gsepaugh

I'm Stephen Sepaugh. I live in Corpus Christi , TX. I Have swing traded on and off for 20 years and have read ALOT of books on investing. I have a B.S. in Chemistry. I share my life with two wonderful people, my lovely wife and 12-year-old daughter. When COVID-19 broke out in March I started making a lot less money at work. Decided to start swing trading seriously during work when I had time. Turned 7500.00 into 46000.00 by August and thought I was a genius. I proceeded to lose 10,000 over the next month and new I needed help but wouldn't admit it. My wife looked up day trading and found Andrew. I told her that day trading was dangerous and that I didn't need any help and could handle it on my own. I opened an IB account and withdrew my money from my full-service brokerage firm and started dabbling in day trading. Killed it!!! Or so I thought. Made 6000.00 my first day out and proceeded to lose all of that gain the following week. That was towards the end of October. Crawled back and cut the loss to 3000.00 then lost that trading NIO the first week of November. I was under enormous pressure having just told my employer that I quit. I humbly asked my wife who that day trader was that she had looked up on the internet. "Andrew something," she responded. I googled "Andrew trading." Saw BBT but didn't pay attention. Just wanted the book. I ordered it and skimmed through technical chapters, i.e. the parts that I thought I needed. I then proceeded to buy all the equipment. I believed I was ready to go. Visons of boats and exotic trips filled my thoughts. I programmed my hot keys on my keyboard. Thinking this was not fast enough, I ordered the Elgato stream deck, and installed it. Now I was ready !!! Well, you know what is coming next. The next morning, I started trading PYPL and XPEV simultaneously. Why not, I’m a pro right? Well, Mr. Pro wasn't aware that that he had clicked the PYPL screen thinking he was going to short XPEV on the breakdown. I held the button down too long and ended up shorting PYPL for 800 shares while it was going up fast at 9:35 am. By the time I could get the window closed that was warning me that I had just exceeded my margin and close the position, I was up 1700.00 dollars. This is a very important part of the story. Whether I would have lost or won, would not have changed my mind about being a pro that had figured out the market or rationalizing that it was the button's fault. Luckily, and I mean this seriously, I lost the 1700.00, then 3000 dollars more over the next two days. Had I not lost, no telling how much I would have lost in the future. I was completely against stop losses, or anything else that is required to manage risk or day trade properly. I'm lucky I still have most of my money. I have decided to study and go through every bit of information available through BBT. I will be trading on a simulator for a least couple of weeks , until I get a solid understanding of each strategy and can maintain my psychological composure. I wish I had listened to my wife when she first mentioned Andrew. I have gone through Mike B's course already. Thank you, Mike, for your dedication, amazing insights, and your service. I have had that life changing event. Thank you, Andrew, from the bottom of my heart. Your caring and instruction are priceless. Also, a thanks to all the contributors, instructors and members of BBT. YOU HAVE ALL CHANGED MY LIFE!! Sincerely, Stephen Sepaugh