Rob C

Second week going live Futures day trading. Not an easy day to trade. Low volume and momentum, but surprisingly I found 4 setups to trade today. There was low downward momentum for the first 5 hours of trading. The price made a new low around 9am EST and a small pull back but the reward/risk was too small so I didn't trade. Sadly it was a winner. The price dropped to a new low but failed to break out. There was no entry to that trade (also a winner). The price broke through the other side of the range and a break out trade did setup but the midband was just inside the range and the price made a lower high so I didn't take it. But then the price changed direction and I went short on a failed break out trade that did make it to my target, though small. Then for 2 hours the price tried to to make a new low but could not. After the 6 failed attempt and a new high (compared the previous pivot) I went long and was immediately stopped out. Finally a real break out near noon. The price retraced and tested the backside of the area (which is a good thing) and I shorted. I placed a very conservative exit 1 tick above the LOTD. At that point there had been no real momentum all day so I didn't expect much. So I missed out on the only decent run of the day. After the run we had a nice pull back so I shorted for a continuation. Missed my target by 2 ticks and retraced back and I was out at B/E. The price pulled back more for a better reward to risk but gave no entry. That felt like a long day trading. Hope everyone did well today, Rob C

Second week going live Futures day trading. Finally a decent day trading. The momentum was running down over night but before the open flipped to strong upward momentum. I did take a test trade (long) but the risk/reward was too high since the HOTD was so close. So I only took 1 contract. The price did go and test the level so I moved my stop up and then was stopped out a few minutes later. The price really broke down through the bottom of the range and then came back up to meet the mid band (white line). Though I have a rule not to take Break Out trades if the price has already moved 5 points beyond my planned entrance (thus the move is over), the downward movement was so strong I entered the trade anyway (short) with 1 contract. I was stopped out soon after. I then entered long with a FOBO trade. The first really good looking trade of the day so I went long with two contracts. The coach from the Day trading Academy will probably say something about my first partial and wonder why I sold just after it made a new high. My first exit was was originally placed 5 ticks higher. But I have had 6 losing trades in a row now so my FOBR was really high. So I moved my limit order down some and was about to place it more exactly and then 2 bars printed really fast and filled my order. I then waited if the price would break HOTD. It did but about 20 minutes later suddenly 3 foreboding bars were printed and I exited the trade. I hope everyone is having a good day, Rob C

Second week going live Futures day trading. I incorrectly thought that two years of equity trading I would be fine making the transition to live Futures trading, but there is some psychology I need to figure out. The first week of live trading I found myself too aggressive taking the trades. This week I am compensating too much and I am being too timid and missing some great trades. The Day Trading Academy said it usually takes 2 months to make the transition from SIM to live. So I have no need to rush this. I will fine my zone. The morning had a setup with momentum down and a nice pullback. But equities had a turbulent open so I mistakenly thought so would Futures. So when there was a bit of erratic behavior just before the entry I decided not to take the trade missing a really nice trade. A bit later there was a great Test-Retest trade (double bottom trade) but I happen to be away from my computer for 5 minutes to help the kids with breakfast. So I missed it. Then I took a break out trade which looked promising breaking the top of the range with a higher high, but got stopped out. Then I took a test trade on a pull back and got stopped out. So I missed the two winners and took the two losers. That took some psychological toll so I stopped trading. With in the next 30 minutes there were two really big winners with easy setups that I missed. That didn't help the situation. But I will take my time transition.

Second week going live Futures day trading. An interesting day. With more live trading I will be able to determine if it was bad luck today or have I change my trading enough from SIM that days like today will be more common. Due to using ticks instead of dollars, it is be much more common in Futures trading to not get filled even though the price is at your order and to get stopped out at exactly a tick. But today was the first time this happen 3 times in one trading session. I thought I traded well except I took too many contracts on the first trade. Momentum was down heading into the open. We got a nice pullback and I shorted seconds before the open. Since it was so close to the open I should have only took 1 contract. But I took my normal 2 and got stopped out. I won't make that mistake again. The price pulled back more making a larger reward to risk. I shorted again and was able to cover one contract before stopped at B/E. The price moved higher breaking a marked level. The level was tested twice giving credence to it. When the price made a new high and pulled back I place a long order. The price touched it but it did not fill. Too bad because it did move higher to reach my target. Three hours later there was finally another setup. Good downward momentum and a nice pull back. I placed a limit order and again the price touched it but it was not filled. Too bad that was a big trade. The price bounced off the low 3 times then made a new local high. I went long with what The Day Trading Academy calls a Test-Retest trade. Essentially a head and shoulders set up. I was immediately stopped out. Soon after the price tried to break out and failed so I took a failed break out trade to the long. The price dropped to just touch my stop limit order. Of course this time it was filled stopping me out. Then the price shot up higher to reach my target.

Day 4 going live trading Futures (ES). I had platform issues yesterday so unable to trade effectively. I took 4 trades today which again is a lot for me. I seem to be much more aggressive when trading live over SIM. I had to wait a bit until market choose a momentum direction. My first trade was a pull back trade or test trade which immediately failed. I tried a second test trade or as Day Trading Academy refers to as a "2nd Times the Charm" trade. It's the test trade again except there needs to be a new advantage. Here the price bounced a 3rd time from a level. I went long and did get a partial but then S/O at B/E. After the price respected the level in red 5 times I took that failed break out of the level seriously and took an aggressive failed breakout trade (FOBO). Though I should wait for separation above the mid-band (in white) the BBs (black dots on the bottom plot) did show momentum up. Plus my stop was below the level in red. The trade failed immediately but I still think it was an OK trade. We then got serious momentum down and I tried a test trade again. This one worked out well. I took a partial near the outer band and then waited for a slow down to exit. Then I called it a week. Have a good weekend. Rob C

I use TechSmith Capture. I am quite happy with it. You can save it as an image, link or video.

Day 3 going live trading Futures (ES). I took 4 trades today, which is a lot. I usually take 1 or 2 Futures trades a day. Lots of upward momentum for almost two hours. Finally, a pullback around 11am EST and I tried to go long, but I had issues with my platform. Actually this was first time this has happen on Ninjatrader. It took almost 5 minutes to reset so I was a little late with my entry. I exited the trade on the early side for +3.25 points. The price made a new high and back tracked quickly. I went long with a break out trade that didn't move much so I exited at break even. Later I tried a what The Day Trading Academy refers to as a Test-Retest trade. This is essentially a double top trade. I was immediately stopped out. After the stop I noticed there was a foreboding repeating pattern that I missed about 30 minutes before. Then another break out trade. Essentially, it was a HOTD trade but entry on the pull back. This one worked but was way too early on the exit as each bar was making new highs. My nerves were definitely high today. I hope everyone had a good day. Thanks for looking. Rob C

Day 2 going live trading Futures (ES). It's funny I watched the market from open to close and only made one trade (a loser). There were 3 other really good setups but they never gave me the entry I wanted. There was good upward momentum at the open. I went long at the first pull back in hope the price will test the high of the day. Day trading Academy calls this a "Test Trade" and is the simplest setup to learn. After 5 minutes I pulled my stop up and was stopped out by a tick. But that is OK if I didn't pull my stop up I would have been stopped out 3 minutes later before the price shot up to my target. I hope everyone had a solid trading day. Rob C

I took my first live Futures day trade today (ES). Since there is no Futures section in the forums I thought I would post it here. I studied Futures for 6 weeks then started "bar by bar" sim trading (stepping through time manually) for two months. Then I traded sim for 7 months. My first 3 months being terrible. Then went live today. I have been learning through the Day Trading Academy. So the setups you see me take were created by them. There was no setup for about 20 minutes after the open so I was able to finish with my equities trading and focus on Futures. There was great momentum down from PM and I tried to short on a pull back but did not get filled. Then there was a failed break out where I got to excited and took the trade long before a HH confirmation. Luckily the market was kind enough to teach me a lesson by stopping me out to the tick. Then I took a break out trade that worked OK but I did exit a bit early. I hope everyone had a solid day trading. Rob C

Hi Kyle, thanks for the quick response and a big thank you for sharing your hot key scripts with the BBT community. Thanks for letting me know about the DAS update I will upgrade this weekend. I am only still only using a risk of $10 as I test the hot keys and since I need a min of $25k in my account BP shouldn't be an issue. I am using a few months old computer with one of the fastest Intel chips. But as the market opens the fans start to blow at max speed and I am unable to use the DAS recording app. I actually can see the platform slow down. So I must be on the edge of the computers limits. I agree and only use market orders for stops. But I did like my old hot keys that I could use "StopPrice - 0.05". But using your script it creates two orders on the chart and one order in the order window. Sometimes the phantom order is the one that gets triggered and thus the stop does not function. So I have removed it and so far I don't see an issue yet. Maybe the new DAS version has that fixed as well. Can you specify the Chart Order QTY flag? I am not familiar with the term. Thanks again! Much appreciated!

There are members that are a lot more knowledgeable with the hot key scripts than me, but since I don't see anyone respond yet I will tell you what I know about that issue. I have seen it as well though slightly different, probably because I use IB. I just started using Kyle's hotkeys 3 weeks ago. First week I used them on replay mode. They worked fine except the order disappears on your chart if you move it. But that is a small price to pay. Then I tried them at the open in sim. I usually take a trade in the first minute after the open. Maybe this puts undue stress on the PC and platform. These scripts maybe too long and issues arise. I don't see issues after about 10 minutes after the open. But in that first minute I saw a range of concerns and all random. About 30% of the time something funny would happen. For example about 30% of the time the study config window would open when I am trying to short a stock. I made some modifications and it seem like the issues were under control. Then I tried it live. Keeping my risk small I started trading with Kyle's scripts live. Most of the time there are no issues. Then usually on a day that I am taking a lot of trades, issues start to occur, especially if I am in two trades at the same time on two different montages with one long and one short. I commonly get stuck in the short trade with no way to cover. Even the panic button doesn't work. though it will always end the long trade. And yes I have seen several times my stop, which is plainly visible on my chart, seem to have no effect as the stock price flies right through it. Though this does not consistently happen. I recorded it to send to DAS support when I figured out a solution. I don't like my stops where I choose them. Sounds funny, but after a 100 times getting stopped out by a penny or 2 and missing a 6R run I realized there are another 10,000 retailers just like me picking the same stop. So some algo drops down and takes us all out before going higher. So I placed a delta in the hotkey. This has really helped. So I did the same thing with Kyle's hotkey, but there is an issue. I assume you can do this safely with a limit order but with a market order it seems to cause an issue once in awhile. I see two orders created on my chart. One at the stop price and in your script, 2 cents below. So I see two orders on my chart. But only on order in the order window. The price then drops and sometimes only one of the orders (the wrong one) gets triggered. I still have the position and the stop order in the order window. Essentially, the stop didn't work. I tried changing it from 0.02 to 00.0 but had the same issue. Finally I removed it and I only have the stop price or avgprice in the script. You could also switch to a stop limit order instead. So far that is working. I haven't seen that issue for a few days now. Please try that and see if it helps. Kyle's scripts are awesome. I think my trading is so close to the open with multiple positions overwhelms the platform. Sorry about the long winded response. Hopefully there was something useful in my post. Rob C

My summary of my second year of trading live. If I sum up my two years of live trading, it would be the surprising path of self-improvement that day trading instigates. Day trading, especially at the open, is an effective and sometimes harsh vehicle to face all your fears and unproductive habits. All the layers of checks and balances that you have developed over the years to counteract personality flaws no longer work. Trading is too fast, too fierce, it pierces through the mental defenses because the decisions are instant. So as both Mark Douglas and Dr. Steenbarger state in their books, you must improve yourself to improve in trading. In case you don’t want to read my whole post I have tabulated the differences between my first and second year. Then I explain in more detail below. 1st Year 2nd year Profitability Break Even Profitable Common Setups 1/5min ORB - break out from levels 15 sec and 1min ORBs. Fallen Angels Key trading parameters Candles, (Daily+PM) levels, MAs and T/S Price action, candles, volume and L2 Office setup Laptop with two external monitors. Stand up desk Laptop with two external monitors. Stand up desk DAS Setup Two montages, four 1min charts hotkeys by shares size One montage, six 1min charts and hotkeys by risk size Stops Manual Hard stops Bias None Long Broker CMEG/Centerpoint IB Chat Always on Turn on for PM show and turn off a few seconds before the open Journal Online on the BBT website. Heavy data mining for improvements Private and now video with hand written journal. Some minor data mining. Study 13 hours a week outside of markets, training and studying. Recaps, reading and SIM. 10 hours a week and most of it Futures and psychology. Max loss Did not hit max loss for the last 9 months of the first year. Max loss is hit about 3 times a month. Exercise Run 3 times a week and walk 4 times a week. Run 7 days a week. Meditation 10 to 20 min a day 10 to 20 min a day Stress High stress before the market open then heart pounding until I stop trading for the day. Mild stress before and during the open with occasional stress increase on certain trades. Luck Hotkey and other mistakes always go against me I get some lucky breaks sometimes. So for profitability I lost money my first 3 months live, then was break even the next eight. Finally, my last month of my first year I was profitable. My second year I have been profitable 11 out of 12 months reaching my 20R/month goal five times. My setups haven’t changed that much, but the indicators I use have changed. My first year I was heavy into breakouts of daily/PM levels now I am more into price movement and volume. So my first year I could explain all the specifics why I took a trade. My second year the trade setups are more difficult to explain. Things like, “I just felt the way the price was moving it looked like it was going to pop.” Not helpful when you are mining your journal for consistency. I have kept to two computer monitors the whole two years. Since I trade the open I need to keep my attention focused. Data overload is easy and I will miss the move. This year I even lowered to one montage to help me focus on one trade at a time. It sometimes feels I took a step back with my stops. My first year it was all manual stops, now it is all hard stops. I was always hoping, with the manual stops, as I get better I would start to exit before my stop when I see the trade going bad. That skill never materialized. Instead I wasted lots of mental energy keeping to my stops without any benefit. So I switched to placing a stop order right after I enter the trade. My first year I tried two different brokers. First I tried CMEG which took quite an effort to open an account. The killer was the $3 price tag on every ticket. Since my risk per trade was low at the time and I take too many partials, I would have good trades that I would not net any profit. After a few months I switched to Centerpoint when BBT had a deal on 35 cents per ticket. But my fills were so bad I was unable to trade the open. When I discussed it with the broker they suggested I switch to a different (faster) route which cost $1 a ticket. The fills were OK but not impressive. Then the shorts availability was REALLY bad and they were known for having the best shorts availability. They would split their shorts into easy and hard categories. The easy short list you can just short. The hard to short list stocks you would have to use their app to find shares. This app, besides costing more money than their commissions, would take too long to use at the open. I usually like a list of 6 stocks on my watch list. But the whole time I was with Centerpoint half my watchlist would not have shorts, while I see Carlos have shorts most of the time. The final straw was due to the unreliability of their max loss risk setting. It would only sometimes work. When a stock spikes down for an instant and touches my max loss the risk controls would work too well and liquidate my position and lock me out. But when I was stuck in a trade that even the panic button could not get me out of I thought I was safe because the risk controls would save me. But when I called the broker to get me out of the trade they informed me it was already three times my max loss and they do not know why the risk controls failed. Then I finally switched to IB and have been quite happy with them. My first year I would have the chat on as I traded. But I found myself with terrible FOMO hearing better trades being taken. Now I listen to the PM show and turn off the chat seconds before the open. This has improved my trading. My journaling has sure changed from year one to two. The first year I journalled on the BBT website, which you can see from the previous posts. My second year I record all my trades and watch them later. Then by hand I journal my notes. I find hand writing the notes goes into memory better. I use to study a bit more my first year, trading on SIM, reading tech books, watching recaps, reading other BBT journals and reading trading psychology books. My second year I watch and trade SIM on Futures trading and read self-improvement books. I still meditate the same amount but I have moved to more intensive exercise. I went 9 months, in my first year, without hitting my max loss. I was proud of my discipline. But now I do try and trade if I am in a deficient. Most of the time I do dig my way out. About 3 times a month I don’t and hit max loss. I am getting better about the max loss. In general my stress levels have gone way down as I trade. My first year my heart would pound at the open even though my risk per trade was quite low. Now I am more excited at the open and only stressed once in a while. My luck has changed. Hotkey mistakes and bad fills ALWAYS went against me my first year. Now I get some lucky breaks sometimes. So myself destructive behavior may be decreasing. Here is my thoughts on luck: I met one of the luckiest people and worked with him in graduate school then the corporate world for about 12 years. It’s amazing how luck is always on his side and he always makes the assumption that luck will be on his side. After 12 years I see how it actually works. It’s two major traits. One there must be dozens (or more) little decisions made every day that are very binary. He will always lean to making the decision that may bring something positive, though the odds are very small. I will tend to do the opposite and make decisions that may cause something negative to happen. After say a week, a few hundred of these choices have occurred. One or two pan out or a combo of several and something reasonable go his way and the opposite for me. Since it is impossible to follow the repercussions of all these choices, it looks like good or bad luck. The second trait is an open mind to different possibilities. If you think that something positive may happen, when an opportunity, though it may be outside the box, crosses your path, he would see it and act. I would be close minded and not see it. There is actually some data for this. I once read about an experiment where volunteers were gathered. One set of people considered themselves usually the lucky type and the second group considered themselves unlucky. Everyone was given a newspaper and asked to count the number of pictures in the newspaper. The unlucky group usually took 2 or 3 minutes to count all the pictures. The lucky group usually took around 10 seconds. Because the lucky group all noticed a big sign on page two stating, “there are 46 pictures in the newspaper.” The unlucky group were focused on just looking for pictures and never noticed the sign. You can imagine how that applies to day trading. The final thing that made me profitable? This is the change that finally placed me into profitability for ORBs. Add a few cents to your stop. I kept missing huge runs by the price dropping and taking me out by a penny or two and going for a 10R run. I kept telling myself it was a coincidence there isn't an algo going to my stop and taking me out. But after a 100 or so times I realize that is exactly what the algo is doing. Because I have set my stop in the same place as the other 10,000 or so retailers. So we all can be taken out at the same penny or two because we all chose to have our stop 5 cents below VWAP or something like that. So I added a couple of cents to my hot key. I still choose the same stop as always but my hot key makes the stop a couple of pennies deeper. Same for my B/E stop key I added a couple of cents. Now, at least half the time, the price drops just misses my stop and the stock takes me with it on its big run. I spent the first year reading trading books and stock trading books. I remember when I read in Douglas/Steebarger’s books about needing to improve yourself if you want to improve your trading. I thought that’s fine, so how do I do that. All the trading psychology books give you details on how to improve your trading and the need to go deeper, but they would never say how. All the books seemed to discuss how to fine tune your psychology. They were very good, but didn’t help. What about me who needs a complete overhaul? So I tried paying a course from the Van Tharp Institute. This is a trading school, that is on the pricey side but very good. Van Tharp actually has a list of 40 trading rules that I recommend reviewing. I posted them here: https://forums.bearbulltraders.com/topic/2199-tharp-think-principles-for-trading/?tab=comments#comment-16787So I paid for one of their self-study courses. I posted the work I did here: https://forums.bearbulltraders.com/topic/1286-van-tharp-institute-peak-performance-course-for-traders-my-journey-through-the-course/?tab=comments#comment-8893It was a lot of work and I only found a few things useful, which I will list here. First, the most common trait they have found in successful traders is that they exercise four or more hours a week. Second, I took a test to see if I have enough avenues to decrease stress in my life that it was safe for me to day trade. I failed so badly that my score wasn’t even on their charts. And finally they recommended listening to the book The Secret. Forgetting about the mysticism or trendiness of The Secret I found two things very useful from the book. First, how to correctly be positive. I know that a positive attitude helps, but you have to correctly be positive. For example I would say to my-self “I will not trade the premarket, I will not trade the premarket.” Well that is reinforcing the negative and making trading in the PM more likely. Instead saying, “I will have full control of my trading in the premarket,” is better but not quite there. The correct way is to be thankful that you already have full control of your trading in the PM. It is weird to be grateful of something you don’t already have, but this places your mind in the right state. How can you be self-destructive about PM trading if you already think you have control over it? The second useful thing from the book is it gave me a list of authors that I can look to for answers. For some reason I shied away from the well known authors, assuming they were trendy and read quite a few of the less well known ones. Their books were good and they seemed like people I would respect, but none of them were useful. So I decided to try one of the more trendy authors, James Ray, and found his book very good. Not crazy he went to prison, so you really have to separate the message from the messenger. Though only some practical use, and too much mystic explanation, it did tell his journey how he found answers for himself. His interpretation on the Bible’s claim of a rich man going to heaven is like a camel passing through an eye of a needle was alone worth the read. Then I continued to Jack Canfield’s book Success Principles. Because of his fame with the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, I originally thought he was too trendy. This book was also very good and more practical. The I read the Unfu*k Yourself book. Another trendy book that is worth reading and some Tony Robbins stuff is very good and the most practical. Again due to his trendiness and tons of info commercials I originally shied away from him as well. Another good book is the Alchemist which puts everything together in a fictional story. So I still have a lot to learn, but now I have some knowledge of the improvement methods. I hope to start trading Futures live soon. I have been trading SIM for a few months now. Thanks for reading and good luck with your trading and other pursuits. Rob C

It is just amazing to watch Andrew, even today, where he decides he wants out of the trade then waits for B/E and gets out with no loss. I knew I would never be able to do that with a hard stop. If the hard stop is there you always wait for the hard stop to trigger. But with the mental stop it is more plausible to exit with a small stop. But after a year of trying I never got the hang of exited a trade before my stop but still for a loss. That takes a level of mindfulness and discipline that I haven't reached YET. But in the mean time I will use the hard stop so I can make some money while I develop that skill.

I liked trading stocks that stayed in play for weeks and you got to know the way they trade. So I was thinking Futures you could learn 2 or 3 instruments and get to know them well and trade them for years not weeks. So I am taking a training course (a bit pricey), they train you on the ES first. I was surprised how many retailers trade the ES. I guess the really large margin and no PDT rule attracts them. Hard stop is a must for me now trading so close to the open. The issue I have is if I have a hard stop I tend to wait for the stop. When I was making mental stops and the trade started not to look good I exited before my stop.

I was designated an essential worker, so I was still working onsite at my employers half the time. So from a personal standpoint my trading has not changed too much. Though I started to learn Futures this year. I studied for 4 months then I have been trading on the SIM (Ninjatrader) for 3 months now. From a technical side my trading has changed quite a bit. I usually trade 1/2 minute ORBs. Soon after the pandemic the fallen angel setup changed. A strong stock dropping to VWAP doesn't seem to stop falling at VWAP. You have to wait and see where it reverses and wait for a hammer to form before you can go long. Sadly, about twice a month I still go long at VWAP, out of reflex and get stopped out. Also the ORBs keep starting earlier and earlier. Today I went long 17 seconds after the open with ROKU. Due to the early ORBs I had to start using hard stops this year. Though all of last year I used mental/manual stops. But that close to the open you blink and the price is sitting at -3R. So I need the hard stop now. I hope everyone is safe and also were not impacted by the wildfires.

Thanks for the link. That bootcamp would have been great for me 2 years ago when I got started (or even last year). I am sure you will do well. I would be really interested if you post some of the training here.

Hi Hailchaser2, what is the Peak Capital Bootcamp?

Depends on you style of trading. I used Centerpoint (US based) for over a year and it didn't fit my style. But the commissions were about the same as IB, DAS worked well, and good customer service. They didn't fit my style of trading. their shorts were different than IBs. Their easy to short list (instant short) was much smaller than IB. Their hard to short list, (but you had to use an extra app which cost more and was time consuming) is better than IB's. Their fills, depending on their route, are better than IB's if you sacrifice speed. Or worse but are lighting fast. Essentially, the fast route was just at ask/bid which is fine for tight spread stocks. So for trend traders who like to trade in low floats to the short side they are likely the best. For me who trade ORBs on big float stocks right at the open, it didn't work well. I was limited with my shorts and the fast route sometimes gave me poor fills since the bid-ask spread can get large right at the open. So I moved to IB.

I was rereading Van Tharp's 40 principles for reinforcement and thought it would be good to post them. These are from a free book on the website: https://www.vantharp.com/home-study Most of these principles you will find in Andrew's book but stated differently. Also, Van Tharp is much heavier into position sizing strategies. I can post more about that topic if there is an interest. Here they are: Tharp Think Principles 1. Successful trading can be modeled and taught to other people. 2. Learning to trade well requires as much work/education as any other profession. 3. You need to find a trading system that fits you. 4. In order to accomplish that, you must know yourself: a. Your values b. Your strengths c. Your weaknesses d. Your parts e. Significant beliefs f. Trading edges g. Trading weaknesses 5. You can only trade your beliefs about the markets, not the markets themselves. Thus, you should know and understand your beliefs and whether or not they are useful. 6. System development is 100 percent (1) beliefs (2) mental states, and (3) mental strategies. Thus, it is 100 percent psychology. 7. You must know your personal criteria for being able to trade a system with confidence. 8. A mistake means not following your rules. If you don’t have rules, everything you do is a mistake. 9. It is much better to trade a lower-scoring SQN system that fits you than a higher-scoring SQN system that doesn’t fit you. 10. You are responsible for everything that happens to you. When you understand this, you can correct your mistakes. We call this respond-ability. 11. Repeating the same mistake over and over is self-sabotage. 12. A trader who makes one mistake in 10 trades is 90 percent efficient; that 10 percent drop in efficiency could be enough to make him/her a losing trader. 13. Fifty percent of system development is thinking through and clearly defining a set of written objectives. Those objectives should address your desired gain, your maximum acceptable draw-down, and the relative importance of each. 14. You need to design core objectives that fit you. 15. There are potentially as many objectives as there are traders. 16. You meet your objectives through position sizing strategies. 17. The overwhelming majority of your performance is due to your position sizing strategy and your efficiency as a trader. 18. You must know your mission/purpose in life and incorporate that into your trading. 19. You need to know your financial freedom number (passive income per month less monthly expenses). When it’s positive, you are financially free. 20. Never open a position without knowing the initial risk. 21. Define your profits and losses as a multiple of your initial risk (R-multiples). 22. Limit your losses to 1R or less. 23. Make sure your profits on the average are bigger than 1R. 24. Never take a trade unless the reward-to-risk ratio of that trade is at least 2:1 and perhaps even 3:1 25. Your trading system is a distribution of R multiples. 26. When you understand #6 you should be able to hear/see a description of a system and know the kind of R-multiple distribution it would generate. 27. The mean of that distribution is the expectancy, and it tells you what you’ll make on the average trade. It should be a positive number. 28. The mean, standard deviation, and the number of trades determine the SQN score for your system. 29. Your SQN score tells you how easy it will be to meet your objectives using position sizing strategies. Other than that, your system has nothing to do with meeting your objectives. 30. Systems are usually named after their setups, which are usually based on some attempt to predict future prices. Prediction has nothing to do with trading well. 31. System performance has to do with controlling risk and managing the position through your exits. 32. There are at least six different market types. You should understand how your system will perform in each of them. a. Bull volatile b. Bull quiet c. Sideways volatile d. Sideways quiet e. Bear quiet (almost doesn’t exist) f. Bear volatile 33. It’s easy to design a Holy Grail system (one with a high System Quality Number score) for any one market type listed above. 34. It’s insane to expect that trading system to work in all market types. 35. The biggest mistake people make is to try to design one system to fit all markets. 36. You should only trade your system in the market type for which it was designed. 37. Good traders understand the big picture, know how to measure it, and become aware when the situation changes. 38. Media and academia know none of this and will not teach it to you. 39. For each market type, you need a large sample size to estimate what the population is for that system. 40. You also need to Monte Carlo simulations with your system’s R-multiples to get a better idea of what to expect in the future. This will work if the sample you draw from is similar to the population.

The added psychology seminars have been very good. For most traders they are great for fine tuning their mental game. But there may be other traders like me that fine tuning may not be enough, I needed a complete overhaul.... In cases like me a Life Coach is also beneficial. No need to hire a Life Coach but using their methodology was very helpful for me. Besides mindfulnesss (which is being covered well on BBT) their other methods are: Affirmations Removal of internal negative talk Gratitude Asking for what you want correctly Accountability Mastermind groups Letters to past influential people Goal setting So just suggesting that a seminar with a life coach may useful to some of the BBT members.

That was an awesome exit.

The Complete Swing Trading Course (Updated 2020) by Wealthy Education

Thursday 04/16/2020 I had a well-being score of 6.5/10 this morning. Another day I didn't feel myself and felt no discipline. I guess last Wednesday was not a fluke. I need some time off. It has been a month now with the "Shelter-in-place" and my work has evolved into 7 days a week. I have been recently lax with my meditation and other self coaching activities, so I will strengthen those first. I will force myself to take 2 days off a week from work. I will not open my platform tomorrow. If I open my platform next week it will be SIM only. If I don't see any improvement I may be in SIM for the rest of the month. I don't usually journal my SIM trades on line so you won't be seeing much of me in the near future. Good luck to everyone. Trade safe. Stay safe.

DAS doesn't directly run on Mac. but there are traders that trade on their Mac so there is a way to run it. I am not a Mac user so I am unsure. I thought one trader mentioned something called Bootcamp can be used.

I did actually purchase Trade Ideas my first year and did not find it useful. All I needed from Trade Ideas was already set up with the BBT scanners. So once I had the chatroom open, I just used their scanners.