alexander shanks 2 Posted June 11, 2020 Hey everyone! My name is Alex Shanks i'm from Vancouver Island. BC, Canada. Have been on a journey to start trading for about 4 years. Got really into it and read a bunch of books and watched lots of videos and did some Sim trading and was starting to have some more green days then red days. Was really enjoying it, but at this same time my wife and i had purchased some land to build our dream home, so at this time i had to have all of our money in our bank accounts for the banks to approve a construction to build mortgage. Trading was put to the way side as all of my time was put into building our home and working full time, but i always had it in the back of my head that once this is finished i will get back to doing this! About a month before we finished building our home my wife got pregnant with our son and this got pushed back again. First year of having a kid is a game changer!! At this point i was managing our long term investments and adding to these. This would scratch the itch  a bit for me but i was still missing that day trading feeling! Start of 2020 i told myself this was the year that i would focus and get back on track. I picked up How to day trade for a living and this was eye opening for me as i was not as prepared to start this journey as i thought. I kept looking at books and taking notes/building my trading plan. I started a new job that has me working from 3:30 PM to 12PM which has given me a great opportunity to start trying to Day Trade for real (by this i mean SIM trading ) I've just been getting my setup with Das Trader completed and setting my rules as well as reviewing the the info in the education center now that i have become a member with BBT. I plan on starting to SIM trade/Reply trade in the next coming week and documenting all this as i go. I really want to be trading during the open/ mid afternoon, but due to having a 1.5 year old i know that i cant expect my wife to be waking up with our son every morning. I would then be using reply on Das, but without Level 2 data as well as not being able to add stop orders is this still something i should be doing at first? Should i just be focusing on the days that i can trade to find the style that i will go forward with which i then would be able to practice this on Reply? Really looking forward to getting to know everyone here in the BBT family and learning from everyone here.  If anyone has pointers or information its all very greatly appreciated!  Thanks, Alex Shanks Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Justin 262 Posted June 11, 2020 Welcome @alexander shanks - I was born and raised on Vancouver Island! In response to your question about the DAS Replay function, yeah it's nice to go back and test some trades and see how the market flowed... But without L2 and not being able to add stop orders, you're learning with one hand tied behind your back. I wouldn't not use it, but you want to duplicate trading in SIM to trading live as closely as you can. The less variables that change the better; the psychology of trading with real money is hard enough of a change! Again, welcome - and don't be afraid to ask questions! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Christopher 129 Posted June 11, 2020 @alexander shanks Whats up!!!!!!!!!! Welcome back to trading!! I'm still in sim as well, but I think finding some time in the day where you can VERY consistently trade is going to be the best strategy. Notice that the open and close of the market have by far the most volume, so if you can catch the market open some days, but the close everyday, I think you could find some strats that will work well for you! I should also add that I have zero experience trading the close, this opinion is from the first principle that volume moves price action, the more volume, the more moves!   good luck! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
alexander shanks 2 Posted June 12, 2020 Hey @Christopher Patterson and @Justin Thanks for the responses! I might even be lucky enough that more work is gonna be having me switch to a week on week off which would really be giving me that chance to start in the am on the weeks off! Will definitely try looking at some close of market strategies and see if anything peaks my interest, right now mainly focusing on the ORB as well as the Bull/Bear flag patterns. It seems to make the most sense for me right now, but would like to back test a few different strategies and different Risk/Reward ratios to see what will work the best? I see here lots of people are taking partials all the way out and moving their stop loss to break even. I have also been looking at more of a strict either 2:1/3:1 and not getting in or out of my trade until this happens. Again need to do some back testing and see what is going to work best. @Justin what part of the island did you grow up on? I'm from the Courtenay area myself.  Thanks for the information guys! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Justin 262 Posted June 12, 2020 4 hours ago, alexander shanks said: @Justin what part of the island did you grow up on? I'm from the Courtenay area myself. Nice, I've spent a lot of time up in Courtenay because of Mt. Washington! But from Victoria myself Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
