jeremyjohnolson

But isn't trading a lot about figuring out what works for you as an individual? So basically every time a new trader is learning then he/she is in essence a little bit of a pioneer because they have to figure it out for themselves. I mean, I hear people say all the time that you cannot just copy someone else, you have to find what works for you. Anyway, before we get too off track on this tangent, I just want to be clear, I do not entire disagree with your point of view. In fact I probably agree with you a whole lot more than I disagree with you. The only thing that just doesn't sit well with me is just being told that I cannot come up with any good ideas. I doubt my scalping in the direction of a proven strategy idea is even original idea anyway. It's really just more of a way of scaling out of a trade if you think about it. At any rate, we can argue and debate all day long I am just going to try it though because I have heard no arguments from you or anyone else that would convince me it is not at least worth trying out. I will let you know how it goes.

I agree with your statement. However, the reason I am including it as a strategy is because there is more to it than just simply a scalp. Maybe I should call it something else to be more descriptive, like "scalp in direction of established strategy" or maybe to be shorter just "strategy scalp". I don't know. Maybe it's a crazy idea lol. I could be going down a wrong road. That's why I posted here, so honestly, I welcome criticism of my idea. I want to know if it's a bad idea or not. I will take all constructive criticism seriously and keep an open mind, but I will also try it out for myself (in sim to begin with). I believe my best shot of succeeding is to listen to others, but also to test and prove things out for myself at the same time. What works for one person will not necessarily work for another since we each think and act differently. So we have to listen to others with experience, but I believe we also have to take what they say with a little bit of a grain of salt because they are not you, they do not know you personally and how you think and how you trade. Also, I read in a few posts back something to the effect that everything that could be thought of regarding trading has already been thought of and not to try to come up with anything new because it won't work. While on one hand I get what I think he is trying to say and I do think there is an element of truth to it, on the other hand I also see this as very "in the box" type thinking. So the element of truth to that sentiment, in my opinion, is that most "out of the box" thinking types of ideas, probably 99% of them, do in deed fail because there is a reason that "in the box" types of ideas are in the box to begin with, because they are tried and true and proven to work. However, that is no reason to simply as a rule discard all outside the box ideas since to do so would be an end to all new innovation. There is no possible way I would ever believe that ALL possible trading ideas have already been thought of and we might as well stop trying to explore new ideas. So yes, I will continue to explore new ideas, and yes, 99% of them will probably fail and prove to be bad ideas, but that is the only way to find that 1% of new ideas that nobody ever thought of before. Or just a new way of looking at an old idea and a new way of implementing it in a way nobody ever thought of before (or at least that I know of).

It could be better or it could be worse, you did not give enough information for me to answer your question because it also depends on what the win rate is. The “R” is only one variable in the equation. I mean if you take it to the extreme and say for arguments sake that the win rate is only 10% for the 2R trade, then that would be an overall losing strategy regardless of the fact that you have 2R on winning to losing trades because you only win on average 10 out of 100 trades. Maybe you win $2 and lose $1, but if you only win 10 times and lose 90 out of 100 trades you have a net loss of $70 on average over time (scale up and add a few zeros onto the end of those numbers if you wish but the math is still the same). So win rate and risk to reward rate both must be taken into account when trying to determine if a strategy is a winning or losing strategy. Also, I was just putting numbers to my example to illustrate a point, I am not saying you would have to take 80 trades before it becomes profitable. It’s already profitable, on average, after your first trade (on average). Lastly, I hear what you are saying about that there might be better set ups, better strategies, but if the quick scalp works 80% of the time, why not do it? What is stopping me from doing both the “superior” 2R (or better) trade strategies and the quick scalp at the same time by taking a large position at first then taking it off to recognize quick profits and holding a relatively smaller position for the bigger move, sizing my position based on good risk management based on where a good technical stop loss level should be placed?

Thank you everyone for your input, it’s been very helpful. I just want to make a couple comments for now. First, this idea I had of scalping is not my only strategy that I have been working on, it’s just one new one I am trying out but it is in conjunction with my other strategies in my play book. In other words, I would not randomly or arbitrarily just jump into any old stock that is ranging or trending, but I would do it based on other indicators which make me believe it will go one direction or another. I guess the big difference is instead of taking a smaller position and waiting for a big move, I take a big position and wait for a small move to increase win rate. My plan is to nest this scalp strategy with my other more conventional strategies so that I take a big position for a short pop in my direction then leave a more normal sized position for the larger move. I have only tried it a couple days so far and it has worked out quite nicely (in sim). I took about 30 trades and had an 82% win rate, but only over two days time, so definitely need more time to see if it’s really working. Also, I got a bit confused on the whole bar example because I do think that overall you come out ahead if you risk say $1 to make $0.80 if your win rate is 80% (just using random numbers to illustrate a point) because you will win more than you lose. So at the end of the day when you add up 80 winners of $0.80 each you get $64.00 less 20 losers of $1.00 each, or $20 in total, you net $44 profit. So yes, mathematically you can win by having a RR less than 1 as long as the win rate is high enough to make up the difference. Is it the way I want to trade all the time, probably not. Of course I would rather get large moves and make bank with fewer trades. That’s why this scalp strategy would just be one more arrow in my quiver and not my only one. Anyway, just wanted to chime in with those couple thoughts for now.

I am thinking of adding a new strategy to my play book. I tried it in sim today and it worked very well. I will continue testing it out in sim for several sample sets of 20 each before I actually try it live to be sure it is working (or prove it doesn't). Please leave any and all comments, shoot holes in it, or let me know if you think it's a good idea, or could use some tweaking, etc... I have noticed that nearly all trades I take from my play book will be in the green at least at some point, even if only for a small moment, even the ones that never fully hit even my first profit target and eventually end up stopping me out completely. So the idea I have is to take the same trade I would normally take from my play book, like the 1 min ORB or 5 min ORB for example, but then to take a much larger position size then would otherwise be justified based on good risk management and a normal technical stop loss level and then only hold the trade for a very small movement in my favor instead of holding out for the full move. The idea is that a normal trade setup from my play book which has at least a 2:1 risk to reward (RR) might only have a 50-60% likelihood of success, because I am waiting for a relatively larger move. Whereas, if I take a quick scalp, in the same direction of the trade from my play book, but only for a very small initial part of the move instead of holding out for the full 2:1 RR move, then I can take a much large share size and be able to justify a much less favorable R:R because I will be able to get a much higher win rate, like around 85-90% or better. For example, I can let the trade go against me by $100 before it turns back around, and I take a quick $80-$90 profit when it pops up (or drops down if short) even if only for just a short little moment. Even though this R:R is terrible, the win rate should be high enough to still make it an overall winning strategy. Potentially I can make the same amount, or better, in a shorter time frame on a relatively small move due to the larger position being taken coupled with the higher win rate. So to sum it up, I am calling this strategy the “Scalp” (I know, not very original) and these are the basics of it: Take a big position for a small (but highly probable, 85-90% win rate) move. Be less concerned about risk to reward (RR) and more with probability of success (win rate). Must have reason for believing stock will move in a certain direction. Examples of reasons can be: - Based on a set up in my trade book - Stock called out in the trading room - Stock is ranging (buy long at bottom of range or short at top of range) - Stock is trending (buy long at bottom of trending range or sell short at top of trending range) - There is a large bid or ask (if large bid, sell short above the large bid. If large ask, buy long below the large ask)

I had a thought today, I think I want to try nesting various trading strategies into one trade. For example, one trade strategy will be for a short little pop, the other for a longer term trend. For example, a lot of times, seems like almost always in fact, when a stock breaks out of the 1, 5, or even 15 min opening range, there is almost always at least a small short little pop (if not a large pop). Knowing this, I can buy a large amount of shares based on a tight stop loss, just below/above the top/bottom of the body of the opening range candle, and another chunk of shares I plan on holding longer for a trend to set in. So this way, I will sell the large chunk quickly and take some quick profits on the little pop right at the start, then hold the lesser portion of the shares for the longer term trend with my stop all the way at VWAP, or some other level based on the 1, 5, or 15 min ORB strategy. That way I am still never violating my risk management rules, but I am also giving myself the chance to make more significant money on the first short little pop since I am taking a much large share size (based on a tighter stop loss level). So then, even if the longer term trend fails to set in, I can still make a significant amount on the initial relatively small pop. Does this seem like a good idea, or not?

Thank you!

I have a question. I was just listening to a recorded webinar where an experienced trader noted that there was a large order that went through on the time and sales. The order was red, meaning it executed on the bid. The trader said something to the effect of, "I do not know if that was a buyer or a seller on the bid, but I don’t care, I only care that it was a big transaction". I have heard other experienced traders say similar types of things, similar in that they are identifying a transaction as either being done by a big buyer or big seller. So, my question is what do they really mean by this? I mean, doesn't every transaction by definition consist of an equal number of shares being exchanged on both the buy and the sell side? There is no such thing as a one-sided transaction where you only have a buyer or only have a seller. My theory of what I think they might mean when they say this is that even though for each share exchanged there has to be an equal number of shares sold as shares purchased, there does not have to be an equal number of sellers and purchasers. In other words, the structure of the transaction could be such that you have trader A selling 100,000 shares and traders B, C, D, E, F, G, ... cumulatively buying up his 100,000. Or you could have the opposite scenario where you have trader A buying 100,000 and all the other traders selling to him. In the first case, where trader A is selling, you would say shares are being sold, in the second where trader A is buying, you would say shares are being bought, or, there is a big buyer. So in short, it's based on the anomaly or outlier trader, A being the anomaly or outlier, because at any given moment, in a liquid stock, you have several buyers and sellers at many different price levels, but an anomaly would be to have one very large buyer or seller. Am I thinking of this correctly, or do they mean something else when they say shares are being sold, or shares are being bought?

Thanks Anthony! I think that's great that you are starting so young. I hear what you are saying about wanting to get into trading and skipping the business plan stuff. I know what you mean because I felt exactly the same way a few months ago and when I first started day trading. In fact, it was a challenge for me (and still is to some degree) to get up the motivation to do practice trades, or a business plan, etc...because I almost felt like in a way I was wasting my time when I could be actually trading. Practice trades were especially frustrating for me when I won big because I would be kicking myself that I didn't take the trade with real money and make REAL profits. But the mind is a funny thing, without detailed journalling, it is easy to remember the wins and forget the losses in a practive account...anyway, I feel differently now. Now I am looking at the whole process as not so much this trade or that trade as being important, but more developing a set of skills that I can use long-term. In Developing your Edge/Playbook through Journaling I really liked the way Mike B. went over how it is similar to the scientific method of testing out different hypothesis (i.e. trading strategies), logging and journaling every trade to get sample sets, then going back and tweaking the strategies to find what works best and what doesn't work. It takes time, but my theory is that like you said, the tortoise beats the hare. I think in the long run the slow methodical approach will pay off. I would rather spend 3 years learning a skill set that will last a lifetime than 6 months blowing up an account! I am not implying I think you will blow up your account lol! I am saying, that's what I would have done if I just kept going wild west style shooting from the hip...no doubt, I would have blown up my account in short order. I am at the point now where I want to feel very prepared, if anything, over prepared when I finally decide to go back to live trading. I would reccomend going through all the foundational classes in the BBT education page, if you haven't already, they are great! That's what I am doing now. So far I have completed the first four out of the six. They don't get too much into strategies, but more the overall approach to how to get to that consistently profitable trader level where we all want to be.

Anthony, I agree, it can be a humbling experience. It appears so easy. I mean, anyone can buy or sell a stock with just the click of a mouse button or hot key. But knowing what stock to buy and sell and when and how many shares, that's where it starts to get a bit more complicated. Also, once you really get into it, you start to see that there is so much more to it than meets the eye at first. Level 2, Volume Price Analysis (VPA), etc...I feel like for me right now, I just want to focus on learning the basics, coming up with a workable business plan and focus on the long-term. I mean, anybody could get lucky and hit a big trade and make a ton of money at once, but you could also loose a ton of money gambling this way. I want to learn a skill set that I will be able to use long-term (i.e. trade management, risking the right amount, trading a strategy/setup not just willy nilly taking trades on gut or my "instincts"-at least not at this point). If you just make a 1% return on your money each day on average, that is huge! For a $25K account that would only be $250 on average a day, but similar to compounding interest, it would become $1 million in fairly short order at that rate. That is my hope and dream, yes just a dream at this point, but I have hope. I am taking action to hopefully turn that dream into reality. What draws me to the idea of trading for a living is the freedom to not have to answer to a boss (other than the market, right lol?!), having more free time to spend with my family, having cash to do good in the world (i.e. serve and help others), and being able to be completly financially independent. If I can accomplish those goals through trading, then all the time and effort it takes to learn to trade successfully will have been worth it, even it if takes me many years. I mean think about it, imagine it takes 10 years then I finally learn to be a profitable trader. I say it would still be worth it! To me being a profitable trader means essentially the sky is the limit. If you can read the markets, you can see what direction it is going to take before it goes there, and you learn good trading habits like risk management, well, you will become a millionaire, it's just that simple. Not many people make it to millionare in their lifetimes, so even if I am 53 years old (10 years from now) before it finally all clicks and starts to come together for me, it will still be worth every cent and every bit of effort because I will then be a millionaire by the time I am 55 or 60, or whenever. The point is, if I even make it there at any age, then I am going to be doing much better than most people ever do in their entire life. Then I will be able to retire comfortably and leave my kids an inheritence, that is my vision and dream. That is what drives me to become a sucessful trader. All that being said, I am expecting and hoping to become profitable much sooner than 10 years. I am just simply saying worst case scenario, heck, even if it took my 10 freaking years, it would still be worth it lol! Anyway, enough rambling for now. This morning I am working on developing my Business Plan. I just got done wathcing the webinar by Mike B. called "Creating a Trading Business Plan" and I am now going to work on my personal Business Plan, set S.M.A.R.T. goals, etc...

Thanks Karl588Roc for sharing your trade! I am still at the beginning of my trading career, so I do not have a favorite strategy yet.

Hi everyone! My name is Jeremy Olson. I live in Phoenix, AZ. My wife and I have 6 beautiful kids and we love spending time as a family. The kids are great (when they are getting along haha!). I am a CPA and tax director at a large publicly held trucking company. I started out my career as a CPA at Ernst & Young in Roseville, CA back in 2006 after graduating from Arizona State University's Masters of Taxation program. I was introduced to stock trading back around Sept 2019 by a co-worker that swing trades on Robinhood. I downloaded the app and got hooked. The potential to make money in the markets fascinated me but I knew that I had (have!) a lot to learn, so I Googled "best books day trading stock" (or something like that) and found Andrew's book. Then I graduated from RH to DAS and IB. It's been quite a journey so far. I basically tried going it alone for several months. I mean, I read a lot of books and had help in that sense, but I was not in the chat room or trading with anyone else. I had some success, but really more failure than success. But somehow I managed not to blow up my account, which is a good thing! So, I am still in the game, but I have been humbled by the market and I am going back to the basics. I am going to start over and do it right this time. I just finished "Class 1: How to Trade in Simulator and Introduction to DAS" last night. I am going to go through all the classes one by one, skipping nothing. My experience so far in trading reminds me of a similar experience I had in learning to play piano. As a kid, I always loved music and would play my parents old out of tune piano in our house off and on and taught myself how to play a few songs. They were challenging songs. I didn't start simple. I just went straight for the hard songs because that is what I wanted to play. I didn't want to do the boring stuff, I just wanted to play the cool songs right away. So it was challenging, but I pushed through and got to where I could play a couple moderately challenging songs. By the time I was about 38 years old, I never really learned to read piano music very well at all so I could not sight read anything. But I could, through painstaking difficulty memorize songs note by note and learn them that way. I had about 3 or 4 moderately difficult songs that I could play on the piano (or, at least thought I could play lol!), but that was all. Then I met a guy at a church activity that is a professional pianist/performer, the guy is phenomenal, truly a creative genius. His name is William Joseph. (I included a link below to one of my favorite songs he plays on the piano so you can see what I mean.) We became friends and he agreed to give me piano lessons (I had never taken lessons prior to this, well, I think I had 4 or 5 lessons as a little kid, but never stuck with it - I was almost 100% self-taught). At the start of my first lesson, William asked me what level I felt I was at as a piano player. I told him I felt like I was not a novice, but not advanced either, somewhere in between. Then he asked me to play something for him. He was kind to me and said that was pretty good, but I think he was lying because after that he started me on my first song, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" lol! For reals, not an embellished version or anything, just the simple one note version, the melody only, no chords, nothing, just the melody. He wanted to take me back to the basics because everything I had taught myself to do up to that point was basically wrong, incorrect technique. I might have been hitting some of the right notes, but I was way too tense, and my fingering was all wrong, etc... He had me simply hold my hand above the keys and let it fall down on the notes and do that repetitively until I gained the muscle memory of being able to play the piano in a more relaxed way. He explained that I would never be able to progress or play very fast if I did not fix my technique and learn to loosen up. So, I had to go all the way back to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to unlearn my bad habits and relearn new ones. I had to learn all the muscle memory the correct way, so I then had a foundation to build upon. I am now still not to the level of a concert pianist and probably never will be, but playing the piano is so much more enjoyable. Now when I play, I feel like I can make real music, not just plunk out notes. Anybody can learn to hit certain notes at certain times, but not everyone learns how to truly make music and make it come alive I relate this to learning day trading. I do not want to learn bad habits, so I am going back to the basics now and even though I feel like I know some things, I am going to be totally open and humble as I go through each one of the BBT lessons and all the webinars. I am going to keep a journal and make my playbook, etc...do everything the right way taking no short cuts. Let's see how far that will take me! There is something very familiar to me watching Andrew trade the open in the mornings. It reminds in a lot of ways of watching William play the piano, true genious at work. There is something intangible that they both have that is hard to define, but you know it when you see it. It's inspiring. Here is a link to William playing the piano so you can see for yourself how amazing he is! Here is me at my trading desk (The laptop on the far right is my work computer - been working at home since the start of Covid-19. The top right monitor is also shared with my work computer and my trading desktop computer. There is an HDMI switch, so I just hit the button on the switch and the top right monitor switches between being connected to my work computer or my desktop computer. There is also a switch to trade my keyboard and mouse between work and desktop computers, so I have just one keyboard and mouse to use for both):

I am planning on it. Looking forward to meeting everyone.

Wed is the best day for me, but I was able to find a babysitter for Thu so if Wed doesn't work for someone else, I can make Thursday work too.

My wife just reminded me she has plans Thursday night that she has been planning for a while and I need to stay home to watch the kids. If Wednesday is still an option, then I could go on Wednesday.

I will be there. I am new to the forum, just joined the chatroom today. I have both of your day trading books Andrew and looking forward to meeting you!

Thanks for the advice. I am sure both of you are right. But at least I thought of a good name for my suggested strategy, it's called the "George Costanza". And just like everything he ever tried he ended up failing at, I am sure the "George Costanza" is also probably a catastrophically bad trading strategy too lol!

In the way of back ground, I am still a newbie to day trading, so be nice. I have only been doing it for about 5 months now. I have noticed a consistent pattern. That pattern is that I loose and I loose big every single time, without fail, when I go off the rails and just start taking trades because I think it is going to go a certain way (not based on any real strategy, just basically gut feel). Then I get angry and start over-trading and trading emotionally with too big of size, etc... So I had a thought today, the fact that I consistently (emphasis on consistently) loose when I go down that road, doesn't that mean that something other than random chance is happening here? I mean, if it was just random chance, then wouldn't I win some of the time and loose some of the time? But yet, I consistently loose big when I go crazy like that. So I was thinking, what if I just set up some hot keys that did the exact opposite of what I want them to do. When I click buy to go long, it sells to go short, or visa versa if I want to take a short position, it does the exact opposite and takes out a long position. Wouldn't it stand to reason if I did this that I would then consistently win every time? I mean, I would have to trade like I was really trying to win and really trying to go long, like I really think it is going to go up, I mean really and truly, but then I just go against my gut and take out a short position just when I think it is about to explode to the up side. Of course I would know that I was going to take a short position, but I can't think that way, I would have to truly trade against myself. Today in my training account I started over trading and taking too large of positions to try to "win back" my losses, etc...and of course I ended the day with a $5.5K loss (in my training account). Had I take the opposite of every position, then I would have made about $2.8K - not exactly $5.5K because of commissions, but still, I would have ended green. Is it really that simple? Just trade against myself and all of a sudden the looser becomes a winner???

You make a good point, I didn't think about that if I had open positions it would definitely be more obvious which account I was in. The problem in my case is I have no open positions at the beginning of the day so literally the only difference between being in my training account versus real is the little account drop down selection window which is easy to miss if you forget to check. Makes me think, maybe I should buy like 1 share of a few different companies just so I have some open positions, could be a work around to make it more obvious which account I am in.

I could see this being a very useful feature, even more so when it happens the other way around. Imagine you think you are trading in your training account but are accidentally in your real account, that could be catastrophic! I mean, sometimes when I am in my training account I just want to see if hotkeys are executing properly and I could care less if I "make money" on the fake trade or not. Imagine I took a huge loss then realized, holy &%^$ I was in my real account &^%$!!!! Haha, I pray that never happens!

Thanks Abiel for the response. I do know how to change between the live and training account. I already have my live account set as default. I am just wondering if there is a feature in DAS to make something change that is visually noticeable depending on which account I have selected. This is probably not a feature available in DAS, but I just thought I would ask. This morning I was trying out some new hot keys in my training account and I forgot to switch it back, my bad. Maybe it would be something worth bringing up to DAS to add as a feature, so say I am in my training account, then the background is all a different color or shade as compared to when I am in my live account. That way, I would not be able to accidentally trade in the wrong account, or at least it would be a lot more difficult to accidentally make that mistake.

So today I took a trade on LLIT based on the fallen angel strategy. It is a low float stock with news that was gapping up in the pre-market, then sold off at the open and found support and continued to trade on really high relative volume. Then I did a great job and got in at just the right time when the 1 min and 5 min candles were going up on increased volume. I sold quickly after the pop for a quick $850 in profit...then I realized I was trading in my training account! I thought I was in my real account, but apparently I forgot to check, oops. I am using DAS trader pro. Does anyone have any tips on how to make sure this doesn't happen in the future, other than just being sure I check first. Is there a way to make it more dummy proof like automatically change the color of the background or something based on which account you are in, or some other cool tip like that to make it more dummy proof (because I was definitely a dummy this morning!!)?

So I was just wondering what peoples' experience has been with placing stop orders. I have heard it said by some that you should never send actual stop loss orders to the market because the market makers will somehow manipulate the price to go down to the level of your stop trigger and then the price will continue on upward after you get stopped out (assuming you had a long position). So the remedy, they say, is to never place an actual stop loss order, but instead to just have a mental stop loss price in your head and manually hit the bid when/if the price falls to that level. I would like to hear from people with experience whether they think there is any truth to this or not. I would like to send stop loss orders to the market at the same time I buy the stock so I do not have to think about it anymore if the price goes against me. However, if doing so is going to be like a magnet to suck the price down to that level, then of course I do not want to do it. I do not have much experience trading, only about 4-5 months of limited trading just in the mornings before I have to go to work. I live on the west coast in Arizona so I trade from market open for about an hour or so, unless it's daylight savings time of the year, then I get to trade for 2 hours because AZ does not adjust clocks for daylight savings time. Anyway, I am not sure my opinion matters much due to my limited amount of real world experience in trading, but it seems to me that if I were taking a relatively large position (meaning relative to all other outstanding positions in the market at that time on that stock), then maybe, possibly, somehow somebody could manipulate the price down to run my stop (not sure how they would do that and still come out on top, but there is still a lot I do not know about how the markets work behind the scenes). On the other hand, when I am taking relatively meaningless positions, I mean not small positions to me, but small in the grand scheme of things, like 1,000 shares on a stock with volume in the millions, I seriously doubt my puny share size would have any impact on the price at all...but maybe I am wrong, I don't know. Your thoughts on this matter are much appreciated. I am trying to decide if I should place actual stop loss orders or just keep them as mental stop loss orders in my head and not show my hand to the market makers, if it would make a difference.