RTrader

Peter has some good suggestions. I really agree with the loss limits. Although DAS risk controls are platform only. A really pissed off emotional trader simply logs into TWS and trades more That is what I used to do when I traded stocks. Some brokers have risk controls on their side that you cannot change (at least not without annoying them with emails or calls to remove it). I have my futures contract size reduced so I can only enter so many contracts. I had one of my biggest losses last Wednesday that could have been prevented if I had this set up at my broker. I keep good records in Excel of every days result, gross and net so I know my PnL, %, and fees. Plus I track it weekly and monthly. I look back through history a lot and see that I can make money. So when I have a losing day I know I just need to reset the mind, and I normally bounce back quick. It took me 5 years to get profitable.

Since I am a futures trader, I watch the depth of market (DOM) window. I only trade the NQ (Nasdaq) so with experience I've been able to identify the volume and how price moves, who is in control and how powerful and committed the buyers or sellers are. I can also tell when it's just running stops, and when algos are running the market vs. actual hand traders. With stocks you can see this with level 2, but it's very hard if you trade different stocks all the time, because every stock has it's own way of trading.

I agree with Peter B. When you are starting out, you really are not going to know how you will trade and what your edge will be (or your specialty). It took me years of trying things to figure out what works for me and I also stopped trying to correct and change my style. I just created something that works around it. Focus on probability, and at least for me I don't use a daily goal. I use a weekly goal instead. I do this because I never know when the good days will be. On good trading days I can make my whole weekly goal in a day or even in minutes. I always push it and trade bigger on good days where there are lots of setups in the Nasdaq futures market. It's really important to not turn trading into a 9-5. The fact is you can make in a month what some do in a whole year. To better understand why a stock or commodity trends while others chop around, it is all about order flow and price action. Watch it and learn about it. You will get it over time but it takes a lot of screen time to read price action well. It's especially hard with stocks because all stocks trade differently.

If you scalp like this you should be trading futures anyway, not stocks. I used to have DAS with IB, and IB's API on other platforms. The API, whether FIXAPI or anything else, all the same! Total piece of junk. My fun issue with DAS and IB was that I would end up in a short position randomly, from an order that I cancelled in DAS minutes or hours earlier, but it ended up not being cancelled in IB's system. I would find out later on, when I would be short some amount of shares in a stock I traded earlier in the day! It certainly made me lose all confidence in the situation so I moved on and never looked back.

FrontageFlyer: For futures... the exchange and clearing fees and those are fixed and not part of broker commissions. Commissions are normally low, but TS has the highest around. I pay .09cents with AMP. That is .41cents lower than TS. It costs too much to use TS, so I would avoid them. NT will get you faster data, and better execution as well. Are you scalping, or swing trading? For swing most of this will not matter. But if you are active scalping which is what I do, then fees and execution is really important. Jason

FrontageFlyer: For futures... the exchange and clearing fees and those are fixed and not part of broker commissions. Commissions are normally low, but TS has the highest around. I pay .09cents with AMP. That is .41cents lower than TS. It costs too much to use TS, so I would avoid them. NT will get you faster data, and better execution as well. Are you scalping, or swing trading? For swing most of this will not matter. But if you are active scalping which is what I do, then fees and execution is really important. Jason

Hey Dutch, I am in Bend, Oregon USA. 100's of miles or many km's of singletrack here right out my door basically. It's awesome and a great way to relieve stress and get exercise after work and trading. Even during lunch!

Good insights. As far as the employment picture. It is so unprecedented that we have no way to predict what will happen with the economy in the US, and other countries as well. There is a very high chance it will be a recession so bad and deep that everyone will wish this was just 2008. Employment and people's confidence in things drives everything in the economy. Stocks are massively overvalued for the lack of growth right now. Good article on the employment, before the actual number came out last week. This coming week will probably be even worse for unemployment claims. As it turns out being a trader is one of the best jobs for times like this. https://www.vox.com/2020/3/21/21188529/initial-unemployment-claims-goldman-sachs

Can anyone prove that ORB's have an edge over time (long or short with specific setup criteria)? I'd love to see the data on it. Jason

Hell yha, I mountain bike all the time. It's been my thing for years. Jason

This is probably because of the volatility. Brokers have the right to change margin requirements at any time, and they will do that in markets like this with very high ranges. My futures broker has recently raised margins about 6x-10x what they used to be. It's fine, just trade smaller and stick with cash only positions ideally. Otherwise you are under capitalized in this kind of environment.

Trading is about probability. You could have 10 losses in a row, and it really doesn't mean anything or have anything to do with you. Most of the time it is just a crap market or low volume chop that does me in for the day. The best thing is to work on how to identify a high probability trade, and also a market that isn't good to trade in. If you can do this and execute properly you will be able to make money by avoiding the bad days. I think stopping at X stop outs just prolongs your learning time. Who knows, the next trade could have been your big winner.

Advice: Get rid of daily goals and dollar related goals completely. Focus on routine, and process. Focus on keeping your mindset as clear and patient as possible. None the monetary goals matter when you are all screwed in the head when trading. Also when it comes to how much % do I make a day... I have no clue! It depends on what the market gives me. I trade futures, not stocks, but I can tell you if the market is good and it's easy to trade, I stay all day because you need to push it when it's good. You have to have big days in order to make up for the draw-downs, which are going to happen. Trading is not a normal job and it's not a linear path. It's a journey for sure. Jason

Another option is to use TradeStation. The platform is excellent, and I’ve always had great execution with them. They are now commission free as well, so you don’t need to worry about that. You just pay the finra/exchange fees which are very low. They got rid of their platform fee as well. So with that including the commission savings, your business costs will be at least 500$ less each month. If you trade big size then you might save thousands per month in fees, lowering your break even.

This happens all the time, but you might not really notice it on a large cap stock. Basically if you watch the tape and you see lots of orders/shares being filled at a certain price or range, but the L2 says there are very few shares at those prices than you have a hidden seller or buyer accumulating or unloading a position. I'm not sure if you could develop much of an edge looking for this, but it is interesting to see it happen.

Yes it will show right away in TWS or the mobile app. But if you trade in TWS it will mess up everything in DAS in regard to your positions and PNL, until the next day. Just FYI on that Jason

You should look at the leverage as only a way to trade more expensive stocks, and to short. It also allows you to open more than one position of 5,000 (your cash balance) at one time. Your risk should always be based on your cash balance, or even better... what you personally can handle losing on a trade, or in a day as long as it's < 1%! Jason

I have Arcabook and Nasdaq Totalview, both provided when you ask for them from Schwab at no charge. It covers all the L2 I need. I think that sounds like what you are using as well. Jason

As I have mentioned in other posts, swing trade is a much better way to approach the markets. You should try it. It takes time out of the equation which for day traders is a real problem. So many times I have seen stocks make a high probability move or a gap the following day after a good trade set up with an edge appears (usually around the end of the day). If you swing trade, typically the close is the best time to get in. You will also not need to worry about PDT that way. You can trade smaller size and go for a larger move. Overall your stats should be much better with swing trading by taking smaller positions and getting more out of them. You have to trade a size that you are comfortable with. Something that you will not stress about having open overnight. PM me if you want some recent swing examples that I took. Jason

You may also consider trading micro futures (MES/S&P500 futures or MNQ/Nasdaq futures). An account your size would have a chance there. It's certainly much easier than trading stocks with a small account. You can check it out and practice for free using Ninjatrader https://ninjatrader.com/ To be in this business full time, you should really have more than 100K and have your living expenses taken care of elsewhere. Otherwise I think the emotional roller coaster will destroy you. It took me years to figure that out J

I use a 4 tick renko bar which is a range based bar (not time based) It only paints a bar every time the market moves 1 Nasdaq point. For futures I also use a daily and 60m chart to see larger trends and levels in the market. I find that it's a lot faster and easier to see the trends using range based bars instead of time based. In the ES/MES I would use a 2 tick range or renko bar since that market doesn't move as much as the NQ/MNQ. The below shows the MNQ with a pretty big range of over 125 ticks. Happened very fast, about 8 minutes, as the market moved to the VWAP and through it (orange line) and re-tested it before moving higher again. It presented some nice opportunity with low risk.

Jennifer, If you are an American citizen, just open an IB account with your US info/address etc. You can trade anywhere with that account and pay US taxes, or not if you lose money. Unless you renounced your citizenship or something like that then you can do this. I've traded all over the world with futures accounts and with IB USA. Otherwise long term investing or swing trading is your only option with those fees and taxes.

Exactly, the pace the of tape is really important. I don't even have L2 anymore. Just watch tape and chart. Chart patterns mean nothing if there is no orders coming through on the time and sales. Traders can manipulate L2 and hide orders, but nobody can hide from the tape

I lived in Spain and Portugal a few years ago and traded from those countries. The internet speed might be a concern in Italy. I didn't really have issues with the speeds where I was, Lisbon, and Valencia. Being a US citizen I didn't change anything with my accounts. No tax issues or anything since I was not a resident in Europe. I am guessing you are from Italy or another Euro country so you might need to deal with the local taxes. They sound very high and could be hard to be net profitable. If you are from the US you just live anywhere and trade, and pay the taxes, or not if you lose money

I see that a lot. It is not a real trade. Just ignore those They happen a lot in pre-post markets. I have seen them happen but no trades actually went into the tape when it showed up.