Lee W

I don’t post my wins or losses. Frankly, I find that distracting so I tend not to pay attention to those posts. I also don’t volunteer my watchlist, but I’ll share when asked. I’m there to learn and help where I can, but I typically help with general information and DAS related topics. I’m also knowledgeable about the ups and downs of being a relatively new active trader, as it relates to psychology, so I’ll sometimes share when it comes to that. As a new trader, I’m not comfortable giving trading advice or making trade calls. A) Many will post their wins, B) some will post their losses, and C) you’ll never REALLY know who is consistent because of A) and B) mentioned above. I’ve learned from Andrew (he’s the reason I joined a year ago) and I’ve also learned various things from Brian Pez, Robert H, Carlos, Peter D, William ADog, and Norm. The chat community is helpful for many, including myself, as there is an abundance of knowledge. You just have to figure out what info to take from whom. We can all learn a great deal from this community Jason W is my boo. We encourage each other to get in the room early, start prepping for the day, and get motivated. That, for me, is very important.

Lol. You only think I know everything. I really don’t know anything, aside from how to be the first person in the chat each morning. I’m glad I’m someone’s favorite, though. This encourages me to be the best I can be. All for you, boo. Lol One day I’m going to make my way to California. It has been many many years since I’ve visited. Roll out the red carpet!

As you probably know, Mike Bellafiore is also the co-founder of SMB Capital. The SMB Capital YouTube channel has some great videos. I did a quick search in their channel of "reading the tape." This link should take you to what I've found. I haven't watched these yet, but I have watched many of their other videos. They are a wealth of information. https://www.youtube.com/user/smbcapital/search?query=reading+the+tape

This got a lot easier when DAS version 5.2.0.31 was released. See this post below for information on the Global Trendline feature. To enable, right click the chart, Configure, the look at the bottom of the options. If you’re on .31 or newer you’ll have checkboxes for the Global Trendline feature.

Agreed. I actually mentioned a step similar to this a couple of pages back. I just have a copy of the entire DAS folder stored in a second location. It’s effectively the same as the zip file. I’ve had to use it once before, so having the full backup (either zip or otherwise) is a great idea. Thanks for reminding everyone.

Nope. You’d only need IB’s market data if you were using their platform, TWS. If using DAS, you’ll have all of the data directly from DAS.

Thanks!! Also a good idea to go to Tools>Back Up Settings. It will place a file on your PC desktop. If you need to restore all of the settings, this makes it simple.

Other than the YouTube channel, no. But there is a playlist of Andrew’s Live Trades on the channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfO2yCpx6_XU-xovhpJuaYw

I don’t believe it means you’re out of luck, but having a regular job does make it more difficult to be TTS. Keep in mind that TTS and Section 475 MTM are two different things. You can have TTS and not elect MTM. According to Robert Green, TTS simply qualifies you for MTM. This link should be helpful to you: https://greentradertax.com/trader-tax-center/trader-tax-status/how-to-qualify/

I spent Friday using only the new beta .33. So far, no issues. Below are the changes in this version per information given to me from DAS. One of them is premarket high/low pricemarkers. I’m so glad we have this now. We added option to adjust font size of customized hotkey buttons on Montage (right click a hotkey, then select Edit). We also fixed several issues of trend lines in log scale. The following hotkeys are added, FocusWindow (under Window Configuration category), for chart window, IncreaseTopBottomMargin, DecreaseTopBottomMargin and ResetTopBottomMargin. There are several new price lines added in PriceMarker chart study. Options Chain and News window can automatically save column widths when closed.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it returns. It’s a know bug (known by DAS) and that’s why they’ve already released the beta .33 with the fix. Some of us reinstalled the software and it went away...for a while. Perhaps your experience with what you’ve done will work permanently, but it’s doubtful.

Make that beta version .33 instead of .32. There was an issue with .32 so they sent me a new one. More to come...

Same here, but I’m not with CMEG. DAS emailed me the link to download beta .32. I’ll probably install it tonight and give it a go tomorrow.

I emailed with DAS today. They informed me that they have NOT fixed the cursor/hand issue on the charts, but the fix will be implemented in the next version release. I guess the clean install is just giving us some good luck, although the hand has returned on my platform in a few cases. Oh well.

Marek, just to be clear, I *DID* configure my global settings and made sure the account portion is blank. This is what makes it automatically choose the TR account when I open DAS. Once I change it in the montage, it will stay on my U account all day until I exit DAS and go back in. Just wanted to make sure I was clear in what I was describing.

Marek, that’s correct. I asked DAS about this some time ago because I wanted mine to default to blank, as well. They told me DAS won’t do that. They explained that if your global setting is left blank, the montage will default to the TR account upon opening the platform because it uses an alphabetical rule. Your IB account starts with U. T is before you U, so it shows TR until you make the change manually in the montage.

This is good news! Where did you find this info? So you COULD file the 475 election now for tax year 2018 (for which you’ll prepare taxes early 2019)? Normally you would have done so by 4/15 of this year I wonder how you know if the IRS accepts your request. Do you just make the election by way of the letter to the IRS and call it a day?

In my opinion, there is no reason to use an off-shore broker if you have the capital to fund a broker here in the U.S. (enough to avoid PDT, that is). The off-shore brokers aren't regulated by the U.S., it sometimes takes longer to open an account, fund the account, and withdraw from the account. IB has some of the best customer service I've experienced, they have shorts available most of the time, and the commissions are not expensive. Some use Speedtrader as an alternative to Interactive Brokers. We've seen that Speedtrader sometimes does not have the shorts available (compared to IB). However, they do offer a per-ticket commission of $2.95 whereas IB does not. This is beneficial if you are taking large positions and not scaling in or out of a position. There are discussions in the forum on the comparison of commissions.

UDPATE to the fiasco - 8/21/2018 So DAS told @Peter D that they've fixed the bugs in version 5.2.0.31 and that a fresh installation of .31 should resolve our problems. So this is what I did: Saved my DAS Desktop. Backed up my DAS settings. Tools>Back Up Settings. It will save a file to your PC desktop. Copy my entire DAS directory and pasted it somewhere else. Just in case something goes awry, It's nice to have a backup of how everything was. Also, i wanted a copy of my .dsk, .cst, and .htk files. Uninstalled DAS. Restarted PC. Downloaded a fresh copy of .31 here: http://dastrader.com/download/DASInstallIBCO.exe Ran the installation. Copied my .dsk, .cst, .htk files from that backup directory folder I made a few steps back and pasted those files into the newly created DAS directory. Opened DAS and logged in. Restored my settings. Tools>Restore Settings It opened my default desktop file, but I did notice that couple of settings were off a little bit. I opened the desktop again and everything was pretty much good. I had to make a couple of adjustments to my Market Viewer, but that's it. Saved my desktop. I have searched multiple tickers and have not come across the pointer/hand issue yet. Global trendlines can be drawn and removed (remember to left click a line first, then right click, then choose "remove line"). The Global Trendline checkboxes in the chart configuration stay checked when I exit DAS and go back in. So far, so good. If I come across anything odd, I'll update in this thread. Thanks!

I think Robert was having this problem, too. Mine, however, saves the setting. Let's hope a fresh installation of the "new" .31 fixes everything.

Hmmm... I have no idea. I've not encountered that yet. If I were you, I'd probably do the .31-to-.21 workaround.

This was an interesting thought so I gave it a try on my laptop. The laptop did not already have DAS, so this was fresh. I downloaded .21 and did the fresh install.... and the winner is.... no global trendlines. Are you talking about a horizontal line that you've drawn? Like a global trendline? If so, I've find that I can right click any line that I've drawn and then click Remove All Lines and it works fine. However, if I click to remove just the one specific line, it won't do anything. I first have to left click the line to select it (the little boxes appear at the end of the line), then I can right click the line and choose Remove Line.

Yep. Same here.

It isn’t incorrectly displaying the version number. I installed .21 over .31. It now shows .21, as it should. The exe file is also .21. It just has the global trendline feature remaining from original .31 installation/update. I agree that the cleanest way to install is to do is fresh. I don’t think most people will do this since they’d likely just click the auto-upgrade feature in DAS or download the file and click install. Besides, you shouldn’t have to do a fresh install. It should just work properly upon updating. We all know that’s not always the case, though. Nevertheless, I mentioned this specifically as a workaround until the next version is released, hopefully without these bugs. If someone does a fresh install, they need to remember to save their .dsk file and copy it into the directory after installation. Oh, and the hotkey file, chart setting file (if desired) and whatever else should be kept. Maybe even backup the settings so those can be restored upon a fresh installation, too.

@Abiel, now that you're back in .21, did you check to see if you still have the global trendlines? It sounds weird, but get this... @Louis B told me in the chat that he had global trendlines in .21. After some conversation with him and a video he sent to show me, it was discovered that he HAD .31 and downgraded to .21 because of the bugs. Strangely, the global trendline feature remained. I tried it for myself, too. I installed the older .21 into the same directory as my .31. I opened DAS, checked the About to make sure I was now on .21, and then right clicked a chart>configure. Sure enough, the global trendline checkboxes are still there. I turned them on and started using the global trendlines. They work perfectly. Oh, and the little hand bug from .31 is gone, too. This seems like a pretty good workaround until we get the next release (hopefully without bugs!). Looks like when you install .21 over .31, you get some kind of mix between the two versions. I think it is working for @Anders, too. Check your config in the charts. See if you've got global trendlines. *Note: I did make a copy of my DAS directory and pasted it somewhere else in case I needed to revert back (if something got screwed up).