Let this be an inspiration for those still struggling

[Erwann 13]

Thanks @FlourishingWeee.

Finding the kind of trader we want to be is hard and take so much time. I started with 1ORB (as most of BBT members to follow Andrew) to Thors Camarilla Pivots to Ed 5ORB style....I'm trying to find my own edge but I like all.

May I ask why are you trading options now? If I understand well, your strategy could be apply to stock shares as well. So why options please? (without the PDT reason).

[FlourishingWeee 44]

3 hours ago, Erwann said:

Thanks @FlourishingWeee.

Finding the kind of trader we want to be is hard and take so much time. I started with 1ORB (as most of BBT members to follow Andrew) to Thors Camarilla Pivots to Ed 5ORB style....I'm trying to find my own edge but I like all.

May I ask why are you trading options now? If I understand well, your strategy could be apply to stock shares as well. So why options please? (without the PDT reason).

The reason I tried options is because I had tried pretty much everything I could using shares and I still wasn't profitable after 4 years.  Just like you, I tried many different strategies, trying to find my edge.  I was almost ready to give up.  I took a 1 month break to think things through and I came to the realization that I couldn't give up.  I just hated the idea of giving up completely and throwing all I had learned the past 4 years to the garbage.  I wanted to keep trying, but I had to make radical changes for me to be able to do so.  That meant:

1- A small account, 5000$CAN per year max.

2- Reduce monthly expenses.  No more DAS.

3- Try something different because, clearly, what I was doing was not working.

There's 1 thing I felt like I could do good, and it was to find patterns with extremely good probabilities.  Sure, they didn't happen very often, but I thought that if I could play only those times and put more risk on them, I could make a big chunk of money in 1 big trade instead of trying to do a lot of smaller trades every day.  And that's where options seemed like the perfect choice, since you can do completely insane returns with them.  My plan was to wait for a perfect setup and go all in on it with options and try to make something crazy like 50 or 100% return.  That was the plan anyways.  So, of course, I didn't have the patience to wait for that perfect setup and ended up taking smaller setups but using options this time, to kinda get the hang of it and prepare for the big day, which wasn't a bad idea.  That's what got the ball rolling on options for me.

I finally got my big day where I felt like the setup was pretty much 99.9999% probabilities of success and made 5000$ in just a couple of minutes.  It was crazy for me.

But you are right, my strategy could be done with shares too on any normal day, it would just require more capital, and it would also limit the returns you could get, as shares don't move nearly as much as options.

I've been trading Futures more and more lately, the MNQ to be more precise.  I find that, in times of high volatility, it's a little bit easier to trade.  So I alternate between TSLA options and MNQ these days.  But those are the only 2 tickers I'm watching, every day.  There are a couple of advantages to that.

1- I can sit down at the computer only 2 minutes before the bell.  My preparation consists of looking at the MNQ and TSLA charts and adding levels if I see new ones that could matter.  I just ignore everything else and it saves me time and energy.  It takes me a couple of seconds and I'm ready to go. 

2- I got to "know" TSLA and I feel like I can predict moves better because I'm used to how it moves.

3- The MNQ is Nasdaq Futures, and TSLA is in the Nasdaq.  So they are both very related and it helps to predict moves on one side or the other.

4- I replaced the 4 charts of different stocks in play I had with only 1 big chart of the MNQ 15 minute.  That allows me to have a better view of the whole market on a larger time frame instead of only being zoomed in on the 1 or 5 minutes in a smaller window.

Anyways, that's where I'm at right now, and I'm sure it will keep evolving with time.  I'm always trying to improve a little thing here and there.

Thinking about it, options forced me to wait for better signals because I had no choice to risk more on each trade, so I was more cautious with the kind of trade I was taking.  And, with time, I realized that trading is a lot easier when you are patient and wait for a good signal.  It's just hard to get the feel of exactly what is a good signal and what isn't.  It takes a lot of practice and experience.  Being a successful trader comes down to a lot of different little things that you put together to make it work.  I feel like I'm starting to ramble so I'll stop here.  Have a good one.

[Erwann 13]

23 hours ago, peterB said:

this is the biggest misleading of Andrews book i think. It presents the ORB as the simplest trading strategy ever but i do not know anyone here at BBT who was successfull with ORBS in the beginning. Quite the opposite 🙂

So true. I don't know if Andrew ask Ed to join for this reason but Ed is like a new fresh wind in the BBT approach. 

[Erwann 13]

16 hours ago, FlourishingWeee said:

1- I can sit down at the computer only 2 minutes before the bell.  My preparation consists of looking at the MNQ and TSLA charts and adding levels if I see new ones that could matter.  I just ignore everything else and it saves me time and energy.  It takes me a couple of seconds and I'm ready to go. 

2- I got to "know" TSLA and I feel like I can predict moves better because I'm used to how it moves.

3- The MNQ is Nasdaq Futures, and TSLA is in the Nasdaq.  So they are both very related and it helps to predict moves on one side or the other.

4- I replaced the 4 charts of different stocks in play I had with only 1 big chart of the MNQ 15 minute.  That allows me to have a better view of the whole market on a larger time frame instead of only being zoomed in on the 1 or 5 minutes in a smaller window.

Thanks again for sharing your experience. 

It is amazing to read your list, this 4 items are the exact one I'm thinking about in my stage. I come to realized that the idea to scan the market everyday to find the best stock to trade is not adapt to all kind of trading. I've heard many profitable traders lastly in my researches say they had to reduce their ticker list to learn those tickers behaviors and find confidence on how to trade them.  So I'm also going to reduce my ticker list to well known tickers as NVDA, SQ, TSLA, etc.

Also I did have a look to NQ and ES futures this week and I was surprise to see how well they respect pivots. I have compared them with SPY and QQQ and futures were easier to read on bigger time-frames (15 to 60) for levels/pivots.

Also I'm reading now everyday the Investopedia - Chart Advisor newsletter (witch I recommend to anyone) and they use a lot options to analyse potential stocks levels.

Your fist item is the best one: quick and free trading style (Andrew's style). How did you know your are a scalper and not a day trader on bigger time-frames? I style not sure witch one I am.

By the way sorry for my english 😉

[FlourishingWeee 44]

17 hours ago, Erwann said:

Thanks again for sharing your experience. 

It is amazing to read your list, this 4 items are the exact one I'm thinking about in my stage. I come to realized that the idea to scan the market everyday to find the best stock to trade is not adapt to all kind of trading. I've heard many profitable traders lastly in my researches say they had to reduce their ticker list to learn those tickers behaviors and find confidence on how to trade them.  So I'm also going to reduce my ticker list to well known tickers as NVDA, SQ, TSLA, etc.

Also I did have a look to NQ and ES futures this week and I was surprise to see how well they respect pivots. I have compared them with SPY and QQQ and futures were easier to read on bigger time-frames (15 to 60) for levels/pivots.

Also I'm reading now everyday the Investopedia - Chart Advisor newsletter (witch I recommend to anyone) and they use a lot options to analyse potential stocks levels.

Your fist item is the best one: quick and free trading style (Andrew's style). How did you know your are a scalper and not a day trader on bigger time-frames? I style not sure witch one I am.

By the way sorry for my english 😉

I just don't have the patience required to trade on longer time frames.  I feel uncomfortable watching the price go up and down, I find it stressful.  I know the market moves in waves and that pullbacks are normal and to be expected but whenever I get in a position and it goes green, I prefer trying to get out at the top of the first wave and then re-entering at the bottom of the pullback than just holding through the pullback.  It really pisses me off when I don't take profits on a green trade and then it comes back to breakeven and I have to get out with only a small partial win or no win at all.  I can deal with the frustration of taking profits too early and missing a huge move way better than I can deal with the frustration of having a green trade turn into a breakeven one.

Also, I don't have all day to trade, only the first 30 minutes to an hour depending on the day, so scalping works out pretty well for my situation.

[Erwann 13]

Hi @FlourishingWeee,

Just to let you know that your post was a wake-up call for me. 

I've been full time in the game since a year now and many of the aspect you talk about make sense to me. 

I'm switching to options scalping at the Open from now on.

Thanks again for what you already shared.

I have to find how to set-up my station now, TWS is not the easiest trading platform. DAS is also ok to trade options, did you leave DAS for the price or was it for an other reason? 

As usual if you have any technical advices I'm taking them all 😉

 

 

[FlourishingWeee 44]

7 hours ago, Erwann said:

Hi @FlourishingWeee,

Just to let you know that your post was a wake-up call for me. 

I've been full time in the game since a year now and many of the aspect you talk about make sense to me. 

I'm switching to options scalping at the Open from now on.

Thanks again for what you already shared.

I have to find how to set-up my station now, TWS is not the easiest trading platform. DAS is also ok to trade options, did you leave DAS for the price or was it for an other reason? 

As usual if you have any technical advices I'm taking them all 😉

 

 

That's great!  I'm glad it could help!  Thanks for letting me know.

Setting up the tools is definitely a challenge and quite an adventure, it takes many itterations and a lot of time to get it just right.  And even then, it feels like there's always a little something that could be better, at least for me.

I let go of DAS for a couple of reasons.  Frankly, I found it quite unreliable near the end.  I had multiple problems with their quote servers in just a couple of months, and sometimes it would start lagging really hard when market opened, it was a very frustrating experience.  I couldn't justify paying 150$/month anymore as I was looking to cut down on costs to be able to keep going.  TWS is a great tool if you take the time to set it up.  The charts aren't great and the Times & Sales window is terrible, but the rest is pretty good.  I don't use Times & Sales and Level2 anymore anyways so I don't care.  I like the fact that it shows your exact P&L including commissions, and you can also get faster time frames like the 15 second chart that I use to scalp.  You can trade directly on charts and eventhough hotkeys aren't as flexible as DAS's hotkeys, they work well.  The executions are really fast and it's nice to trade directly with your broker's tools instead of using a third party that could generate more issues.  For 0$ a month, it was a no-brainer for me to make the switch and I'm really glad I did.

Since the charts aren't very good in TWS, I use TradingView's charts instead to see what's happening.  Once or twice a year you can get 60% off on an annual subscription so it's pretty cheap.  I only keep a very basic chart in TWS to place my trades using the ChartTrader module and I use TradingView's charts for indicators and drawings.  If you're going to scalp, I would strongly recommend you get a macro keypad to help you manage your hotkeys and execute faster and more freely.  It has played a very important role in my success and I wouldn't trade without it now.  I got this one and I love it: MAX FALCON-20 RGB Custom Programmable Mini Macropad Mechanical Keyboard (Assembled) (maxkeyboard.com)

I hope that helps, good luck with your new beginning!

[Reese 1]

Hi @FlourishingWeee

This thread was very inspirational!

 I am in the process of learning as much as I can and I was hoping you could share any helpful updates with your trading style. 

Are you still using the same platform and tools?

Do you have anymore tips or resources/videos that have helped you since your last post?

Thanks for sharing your journey!

[FlourishingWeee 44]

On 10/8/2022 at 12:22 PM, CaressaS said:

Hi @FlourishingWeee

This thread was very inspirational!

 I am in the process of learning as much as I can and I was hoping you could share any helpful updates with your trading style. 

Are you still using the same platform and tools?

Do you have anymore tips or resources/videos that have helped you since your last post?

Thanks for sharing your journey!

Hey @CaressaS

I'm glad this thread could help in any way.

Yes, I'm still using the same platform and tools. 

The recent market state has been quite challenging for my trading style/strategy but I'm confident things will be back to normal at some point.  I'm trying to stay patient and not risk too much when things are this choppy.  Big fake outs are extremely dangerous when scalping options at the open.

I've picked up on a new "mentor" that I like.  He's trading mostly options using the break and retest strategy.  I've been trading live with him (audio only) for 2 months now and I like his style and find that his live commentary is on track with what I want to hear when I trade.  He's cool, calm and collected, while focused on the action.  You can find him on YouTube, his name is Vincent Desiano.

[Helldriver 1]

Your turaround is very inspiring.

Today i reached the green at least in Simulator since i dig a hole for me in this bear market. 

I see it as the first step on the road, mostly psycholgical, but a turn around is a turnaround.

 

It was on trading everything wrong but one thing. Buying low on a larger timeframe and not going in at the local top.  So miles to go on the way to that turnaound you took, but now i see the light of the morning coming 😀

[kalyan 0]

@FlourishingWeee thanks for your advice ☺️