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Thxs... I need to do more studying on this and try to also watch the vol increase. (which I think is one of the key eliminates in price moments. I the past I would just focus more on candelstick

I've only been in simulator for 2 months, but here's my 2 cents: It's part experience, and part gauging your indicators, price action, L2, volume, order flow, etc. I try to process as much information as possible while in a trade. Andrew gives a good example in class 4. He got out of a position before his stop loss because there was resistance at a Moving Average on the 1 minute chart. It wasn't evident from watching the 5 minute chart alone. Personally, I look for different things depending on the strategy. For example, I went long a Fallen Angel strategy and exited well before my mental stop loss. The setup was not panning out as it should, so I decided to exit. What's the point of holding on to a low probability play? For something like a Bull Flag Momentum, if the price/volume doesn't begin surging after a new 5 min high is made (within 5-15 seconds), it could be a head fake--and possibly a dump. I also watch Level 2 closely during momentum plays. For VWAP False Breakout, if the price doesn't move decisively away from VWAP within a few minutes, then it's an indication that we may chop sideways. I get out and wait for a better opportunity. I've learned that getting out before your stop loss is okay. Commissions are cheap and you can always get back in.

Hi all, Having a journal is a must. I feel like I have learned so much about my trading in just the 2 weeks trading live because of this journal. For anyone starting out like me, if you are serious about this business, take the time to have a detailed journal. How else can we improve something we are not tracking? I focus more on the details of the trade and what I was thinking at the time, IB has tons of report performance reports that I can pull later if I want to see the numbers crunched. Here is a screenshot and detail of my journal, I have 3 main sections on my recap: Screenshot Link: Click Here Section 1: In this section I record how I feel Physically and Mentally in the morning before I start my trading day. Comment if I was able to get my morning routine done as planned. (My mourning routine is gym, sauna, get to my station and write my Journal Intro, review previous day recap, then build watchlist) Section 2: Here I add a screenshot of my Das Trader Account Report, with the me a summary of what I traded for the day. At the bottom of the page I also have additional screenshots of the detail transactions. Section 3: In this section I track some information of the stock like float size and how I found the stock. I also note down details of the trade like the strategy, position size and details of the price action shown on the screenshot. The best part about this section is the “Well Done" and "Improvement Notes”. I read on “The Daily Trading Coach: 101 Lessons for Becoming Your Own Trading Psychologist” how important it is to track what you did well on a trade. This way your recap is not all negative but also highlighting the good things that you should continue to do. Software: Just some information on the software I use, I track my Journal on Microsoft OneNote. As you can see on the pages tab I track all my Trading stuff like highlights of the book I am reading and any training course notes. If you have not try this software please give it a shot. It has a lot of great features, syncs with all devices and is completely free. Thanks. Carlos M.

MARA Fake Fallen Angel - January 12, 2018 Today I tried out Andrew's Fallen Angel Strategy for the first time. You can read about it in detail here. MARA was on our gappers watch list and was a Nasdaq top gainer--up 40% in the pre-market. It is low float with only 10M shares. The open saw about 1M share volume, but it didn't really pop up like an Angel should. First mistake! Nonetheless, I watched it sell off below VWAP and hold some sort of level at the 50 SMA. So far, so good right? It bounced along the moving average for about 15 minutes and I waited for an entry when the volume spiked. The high of the day was $5.07, and high of pre-market at $5.40. With an entry around $4.70, the risk to reward was 2.5 at high of the day, and 4.5 at the high of pre-market. My stop loss was somewhere around $4.55 at the break of consolidation and moving average. Here is the setup on a 5 minute chart: At 9:55 AM, I saw a slight increase in volume and I went long at $4.73. The price popped up a few pennies, but it failed to pick up any steam on the 1 minute chart (below). The volume was above average for that time frame as well, but nothing spectacular--about 80k per minute. When it failed to make a new 1 minute high at 9:57, I grew concerned. By 9:58 my gut told me that the momentum wasn't coming. I quickly exited the trade at $4.71, for a 0.02 loss per share. Here is how it panned out on the 1 minute chart: Immediately afterward, the price tanked to $4.50. Within 15 minutes, it had hit $4.25; I had averted disaster. This Fake Fallen Angel turned out to be a reverse ABCD! I am so glad to have gotten out with a tiny loss. Looking back during the trade, I remembered from Class 4's Fallen Angel slides that if the volume doesn't come in, don't trade it. It was Andrew's voice inside my head that saved me!

I grew up with Kodak. My childhood was full of buying Kodak films, taking pictures and then taking them for processing and printing. Fun times! Kodak actually a giant company, being listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Average for over 74 years until its business started to decline in 2000s where smartphone cameras started replacing digital camera and old photography. Not many people have seen Kodak products or even talked about it since. Today, however, they announced their own cryptocurrency called Kodak Coin. Its stock spiked more than 100% on that news alone. But, how did I trade it? It did hit my scanner around 2 pm and was being traded heavily at around $6. I quickly checked the daily chart and identified two levels: 6.68 a daily level, and $7.62 the 200 Simple Moving Average (SMA). I marked them on my chart. If you want to know how I find these levels, watch CLASS 2! I had no idea if price would respect these levels or not, but I had to have some levels on my chart as potential profit taking targets. I would not trade stocks where I do not have ant levels nearby to based my trade on them. As you see I did 4 trades on it, and made a really good money. See my trades both in 5 min and 1 min chart below. It is always good to be back trading in the afternoon! This post is dedicated to my childhood friend KODAK!

XNET ABCD On Second Attempt - January 11, 2018 This was me trying to be a hero and trading XNET using the 1 minute chart. I've drawn boxes on the 1 minute chart around my entry points. Essentially, the box shows what's happening inside the 5 minute candle. First Trade: Entered on a new 1 min high after consolidation period. Volume was slightly above average, but not that much more. Price failed to make a new 1 minute high and began trending down. I got stopped out right before the drop to 23.35. Phew! Looking at the 5 minute chart (below), you can see that we were still in consolidation period. The stock actually made a lower high during the candle I entered. The following candle--where I was stopped out--was even lower high and lower lows. This was clear after the fact and looking at the 5 minute chart. Definitely not a good time to be going long! Also, the volume was well below the moving average. Second trade: I wasn't discouraged and kept watching XNET. At around 11:10 AM, I saw a mini Bull Flag on the 1 minute chart (above). The 5 minute chart confirmed that a new high was being made. I went long. The stock popped up with good volume and I sold on the momentum up. I managed to exit a good chunk near the new high of the day (24.20), and made back the loss from the first trade. Although XNET is choppy, it isn't low float by any means (65M shares). I should have been looking primarily at the 5 min chart for the ABCD setup, and the 1 min chart for entry--not vice versa. The 5 minute chart was just way more clean.

I got hotkeys set up at -20 cents and +20 cents (Ctrl+B for short trades and Ctrl+S for long) that I enter as soon as I get into trades so the market can't screw me too much. Then, I double click on my stop order so the price and the amount of shares are filled in the boxes. Then I change the trigger price to be exactly where I want it and click the replace button. That's the quickest and safest way I found to enter a stop loss. The only thing you have to pay attention to with this setup is to remember to switch the amount of shares on your stop loss when you sell some and put your stop at break even. If not your gonna end up buying some shares to the other side. I hope this helps.

A candlestick is a visualization of the price range (all the completed orders) of a stock in a given time period. The open of a candlestick is the first order to go through for that time period. The close of the candlestick is the last order to go through for that time period. And the wicks would be all orders to go through that are above or below the opening and closing prices. A bit too brief but hope that helps.

I don't speed up my stop orders too much on the theory that if you're setting a STOP, you shouldn't be looking for an immediate out. I use a pop-up from Montage. I'm not positive which setting gets it, but under Setup -> Trade Settings I have both the "Disable Stop Order Confirmation" and "Enable Fast Stop Limit Order" buttons unchecked. When I go to enter any STOP (limit, range, trailing, market*) in Montage I just change my Route to STOP the pick SHRT or BUY. Then, the window pops up and I fill the rest. *NOTE: I DO NOT use Market Stop orders. I have been screwed by them several times being filled VERY far from my target price when a stop moves too fast. I will note that if you use a Range or Trailing stop it also becomes a market order at execution, but this is unavoidable.

STX Opening Range Breakdown - January 8, 2018 This was a great Opening Range Breakout (ORB) trade that I wanted to share. I'm still in simulator but it was a nice setup either way. STX gapped up big in the pre-market, but began trending down at around 9:20 AM. I noted that the first 5 min candle had a pretty small body and could potentially be a good ORB to the downside. On the open of the 9:35 candle, I went short. My entry was great at 48.38, just below VWAP. My stop was 0.10 above VWAP, at about 48.70. The profit target was the 9 EMA down at 47.60. So the risk-to-reward on this trade was 2.4 (0.78/0.32). It quickly sold off and I began covering in thirds on the way down. The price actually tanked through the 9 EMA on extreme weakness. I kept a very small portion through the pullback and it eventually hit my 46.85 price-level (and even lower). This one single trade exceeded my daily profit target and I was done for the day at 10:10 AM! ORBs are one of my favourite setups, as long as it isn't too extended from VWAP and the opening range isn't too large. This one traded just like an example from Andrew's book.

That's the default colour background for HorizontalLines in DAS (price levels you add manually). If yours is a different colour, you can change this by: Add a HorizontalLine (if none exist on the chart) Right-click the line, select Config Choose Background color

Great post. I noticed the yellow price on the Y axis. How do you do it? Thanks.

Thanks Brendon! I've just bought 2 of those! Really good price

Aznariy, I think you are confusing bid/ask (Level 2) with actual executions (Time/Sales). Bid/Ask doesn't show up in the candlestick; only transactions where shares were exchanged at a specific price do. Let me try to answer all of your questions with a simple example. Say you and I are trying to buy stock ABC. Brian and Andrew have shares to sell. Us four are the only participants in the market. The bell rings at 9:30:00. A candle is about to be born. You bid $8 for one share and I bid $9. These will show up on the bid of L2. On the other side of the book, Andrew wants $11 for his share. Brian however, only wants $10. So their orders show up on the ask. Note that all of these orders are LIMIT orders, and since nobody has agreed on a price, no shares have changed hands. Let's say I change my mind and convert my limit order (for $9) to a market order. Since Brian has the lowest ask at $10, I buy that share from him for $10. This marks the first exchange of shares for the 1 minute period. For simplicity sake, say that the transaction went through at 9:30:01. That is point A. Now the only bid left is yours for $8, and the only ask left is Andrew's at $11. Say Andrew decides to come down with his price to $10--and at the same time--you decide to bid lower at $7. Since nobody has agreed on a price--and no shares have changed hands--nothing happens. The candle is unchanged. It is a horizontal line at $10 (where mine and Brian's transaction occured). The time is now 9:30:30. Out of desperation, Andrew decides to sell at market. Since your bid of $7 is all that is left, the transaction clears at that price. The time is now 9:30:45 and point B marks your transaction. Now as the 1 minute mark comes to an end, you and I hold shares of ABC. Brian sees that the price has tanked to $7 and wants to hold some for a swing trade. At the same time, I decide to sell with a limit price of $8. Brian scoops up my shares with a market order for $8. The time is now 9:30:55. The price is at point C. Finally, as a few seconds remain until the candle closes, you decide to sell your share at $9. Nobody else in the market wants to buy. So the candle closes at the last price of $8, where Brian bought my share (point C). There is no top wick since the highest price paid was also the open price ($10). The bottom wick is where you bought from Andrew at point B. The candle is red because it opened at $10 and closed at $8. Now the time progresses to 9:31:00. Whatever price transactions occur at will be logged on the Time/Sales and start forming a new candlestick. Without listing specifics, say the first transaction occurred at $8. There were multiple transactions at $8, and this was the lowest anybody paid during that 1 minute. In this case, there is no bottom wick. This is because the open equals the lowest price paid. The last transaction to occur before the end of the candle (9:31:59) was $11. That was the close. At sometime between 9:31:00 and 9:31:59, somebody paid $12. That is the top wick. Here is an Investopedia article on candlesticks. If anyone sees any errors above, or has a better way of explaining, please let me know. Thanks.

Hi Frank2403, I have found Adam Grimes' books to be very useful for understanding technical analysis. While his books aren't geared towards Day Trading specifically, there is a lot of technical information that can be gleaned from these books. I have also read Brian Shanon's book as well and found it to be very helpful. The "Trading Price Action" series by Al Brooks also offer a lot of information, but the style that it's written will make you crazy! The Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns is also another good reference. What you will find is that 90% of all trading books cover the same material as outlined by Robby above. They speak about emotions, setting rules, having a plan, and having an understanding of the market that you are trying to trade. This is all fine and dandy, but when it comes to strategy and methodology, that's where Andrew's book really shines. With all the technical analysis and fundamental analysis books I've read, they only cover the theory of trading. Andrew's book definitely gives you a lot of solid information. While I don't think that Andrew's book is the end all be all", many books cover the same topics and premise. I encourage you to read as much as you can and take as many notes as possible but remember, it's all theory in the pages with perfect screenshots of what *should* happen. Books on emotions are really helpful as well, such as "Overcoming the 7 Deadly Sins of Trading" but at the end of the day, unless you actually implement these concepts, you aren't doing yourself much good. Let me know if you have any questions! There is a plethora of information when it comes to books out there and I've probably purchased or downloaded almost every trading book known to man!

Hi Mario, Falcon builds really quality systems, but they do come with a pretty high price tag. I am an IT consultant so naturally, I have the skills for this lol. I built my own machine with parts from my local computer store (Microcenter) for around $2,500. Mind you, I went completely overkill because my trading platform (Tradestation) is a real resource monster and you need to have some heavy processing power in order for it to run properly. DAS isn't as nearly intensive as TradeStation, but you do want to ensure you build something that won't become obsolete in the next 2 years. Especially with how frequently Microsoft is updating Windows 10, each update comes with a bit of a hit on certain areas of performance. Also just be mindful that the more monitors you wish to add, the more power you will need. Here's my system: 1x Intel i7 6800K CPU (processor) that is water-cooled and overclocked to 4.2 GHz. 32 GB's of high performance RAM 1x Samsung EVO 950 Pro (NVMe), 256B SSD (Solid State) - For Windows and applications 1x Crucial 525MX, 525GB SSD - For profile data and basic user data 1x Western Digital 3 TB 7200RPM Mechanical drive - for bulk data like image files 2x nVidia GTX 970 video cards 1x Corsair H110ti water cooler (for CPU) 1x Asus STRIX X99 Gaming motherboard 1x Corsair 750 Watt power supply 6x Acer 24" LED LCD monitors mounted on a HEX stand that is mounted to my desk 1x NEC monitor that is rotated for portrait mode and has the chatroom, Outlook and other apps on it 2x Dell keyboards. 1 keyboard is used for normal input, the second keyboard I used a free program called HIDMacros that allowed me to program any key to executed a macro or command. So the number pad on my second keyboard handles all of the order entry commands for my platform. Windows 7 Pro Remember, I went overboard because of my platform and since I am an IT guy, I figured "why the hell not?". Plus, it was a business write-off :) You will often find that "gaming" computers are best suited for day trading, but they sometimes have video cards that are complete overkill. As I mentioned above the specs of my machine, the more monitors you wish to have, the more video processing and hardware power you will need. MOST video cards can support up to 4 monitors on 1 card. If you want more than 1 monitor, than you will likely need 2 video cards. On-board video may be an option, but some manufactures will disable the on-board video if an add-on video card is detected. However, here's a breakdown of the BARE MINIMUM you need for a decent trading workstation: Processor (CPU): Minimum of an Intel Core i7 series processor. Most of these processors are fine and the latest generation (7th generation) is sufficient to handle the load. Ideally you want a processor with a higher clock speed (measured in GHz) as this will crunch numbers and data faster. Memory (RAM): NO less than 16GB's (Gigabytes) of memory. 32 is perfect, but 16 will do the job as well. The more memory you have, the more responsive programs are and the more space a program is given to store instructions that it needs quickly. Storage (Hard Drive Space): Hard Drive capacity is measured in Gigabytes and sometimes Terabytes depending on the type of drive. This isn't super important to your trading computer unless you plan on using your trading computer for other tasks, at which point, you will likely need more space. However, the most important take-away here is you want your primary hard drive (the "C-Drive" where Windows and your programs live) to be a Solid State Drive (SSD). These come in many forms, but the BEST option here is what is called an NVME drive. This type of drive plugs DIRECTLY into the motherboard. These are the fastest drives available now. The other type of solid state drive which is still a good option and good enough for trading is a regular 2.5" solid state drive that connects via a SATA data cable to a SATA port on your motherboard. This isn't as fast as the NVME drive you plug directly into your motherboard, but if you are on a budget it will suffice. The third and final type of drive to avoid unless you need a buttload of space is a standard 7200 RPM mechanical drive. These are the drives that have been around forever and the drives that moving parts (they have discs in them that spin around). These drives are slower and have a higher failure rate. Motherboard: The motherboard is the most important piece to the puzzle here since it connects all of the components and makes them "Talk" to each other. Naturally, you want a board that is compatible with your processor but also powerful enough and offers enough expansive capacity to ensure you will be able to add more memory (RAM), additional hard drives, and most importantly, additional video cards if needed. Once again, most of the gaming motherboards will fit the bill here. If you plan to have more than 3-4 monitors then you will need to ensure the motherboard you get has the ability to add another video card. You will want a board with at least 2x PCIe (PCI Express) x8 slots. Newer boards have x16 slots which is even better (the x8 or x16 signifies the speed at which the port can operate. Newer cards need the higher speed to operate more effectively, but this is more for gaming than trading). Also ensure the board offers gigabit LAN. This is a default on almost all boards nowadays, but I have seen a few lower-end boards that only offer 10/100 speed for the LAN (rather than 10/100/1000 or 'Gigabit'). Video Cards (GPU): I discussed this above with how many monitors you plan to add to your system. I prefer the NVidia cards as they are reasonably priced and they offer lots of power. You do not need the absolute latest $700 video card that has 5 GB's of RAM. This is total overkill (unless you plan to game). Any of the lower-end 10x series or even the higher numbered 9x series cards will do the job. Each of the video cards will be independent. Gamers tend to use what is called 'SLI' to make 2 cards act like one, but that is not the case here since we just need extra monitor space. Just be sure if you want more than one video card you see my notes on the motherboard above. Case: The case is something that you can have a little fun with. This is where all of the pieces of the computer live. People tend to get creative with these and get cases with windows and lights and all sorts of fancy stuff. This is entirely up to you. The most important take-away on the case is that it MUST support proper cooling. Most cases have 2x 80mm or 120mm fans in them. The more fans the more air is moving through the case to keep the internal components cool. If your goods overheat, then your machine will shut down and could potentially fry. So make sure you find a case with decent cooling capacity. Power Supply (PSU): The power supply or PSU is what provides power to all of the components. There are calculators out there that can help you determine based on what you plan to buy how large of a PSU you will need. My rule of thumb is do not go for anything less than 500 Watts. If you plan to have additional hard drives and video cards, then you will likely need a 750-1000 Watt PSU. Also, do not buy a cheap unit here. You want something that is robust and ideally, a modular power supply. These units provide the power to all of the components. If the PSU is providing crappy quality power, then you can expect crappy performance or fried components. Do not skimp on the power supply! Cooling: One final piece I am going to add here and it relates to everything else is that you need to ensure your system is properly cooled. A computer that is improperly cooled will perform poorly and you will end up replacing parts far sooner than you should. Proper cooling primarily comes from the case (discussed above), but other environmental factors such as location of the computer (is it near a heat vent, placed in a hot room, etc) will also affect the cooling. The processor is the most important component that needs to be cooled. Depending on which CPU you get, it will either come with a factory CPU cooler, or it won't come with anything. You DO NOT need to get a water-cooled system. This is ONLY for people like me who are a bit crazy and like to push their hardware to the absolute extreme. For day trading, a simple air cooler is more than enough for the processor. "Tower Coolers" as they are known do an incredible job of keeping the CPU nice and cool even under a heavy load. If you plan to go all out with high-end cards, a high-end CPU and you plan to game, day trade, edit videos and all sorts of stuff, then you will need liquid cooling. But the point of this thread is for a DAY TRADING system. so no overkill needed! I believe I about covered everything here. I probably made your head explode with even more questions, but that's what we are here for! I also apologize for the mess in my office in the pictures above. I need to re-organize my office at some point, but I had back surgery a few months ago, so moving anything is off the table for now. Although they do so that a disorganized desk is the sign of an intelligent mind.... Please feel free to ask any follow up questions. I didn't post links to specific hardware or websites since you can get this stuff from pretty much anywhere for very close to price. I have found that Microcenter is a lot cheaper than NewEgg and Amazon are. But if you don't have a Microcenter near you, you will have to order from elsewhere.