good trade, I would call this one a fizzle. The trade did enforce the need to take partials a little early and I need to soul search a bit to see why I cut my shares in half. I have been doing that more often lately. Overall a good learning trade.

Mark, this is my well being calculation from this morning. In general I don't score well in Winter. The cold and short days impact my work outs and energy levels. My Garmin informs me of the first 6 categories on the table. Fatigue level is self determined. I did have a headache this morning but that is unusual. I won't see a good score >7 until late Spring. My resting pulse doesn't drop below 50 all Winter.

I admired the other traders that post their trades on the BBT site. I have been trying to get the courage to start. If I am embarrassed to post the trade, I shouldn’t have taken it. So I want that consequence on my shoulder. So I promised myself when I switched from Etrade-pro back to DAS, which is much easier to journal, I would post my trades. I have been live for 3 months now. First week live on DAS. 1st week of February Risk: $25/trade Max allowable trades per day: only 1. I am having an over trading issue that I am trying to resolve. So I have a self-imposed limit of one trade per day. Friday 2/1/19 Well being score of 5.5/10. My one allowable trade was with FB. I do apologize for the chart. This was my last trade with Etrade-Pro which doesn't automatically show entrance/exits. The tech level I drew at 167.51 was too weak to act on (that is why I drew it in yellow - stronger ones are orange) so I let it go by. After the 2min candle the price sat for awhile, until it started to move and I went long. I took a partial at 1R. Price just missed the second partial at 2R by a few pennies. The 5th 1min candle spooked me and I exited. Monday 2/4/19: I gave myself a “well being” score of 4/10, which is below allowable limit to trade live. So I traded on SIM. Made 3 good trades, but since they were on the sim I won’t journal them here. Tuesday 2/5/19 Well being score of 5/10. My one allowable trade was with AAPL. A very bullish 2min candle was created and I went long as it passed the recent premarket high. I didn’t have a strong technical level for the entry or exit so I cut my shares in half (so only a ~$12 risk). Got lucky on the last exit. Wednesday 2/6/19 Well being score of 5/10. My one allowable trade was with MU. Stock made a nice ABCD inside the 5min. I was going to wait for the 5min candle to finish, but when it made a new high on increased volume I went long at 9:33am. It fizzled quickly and I got all out when it looked like it was reversing. Thursday 2/7/19 Well being score of 5.5/10. My one allowable trade was with TWTR. I made a mistake on this one. But, it didn’t cost me much to learn a good lesson. I have learned to be sloppy when zooming in on a chart not to look carefully at the tech levels because Etrade always lists the next level you drew on the edge of their chart. So you always know the next level with a quick glance. So I was careless when zooming in on TWTR and caught the 2nd tech level and not the first. The price dropped below the tech level I was going to short on, but I thought the risk/reward was so large I let the price make a new low of the day. Once that happen I shorted. Once the price dropped a little the real tech level appeared on my chart and I realized I trade now has a 1 to 1 risk/reward ratio. If I was aware of this level I would have shorted at the 31.1 level I drew where the risk/reward was OK or just not trade it. Usually, when I realize the risk/reward is wrong I get out of the trade. This usually occurs when you get a bad fill. But, since the price was moving in the right direction I waited for the 1st tech level to close the trade. It missed by a penny and retraced. Since this is not a real trade anymore, just one I am trying to get out, I stopped out at break even. Friday 2/8/19 Well being score of 6/10. My one allowable trade was with MU. The tech level I drew and the 1min VWAP coincided making it a strong tech level and I really like it when the 1min VWAP and 5min VWAP get a large separation. I took the trade at the 1min VWAP and made the 5min VWAP the first target. This trade had a very tight stop out level (just below 1min VWAP). I took the first partial at the 5min VWAP with the plan to take the next partial at the 2nd target (200MA). But, I got cold feet and made the 2nd partial in the middle of nowhere. Then all out a few cents below 200MA. It's interesting what a different perspective I get on my own trades when I post them like this. After what I thought was a good week trading and was reasonably happy after reading my journal entries, I now look at the these trades posted and I am not really proud of any of them. They look quite haphazard and not well thought out. The Friday trade with MU would be the closest, but not quite. Something for me to think about. Thanks for reading, Rob

Though I am still very new at day trading and even newer at Etrade-Pro I will list what I have learned so far. I used DAS-Pro simulator for 6 months and had issues with it. Primarily hot key mistakes. Tried both keyboard keys and mouse buttons, both for several months, but always had 1 to 3 mistakes per trading session. My mind just didn’t fit into the DAS platform. It’s a great platform so the issue lies with me. I looked at other platforms and thought ET-Pro the likely candidate to reduce the careless mistakes. It did. I went from 2 mistakes a day to 2 a month. Though unsure how much going live impacted it. That might have helped as well. Here are the pro/cons I have learned so far comparing ET-Pro to DAS-Pro (not in any order). Pro: Free platform with level 2. Free Trade Ideas Excellent charts, though I am referring to the new charts not the classic charts. I found them slightly better than DAS, which has extremely good charts. Free historical data and real time download to Excel. If you get this through E-signal, this would cost almost $200 a month. Good fills. I think of fills in 3 ways (speed of execution, fill price and short availability). As for speed of execution I found it about ½ second slower than the unrealistic fill speed of the simulator. I usually see Etrade execution speed ranked 3rd (tied to Lightspeed) where IB is number one. Fill price is excellent. I was so use to getting only the bid/ask on the simulator, it was a surprise to see I would get something in between. This made stocks like TSLA and BABA now tradeable. Where I use to get chopped up, with the big spread, on the simulator. This may be the norm with live trading (I honestly don’t know), but I was pleasantly surprised after using the SIM. Short shares availability is good. I have never not been filled yet (though I haven’t been live for very long). Lots of research at your finger tips. You probably already know all of Etrade’s perks with research. Very good customer service. Very good mobile app. Cons: Platform not very stable at open. Looks like it gets overwhelmed with the data at the open. When I first started using it there was a chance the platform would crash anytime (in the middle of a trade) up to the first hour. Especially if I used the speed keys. I worked with their tech support which mostly blamed my computer CPU speed (though I have a new high end computer with no viruses). The platform would freeze even though my CPU usage would never break 50%. Anyway, I figured out you need to keep the new charts to a minimum (so I use both classic and new charts in my layout) and Etrade-Pro is not compatible with E-signal (even if you are not running E-signal). After editing the layout and uninstalling E-signal, it’s mostly stable the first few minutes and very stable after 5min. Though it tends to give erroneous info in the positions window. But since I am trying to stop myself from looking at the P/L, it’s not a bad thing at the moment. Cost. Most traders won’t even look at Etrade due to the $4.95 cost per trade. I was able to negotiate (though it took awhile) to $3.95 and customer support said I can try negotiating to $2.95 after enough time has passed to see my consistent number of trades per month. Since I have an over trading issue, the high trading price has helped keep that in check. So currently I have no issue with the cost. Charts do not show trades. Actually I am hoping you may know a way to show the trades taken on ET-Pro charts. I haven’t seen how to do it and customer support didn’t know either. DAS is very good at that so you always know where you took the trade and thus your B/E point. Though after a few weeks I just got use to mentally keeping that information. On hard to get short shares you have a few more mouse clicks. Though most trades are one click, if you try and short a stock with limited shares you have a window pop up stating it will cost you a bit more (usually $1-$5) after hitting OK, you must take the trade as a limit order not a market, which takes a bit more time. Some parts of your layout can not be saved. Windows like the order entry and order window I have to setup again every morning. So that’s my 2 cents. ET-Pro definitely saved me. I did poorly during my 6 months on the SIM and I am satisfied how I am doing, so far, live using ET-Pro. It is quite possible I will need to move to a different broker/platform later due to the cost, hard to short stocks and execution speed. But, for now I am happy with the platform (once the freezing issue was resolved of course). -Rob