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As I am writing my first journal, the first item is I need to do a better job of journaling! I need to dedicate time every day to recap, reflect, make some notes and come out an improved trader ! I have only been in DAS for a couple of weeks but was previously paper trading in TD Ameritrade’s Think or Swim platform (TOS). I had real issues with executions and status updates that encouraged me to switch to DAS. Wow, DAS is like lightning compared to TOS. Tough week across the board as I am posting my fourth red day in a row. I am journaling with TraderVue which has been awesome. Quick note on TraderVue; The owner contacted me via e-mail the first day I created an account and helped me import data from TOS. First Class ! Here is a testament to my inconsistent journaling (failing to import days) The blue days are mostly in TOS. May 29 forward was DAS. Then I made the switch to DAS, but did not consistently download the data until this week. I am not blaming DAS on my switch from profitably, but I am definitely doing something different. Just brainstorming while typing; what else is different. I hooked my laptop up to two more monitors so now I have a total of three. I would think this would make me a better trader. Today’s trades: (SIM) Well, this looks like a lot... Ok Question #1; Can I get the buy and sell bullets on the DAS charts ? It is nice on the TraderVue charts, but those don’t show the trend lines etc… Trade 1: OXY ORB on 1 Minute What a late entry! Since that wasn’t my number one stock so not lined up in my montage screen. I think I wasted valuable time resetting my screen as opposed to executing my trade. Also missed the exit on the first resistance level. Minor loss. Poor execution. Good strategy. (#1-B; Is there a better way to do this ?) Trade 2: Thought this was bouncing off VWAP for support and to form ABCD. Had stop set below VWAP Good plan and execution, just failed. Loss, but feel god about this one. Same charts as Trade 1. Trade 3: Thought an ABCD pattern was setting up. Didn’t wait for candlestick to close. Poor execution. Loss Trade 4 Oh nasty bad word. I hit the wrong hot button. Instead of selling 25% and 50% I hit cover and added to my position! I have not done this at all on DAS and now I have done it several times this week. (Much worse on Tuesday) A couple of thoughts; 1. A miss-key should have a 5 minute time out from trading stocks. 2. I bought a keyboard that I programmed side “G-Keys” just for selling and shorting, maybe I should just use those. Layout: G1 - Sell 25% G2 - Sell 50% G3 - Sell 100% G4 - Cover 25% G5 - Cover 50% G6 - Cover 100% 2b. “G-Keys” only work if the montage window is highlighted. This should have been a beautiful trade. Don’t make fun of my handwriting ABCD Great strategy, poor-poor execution. Error on Hot-Keys. Trade 5 Broke VWAP after four strong candles. Number one stock on my list. Market is strong with heavy volume on the airline stocks today. Of course now I am extra-burned with the huge take-off the stock did later. I could not watch the market all day because I had errands to run Only thing I feel good about is the entry and stop. Looking for feedback on this one. Trade 6 Revenge trade on previous trade. UAL went under VWAP. I went short. It went up. Seems funny now. Ahhhhh! Trade 7A and 7B DAL breaks above VWAP and I go long with almost 1000 shares. This is my all-in commit, so I am feeling good about the setup. Hot-Key error (again?) cover 25% instead of sell, but I quickly sell 50% at one cent better so I adjusted fast. And then…….my DAS froze ! I felt good because I put in a hard stop. I called them in the afternoon and their advice was if that happened again to “Switch the Quote Server” File => Data Stream Mode => Switch Quote Server Ok, also set up my mobile DAS. Don’t know what to think about this one. Got back in at 10:05 to continue the trade… In at $30.22 down to $30.14...i’m out ! Poor entry and exit, but better to get out then hold while you're steaming… Still a winner...sick…. Trade 8 EBAY Looking for a reversal back to VWAP. Buy at 49.20 Feeling really good about the trade, good risk to reward, good setup… Double up and buy again at 49.26. ALL IN. Hindsight 20/20 Risk Analysis First entry at 49.20 If my stop should have been at 48.82. 38 cents to share, 1R = $100, max share size = 263 shares. I was 304+304 = 608. I think I lost my nerves. TRADE 9 OXY Was thinking this was a reversal back to VWAP. Good news got out as soon as it was going bad. ====================================================== Recap: Another tough day. A little frustrated for sure. I have some leftover frustration because Wednesday was such a huge day in the market and I was red for the day. On the positive notes. I think I have a really good pre-market routine. I am listening to the morning show, going through the scanners. I am making my list independently and I felt confident about the stock selection. I love the way my DAS is setup. I think my trade station is laid out really well. Some constructive take-aways: When trading ORB for 1 minute, focus on the trade NOT the DAS layout… I feel like I have a very good concept of the strategies in the book and the videos. (Can always be better!) Good use of hard and soft stops. Can’t have hot-key errors. I know this is practice in SIM, but jeez! Use programmed G-Keys ? Slow down and think where you are in the trade. I only take one trade at a time so no excuse. Time-out for hot-key errors. Looking for feedback on trade 5. Thinking back at both trade 7 and trade 8 I got out early without proper stops. Both setups had perfect strategies and would have been monster winners if I had stayed in. Patience ?? Thoughts and questions: Any overall thoughts/feedback ? Too many trades for a beginner ? I personally don’t think so, only because they all have a strategy attached. After the open should I only be on 5-minute candles ? I think what I really need is proper stops, proper risk and patience. Should I be in the market longer ? The action dies down after the first 45 minutes, but it seems some patience would catch some huge potential moves. Wow, this is a lot of work. I spent a lot of time on this, but I got a lot out of it. Everybody can’t spend this much time (??) Honestly frustrated. I have put a lot of time and effort in this. I have studied and feel that I have a good concept of the strategies. Will keep plugging along, this is something I really want to accomplish ! -tom n

Hi everyone, (sorry if its a long post, just want to get my thoughts out and see if anyone has comments) I wanted to know if there was a topic or experience someone has had on having your rules too strict & it affecting your trading? June 23: I was on SIM / QR (Quote Replay) for 4 months (took about 60 trades) and had a profitable edge at the end of those 4 months so I decided to go live. In the first week I had a decreasing equity curve (8 trades over a week) and no green trades past 2R. Firstly, I re-evaluated why I was losing and thought I was not choosing the same stocks as in my SIM/QR. So and went back to compare the trades I was doing before, I made some small tweaks to my trade book (added more required confirmations) and went back to live. Another 4 red days in a row. July 6: Next I thought it was my psychology because I was breaking a lot of my rules , I ended up finishing Trading in The Zone (which is a great book) and I began to understand myself more. I thought I was breaking my rules because I thought I was outsmarting the market and ignoring my rules because I expected the market to behave how I wanted to. (Which was wrong and since thing have fixed this mindset; I truly believe the market is unpredictable and must follow my rules like a casino). Went back to live and 3 red days in a row. July 28: At this point, I'm like wtf man. So I dig deeper into myself and my 4 months of SIM & I think have found the source of my problem. During my SIM / QR training I tried many different strategies but really enjoyed (& saw the potential) trading at open specifically 60 min Breakouts. Using Aiman's tradebook as a starting point, I began just focusing on these set ups. During this training I still felt unsure about the direction of the breakout can go and felt it was very random. I wanted to know which direction it would go and predict it well. In order to fill this fear of entering into a "wrong trade" I went to learn more about the market. (I know understand this was a wrong mindset because I was looking for certainty in the market where there is none.) Doing some youtube searches I came across the MACD Indicator and instantly loved it. It made me feel more confident and certain in my directions / timing of breakouts; so I added criteria to my tradebook based upon repeating (successful) MACD patterns on the 60min chart. Maybe around month 3 of training I added these criteria. Solution: Looking at all my recent live trades in retrospect I think my problem for not being consistently profitable is my over reliance on the MACD indicator in my 60min BO tradebook and too many other requirements to enter a trade. By having created such a strict tradebook (to compensate my previous fear of uncertainty) I have created another psychology problem in my trading. I have been breaking my rules many of the times in LIVE because I simply can't find stocks that match perfectly with previous MACD patterns and other requirements to enter a trade. Next Steps: 1) I am going to stop trading LIVE for now and really review all my trades I have previously taken in SIM / QR. 2) I am going to remove the MACD indicator from my charts and tradebook. Then I will need to re-trade all my trades again to see if I truly have a winning edge. (I'm pretty sure I do but numbers don't lie so I need to redo my stats to make sure before I go back to live) 3) Instead of over relying on the MACD indicator, I'm going to continue improving my daily chart patterns and selection. (Which I have improved a lot in the past weeks) 4) I want to get more feedback / advice on how I should go about adding requirements or rules to my tradebook. For instance what I have been doing is cross refencing criteria on all my trades and analyzing common patterns (ex. Do not enter if 8am 60min candle is Long Wicky Hammer) because I noticed the stock never went my way (4 out of 4 times the candle appeared) so I would add that to my tradebook to avoid. In retrospect, I do not know if by adding avoiding criteria is in fact a psychological compensation of fear avoidance or if its smart because it will save me money. Note: Quote Replay was used for trades during Jan 2021 - Feb 2021. See my tradebook for ref. Any feedback on my entry would be super helpful! (Takeaways: over reliance on indicators, too strict tradebook, thoughts / experiences of adding a rule to an existing tradebook based on failed trade(s) / pain avoidance) ChristianRodriguez_TradeBook.pdf

I trade only at open and I am trading only one setup 5 min ORB, Our mentors always tell at starting learn only few setups that is enough to make money. I am following the same. Simple Rules: Trade only 5 min ORB Entry and exit based on 5 min trend lines No low float stocks Volatility < 10-11% [ Reason I am trading with very small risk hence small qty Kyle's htk, for volatile stock >10% I need to have wide SL hence I will get very very small qty and risk to reward is not favorable for me] Partials based on Fibonacci levels [ It's really useful as I am trading with very small risk and qty hence I can partials at important levels in order to make most of the profile with less qty, and as all we know fib numbers are natural numbers and we can find most of the levels based on fib numbers. I am using fib numbers for my swing trade as well] Stocks should have good order flow Stocks ranges $10-80 [ I am unable to manage risk outside this range, it's my comfort zone and I have a good edge in this range as per previous records] 5 Min ORB trade[INTC] Aug-20-2020: For this trade I saw weakness at premarket 15/30/60 min chart. I was planning to go short and was looking for 5 min break down.I went short after waiting for 2-3 min at open. I got a pullback and drew fib levels for partials. Eventually I closed all my position at 5 min trend break.

Hi guys, The journal - Total Trader, is now available for free download on my blog http://daytradearcade.com There are 5 short instructional vidoes to help you get the most out of it. I'd be grateful for all feedback (both good and bad!) Also, if you like Total Trader, I'd be grateful for a donation as I spent about 200 hours building it + $200 for a programmer to build the macros. Let me know what you think! The direct link to the download is: http://daytradearcade.com/trading-journal2/ Let me know your feedback (both good and bad!).

July 2, 2019 Traded poorly today. We managed to minimize our losses, so it was a death by a thousand cuts. Lol. Lots more practice in our future. https://youtu.be/ZnDcGM-z7p4

A place where we can place the link to our trade journal. If we want to follow each other and how our trades are doing.

Hello Everyone, First I wanted to say what a great community we have here with BBT. I have learned so much from traders with all different levels of experience. Today marks 4 months of simulator trading and I plan to do one more full month before going live. I have decided to post daily recaps of my simulator trades as a way to help myself with accountability and ensure I trade in the simulator the way I would trade live. Hopefully, these posts may help some traders who are just beginning in the simulator. My plan for the last month of simulator trading is to trade 100 shares size to copy what I plan to trade during the first month of going live. I am hoping that this gives me metrics to evaluate against once I am trading live. I welcome any feedback and comments that anyone wants to provide. 2018-09-28 15-34-44.mp4

Hi Guys! This is JB and I really want to thank Andrew for being such an excellent and inspiring teacher for me and for creating this amazing community full of dedicated and serious traders! I want to start this topic to share with the community all my journey in the simulator. I appreciate any feedback from you guys. So this is officially day one and here is my video recap: