What I Learned in 2014

What I Learned in 2014

January 2015 marks my 1 year anniversary in day trading.  I felt that in honor of my 1^st year, I would reflect on the things I have learned over the past year.  In education, reflection is the key to becoming a better educator. I have used it to become a better teacher, and about halfway through 2014 I realized that I could use it to be a better trader as well.  In this blog I will share the things that I have learned about my trading that has consistently helped me to move forward toward making this a career.  I know they have worked for me because when I stopped and looked back over my first 5 months, made adjustments, I went from $800 to a little over $9800 in 6 months.  Yes I used too much leverage and traded with way too much size in relation to my account size, which is a mistake I will not make this year.  As I looked over what I did, I see that I was 1 trade away from blowing up! I will be more responsible this year.

Lesson 1:  It is so easy to get lost in the market, in a trading community, or just life in general.  It is not wrong to be driven in the pursuit of success.  To be successful in anything I do I know I have to have passion and be driven to accomplish my goals.  It is when I get lost and disconnected from the world around me that the problems come in.  I learned I have to stop and self-reflect to make sure I’m still on the right track to accomplish my goals. I have to take time to specifically focus on questions about my goals and my general state of mind.  it wasn't until I started taking steps back each week to analyze where I was in reaching my goals, to decide whether based on what I have learned this week, are my goals realistic, and how I may need to adjust my strategic plan to reach my goals, that things started making sense to me. I had to detach myself from Twitter, chatrooms, charts, etc.  I had to set aside time each week to unplug from everybody and everything.

Lesson 2:  I learned that I can’t try and take short cuts and find deals on everything.  With the exception of FINVIZ, Twitter, and YouTube, all the tools I need to be successful costs money.  I know the TOS platform and other platforms are supposedly free but we pay for it in other ways.   I can honestly say it is all worth it.  For instance, I pay $150 a month for EquityFeed. If I find just 1 or 2 trades I have made my money back.  Everything after that is just gravy.  I look at everything as just the cost of doing business.  If I use the tools correctly and I trade correctly, I make money.  Anyway, it’s tax deductible!

Lesson 3:  About halfway through the year I realize I hated OTC’s.  I especially didn't like shorting them.  It seemed like shorting crappy OTC’s was the only way make money with them.  So in May I started looking for something different and that’s when I found Nate at Investors Underground and his DVD Textbook Trading.  Before I bought in I watched some of his video lessons posted on his YouTube channel and asked a few people I knew.  I made the mistake of jumping in chat too soon because I spent more time trying to figure out what they were talking about.  I spent a couple of weeks on the video and got a good fundamental understanding of how the community trades and their lingo. It helped me learn which setup I liked the best without paying any tuition in the market.  Once I got my bearing it was great.  So the lesson I learned is that if you join any chat, make sure you take some time and learn the language of that community.  It can determine whether you will get anything from your subscription or not.

Lesson 4:  I learned that for a new person starting out that it is best to focus on one type of setup at a time.  As I said before I used the DVD to help me identify the setup I liked the best.  Make sure you can correctly identify and trade that setup before you start looking at another one.  When I did that I started making money.  I put all of my time and energy in to studying everything about the setup I liked the best.  I planned to build up some capital with it before I start branching off.  So in 2015, I will start learning short setups.

Lesson 5:  I learned that you really only need to follow 1 Guru and his community.  If you’re trading GURU A’s setups, don’t look at GURU B to give advice.  It doesn't work.  I did my homework and found someone that is genuinely interested in teaching you to be an independent thinker and how to understand every part about their trading strategies.  I knew that if I wanted to be successful in this that I had to learn how to stand on my own 2 feet.  I am not in chat during the school year because it doesn't benefit me.  I will get back in during the summer and when I go full time, I will be in chat full time.  I know that there are free chatrooms out there but I will not contaminate my mind or cloud my judgment.  I am successful trading and I am not going to mess that up.

Lesson 6:  I needed to trade small to eliminate as much emotion from my trading decisions as I could.  I came up with an amount I was willing to loose and stuck with it.  I started trading 100 share positions on stocks less than $3.  There were limited opportunities in NASDAQ’s but I wanted to practice identifying and trading patterns.  As my winning % improved, I took larger sizes.  I was able to get all of the dumb mistakes you make when new out of the way and gain valuable live trading experience.  I did not paper trade because I felt it wasn't real.  For me there is no emotional attachment to fake money.  Trading small helped me learn how to manage my emotions when a trade didn't move the right way initially.  I learned how to respect the plan and if a stock didn't cross the line in the sand I set before the trade, it stays on.  90% of the time the stock came roaring back and I was green again.

Lesson 7:  Cut losses quickly.  Sometimes I had to admit when I was wrong.  I had a hard time with this because I felt that if I was wrong, I was not learning and I might not be cut out for this.  I had to realize that even the best traders are wrong.  The setup may be right, but the market decides if you are right or not.  Once I was comfortable with this and knew that I was able to cut losses fast and not worry about a winning %, I could trade with more size.  Since I had a small account I had to protect my capital and could not afford big losses.  I learned that cutting losses quickly had to be a part of my trading plan and that it could actually allow me to make more money in the long run.

Lesson 8:  I learned that I needed to take profits on the way up.  It is hard to do with a 100 share position but I had to set a goal to take profits when a stock reached a certain point, regardless of what I thought it might do.  When I started trading with 1000 shares, I could take ½ off at 3% gain and let the rest work.  I figured that I would not trade a ticker unless I expected at least a 5% overall move anyway. Now, I always take profits on the 1^st red candle during a move.  I always make sure I pay myself something.  I had so many trades that I could have made $75 to $100 on but didn't take some profits off the table and ended up losing.  With a small account these $75 and $100 wins add up, especially if you do several a day.

Lesson 9:  I learned to only trade when I have a setup that I like.  I learned not trade out of boredom.  I learned not to chase stocks that setup but I missed my entry.  I had to realize that I am only trading 1 strategy and if the market is down or slow, I may not have any trades that day or I may miss the entry on the one that setup.  The next day may bring more than I can handle.  I had to learn to be patient and only trade my setups.

Lesson 10:  I had to reduce my trading station from watching 4 screens to 3.  Too much "noise" when I'm trying to trade was killing me.  I was missing more trades than I found because I was looking at too much.

Lesson 11:  Last, but not least, and I should have known this from the start, there is no substitute for education. Textbook Trading and Tandem Trader were my best investments.  Without them I would be nothing right now. Watching all the video lessons I can and participating in all of the webinars I can I know makes a difference.  I had to take a step back, take my time and learn what I needed to so I could be successful.

So I can sum it up like this; Reflection, Education, Patience, Education, Patience, Reflection.  I know I will never stop learning in this business. 

How I Find Stocks to Trade: Part II

How I Find Stocks to Trade Part II

My Morning Scans

I like to make premarket scans because it can give me stocks that are gaining momentum that missed all of the scans the previous night.  I pay close attention to the volume though.  If a stock jumped up $2 but only shows 1 or 2 trades and low volume, then it’s just noise.  If the volume is high along with a high percentage move, then I have a good chance to predict the trend for the day.  My favorite early trade setups are the gappers, or stocks that have gapped up premarket.  I have a specific strategy to trade those and often times I will have 2 opportunities to trade that one stock as seen with this chart on ARNA. 

I get up at 6am to get ready for work so I cut on Squawk Box and listen to what the early morning market chatter is.  I get to my computer about 6:30 and there is usually some activity on my watchlist. I'll look to see what is going on with those and sometimes I can immediately eliminate one or two from my list.  I'll take a quick look at the MarketView on Equityfeed.  This gives me info on all of the stocks that are moving in premarket.  I won't do much between 6:30 and 7 other than try to get a feel for how the market is setting up like which sectors are hot and which are not.  My major preparation will come once I get to work.

I will reference EquityFeed a lot in this blog but the best way to understand the power this tool has and how you can use it is go to the website. Just click on the name throughout this blog and watch the videos on the web site.  What I can tell you will not do it justice.  I am sharing how I use it now and as I move forward in my trading career I will be taking more advantage of it's features and integrating them into my trading strategies.

Once I'm at work I pull up my TOS platform, my Tweetdeck, and Equityfeed.  I glance at my Twitter feed but during the trading day I try to filter out as much noise as I can.  I have my MarketView set to where I have the largest % movers on top.  I also have a filter that only will allow stocks between $2 and $20, that have traded at least 100000 shares, and with over 25 transactions. This will eliminate any fluke trades that have no relevance.   I am only interested in tickers that have gapped up at least 5% from the previous close.  I will vet them the way I do my scans at night.  I only keep the ones I feel will give me the best chance.  At this time I give all of my watches a final look and pick the best 8, my top 8 at 8.  Usually I'm done by 8:30.  Waiting until 9 is better but my students start coming in at 8:30.  This is how the MarketView looks

I also have a specialized filter that I built utilizing Filter Builder in Equityfeed.  This is what I have running after 8:30 to only deliver stocks that meet my criteria for potential trades.  The parameters for this filter are: last price >=2, last price <=20, today's trades >=100, today's volume >=100,000, % change >=3%, markets NASDAQ, NYSE, AMEX.  This filter will run all day but I mainly use it for my morning trades.  This is an example of how it looks. on a typical morning.

After I vet the tickers I'll plug them in my TOS platform.  I have an 8 chart montage that I put them in at home but at school my monitor is 1/2 the size so I have 2, 4-chart montages.  The charts are set for 5 minute candles.  My main trading screen has 2 charts with Level 2 and Time and Sales for each.  Once a ticker is in play and ready to trade, it will put it on my main trading screen and the charts are set for 1 minute candles.

After the first three 5 minute candles I will draw a green trend line across to show the high and a red trend line to show the low of the first 15 minutes.  Then I switch to one minute candles and the two stocks that are closest to crossing the green trend line will go on my main screen.  Sometimes I have an immediate trade.  If I do not and it looks like I have a couple of minutes I will start building alerts in Equityfeed to let me know when a possible trade is near. I try to set alerts slightly ahead of a breakout point so that I have enough time to wrap up what I'm doing and get to my computer. I have a 15 minute break that starts at 9:45 so it works out perfectly.  If I am in an immediate trade then my break miraculously extends to 20 or 30 minutes!  Now when I start shorting stocks I will use the red trend line to tell me when I need to short it.  And there are times when the stock will trade within those lines all day and offer no setup.

Now there are opportunities when I get the morning break to trade and then the stock will start setting up for an ABCD type move for later in the day.  It is not uncommon for me to trade the same stock twice in one day.  If after 1pm all of my potential trades have dried up, I will use the Trade Alerts feature on EquityFeed to look for stocks hitting the HOD or making 52 wk highs so I just check day high box and the 52 week high box. Everything else I leave blank. For the filter settings I look for stocks priced between $2 and $20 and a volume over 1 million. As the tickers come up I just click on them and a chart pops up and I can quickly identify if the chart looks like the ABCD patterns I like to trade.

There are many potential trades everyday.  The only reason I would miss making a trade would be because of my schedule at work that day.  Everything I trade right now follows either the simple gap pattern or the simple ABCD pattern.  The hard part is trusting what I see and clicking that button.  Not everything works perfectly nor do I trade everything perfectly but the potential for me to make a few thousand dollars a day is definitely there once I get more experience.

One thing I can tell you is that having a tool like EquityFeed is a necessity if you want to control your own destiny.  You do not want to depend on someone telling you to buy and sell this or that.  You need to know what you are doing and why.  I have had a slow start to 2015 trying to do 2 things at once but once I get my rhythm back at work I know I will be back on top of my game, well back to making progress toward reaching the top.

Well, until next time, happy trading!

How I Find Stocks to Trade: Part I

How I Find Stocks to Trade

There are literally thousands of stocks that you can trade on any given day.  When you are new, the potential number of trades can and will overwhelm you.  I know when I first started I just traded what was on the guru’s watchlist that was put out every day.  My only plan was to rely on these guys I paid money to for stocks to trade as well as alert services (pumpers) I subscribed to.  I would buy on the alert, hold for a while and sell for a profit.  Yeah, that worked really well.  I lost over ½ my trading capital in a month.  I did not know how to do basic technical analysis or read candlesticks.  I spent months not gaining the knowledge I needed.  I realized that for me to be successful, I needed to become self-sufficient.  I needed to spend time learning how to find stocks to trade as well as what to look for when I find them.  My idea of looking for a simple list of high volume momentum stocks that I can trade every day and make boat loads of money wasn’t reality. 

Scanning for stocks is a huge fundamental skill that you must develop as trader, even if you are someone who gets most of their ideas from others while sitting in a chat room. You never want to be in a situation where you must rely on others to give you what you need to survive in this business. Having the foundation to be able to scan for yourself actually helps you to better be able to analyze the stocks mentioned every day in chat rooms by others, especially since not all of them are going to be setups that you like or are familiar with. If you can't scan through stocks on multiple time frames quickly and efficiently, you are going to be left in the dust by traders who can react quickly and efficiently to what they see since they have so much experience at it. Finding the best stocks to day trade requires preparation, having the correct tools, and a basic understanding of technical analysis. I use a two part system to find the stocks I trade so I will be sharing part 1 in this blog.

For me it begins with the nightly scan.  I not only use this to help build my watchlist but I use it to get an idea of what happened in the market that day such as if a particular sector is gaining momentum. Even though only 1/4^th of the stocks on my watchlist actually ever set up for me as a possible trade, it helps me organize my thoughts and gives me much needed practice in reading charts and formulating plans.  I need this structure as being a full time teacher my time to research and chart intraday is very limited.  I have to start preparing at night.  I will eat dinner, have a little family time, take a shower to shake the day off, and start my scans.

I use Finviz for my nightly scans.  It is free, it has a great selection of technical indicators, and it provides a daily chart and some basic fundamental information.  I have two simple scans that I took straight from the Textbook Trading and TandemTrader DVD’s.  I start with Scan 1, and if there are more than 40 tickers, I’ll run Scan 2 to cut down the list.  You can click on them to see what they look like.  Also, I change the charts to candlesticks to take those distracting trend lines off!  From there I will begin looking on the daily charts to see if any of them have the potential to set up for a trade the next day.  Along with looking for stocks which have immediate setups that are looking like they will breakout, I will be looking for charts which show me that they can have nice moves with good range again and again.What I look for comes directly from the DVD’s.  I look for charts that may be gearing and setting up for an ABCD type move, one that can set up for an anticipated R/G (red to green) move, a weak open and then stabilize for a move upward, or a potential morning washout after a bullish or bearish close.   Here are some examples of what I am looking for:

In PVG I am looking at how it has run up and broke through the prior resistance.  I am interested because It can make a push to 7+. I am interested in SGMS because it is a potential ABCD setup.  If you match it to the intraday chart it was forming an ABCD pattern as well.

Once I run the scans and pick out the charts I like, I will add them to my watchlist in TOS and pull up multiple time-frame charts to see how they compare to one another.  This is an example of SGMS.  I like this stock for a potential trade the next day because on all 3 charts it is close to breaking a key resistance level and half dollar mark and will most likely run to and possibly break the next whole dollar.

I still look at other watchlists from gurus but only to see if they came up with some of the same stocks I came up with.  I always have 2 plans for a possible trade.  If it sets up the way I want it to one way or the other, or fits one of the patterns I like, I trade it.  If not, I dump it and move on. 

A stock will either open red or green, with strength or weakness.  I always wait at least 15 minutes before I make any trade.  To make sure I wait I set all of my charts on 5 minute candles for the first 15 minutes to give me a clearer picture of what the stock wants to do.  Then I'll switch to 1 minute charts and choose my trades accordingly.  I do this because I am trading at work and I cannot allow myself to jump in a trade because I do not have time to watch every tick.  After 15 minutes I can usually tell whether I will trade a stock or not.  Sometimes I am wrong because stocks are often manipulated by market makers, but more often than not, I am right.

My goal this year is to start with making $250 a day and as my account keeps growing I'll raise it.  If I only average $250 a day I'll make $65,000 for the year which is what I make at my job.  Since I am starting with $5000 this year my position sizes will not be as high as they have been.  I will have to scale them up as my account grows. I will not use leverage like I did last year.  I fully expect to be between a $400 - $500 a day average by the end of the year, especially since I have 3 months in the summer to trade full time.  I look at it this way, a 1000 share position with just a .25 move is $250.  or 3 .10 moves is $300.  The only thing that can stop me from hitting that mark daily would be my responsibilities at my job.

In my next post I will talk about how I modify my watchlist in the morning and how I locate possible intraday trades using Equityfeed once I have exhausted all of the tickers on my morning watchlist.  Also, in the mornings I scan for my favorite intraday set-ups, the gappers.  These setups will be even more profitable to me once I start shorting.  Until next time, happy trading!

Trading Psychology I

Avoid Analysis Paralysis

Most traders start out soaking up information.  This information will come in the form of stock picks, books, seminars, trading coaches, gurus, you name it.  Your personal beliefs, background and personality traits will then take that information and digest it into what I call your foundation for trading.

Next you will take this newly found information into the world of the market.  This can be exciting and a bit scary at the same time. If you are lucky you will put on a few trades and things will go smoothly.  The money will just flow.  If you are unlucky, you will quickly realize why 90%+ of traders fail within the first few years of taking up the charge.

No matter how you start out you inevitably will face a loss that will hit you in the gut.  This loss will resemble the first time a girl broke your hear, or the disbelief you had when you heard at school that Santa didn't exist after your parents have been helping you draft your Christmas wish list and leaving out cookies for years. You will feel a sense of utter disparity as your trading world unravels much quicker than the time you have spent to build it up.

This is the phase where most traders will spend their entire careers.  In any business analysis of the company’s performance to drive further growth is paramount.  Trading is no different.  The only problem is you have to decipher when it’s time to tweak your model versus when results are just noise from the market.

Think about it, if you have just spent hours, weeks or months researching a strategy. This strategy on all fronts looks like it will give you an edge over the market let’s say 60% of the time.  In addition to this edge, it also provides you 2-to-1 in terms of the size of winners and losers.  By all accounts this would be considered a strategy worth testing in the real world.

Of course since the market is random, let’s say out of your first 6 trades only 1 works.  The experienced trader will know that it’s a matter of placing a large enough sample set of trades for things to net out.  The novice trader or the trader stuck in the analysis paralysis phase will without a doubt, change this strategy before it has time to prove whether it is viable or not.

As I’m writing this, it sounds so obvious that you have to allow time and opportunity to work in your favor.  But when it’s your hard earned money on the line your first reaction is to analyze and correct.  It’s such a normal human reaction to protect oneself.  Yet this type of behavior is what traps us as traders and never allows us to reach our full potential.

Do not get stuck in analysis paralysis!  Give yourself enough time in the simulator to fully develop your strategy so that  when you bring it to market, you have absolute trust and confidence in it.  Then, as the market goes through it's cycles, you will just simply adapt and not trash your strategy and start following whoever is posting winning trades.

How I Started Trading: Part II/Choosing the Right Tools

How I Started Trading: Part II

Choosing the Right Tools

Another thing I found out is to be successful in trading, you must have the right tools.  Finding the right tools can be confusing at times and some may be very expensive.  However, if you have followed my advice from the previous blog, you have chosen a “guru” to follow and learn from.  I would absolutely take their advice when it comes to the tools you will need when trading.  If they have a DVD there is usually a chapter on this subject or they will have a section on their web site dedicated to the tools they use.  But, for the sake of this blog, I will share what tooIs I use and how I use them.

First, I will talk about brokers.  I think choosing the right broker can make or break you when you first start making actual trades.  The first accounts I opened were a USAA, a TDAmeritrade and an E-Trade account.  I opened the latter of these because they offered free trading platforms and free initial trades.  USAA does not have a platform.  I opened it because I am a USAA member.  E-Trade’s platform is only free for the first few months unless you make so many trades within a quarter.  Then you get it for free. Also, you have 60 days to actually fund the account while still having access to the platform.  I opened up multiple accounts so that I could avoid the PDT rule. TD Ameritrade had a paper trading option but unfortunately I never took advantage of it.  For a newbie it was difficult keeping up with 3 accounts so I found myself trying to come up with something better.  Also, I needed to come up with the $600 to keep my E-Trade account open but by then I had lost most of the $1500I started with.

When I started following Tim Sykes, I was directed to Suretrader since I had such a small account.  I was warned that they were experiencing growing pains and that the customer service was terrible.  I also had fears because they were outside of the US.  But, they didn’t enforce the PDT rule since they were off shore and they catered to (preyed on) traders like me.  I only sent $500, which was about all I had left, at first and eventually got comfortable with them.  I remember they gave me a couple hundred dollars rebate since I signed up through Tim so I ended up with a little over $800 to start with.  They have been my exclusive broker this year.  Their customer service has been a lot better.  I think they need to reduce some of their fees though.  I use TOS platform to watch my charts and watchlists during the day because it offered everything I needed for free and I was very comfortable with how it worked.  I do plan on using my TD Ameritrade account to do some swing trades this coming year.

Next I’ll talk about what I use as my primary screener. Finviz is by far the best screener that I have found. And better yet, it’s free.  With Finviz you not only get the scans but you also get a corresponding chart and info like the short float and volume to go with each ticker. This cuts down tremendously on the amount of time I spend vetting tickers for my watchlist. Before I started using Finviz I would use my scanner to find tickers and then I would have to put each ticker into my charts at TOS to get a look at the chart. With Finviz my scans are now completed in about 1/2 the time because I only vet the ones that pass my Finviz daily chart test.  Once I have my watchlist narrowed down to about 10 to 12 tickers, then I use TOS Trade tab that has 3 multiple timeframe charts so that I can see how the ticker lines up over multiple timeframes and pick the best 3 or 4.  I’ll have more on how I do my scans in a later post.

I also use Equityfeed. This is a paid subscription service but I really can’t make it without it.  This is a very powerful tool and I haven't begun to familiarize myself with all it offers. I needed a tool that would give me real time information 1st thing in the morning and real-time intra-day scanning to help me identify any setups that may come up later in the day.  Since I am a teacher and can’t watch my screen all day this tool is invaluable to me.  I can usually pay for the subscription with just 1 trade this tool helps me find.  I will explain in more detail how I use this tool in my Screener and Scan blog.

Before I started using Equityfeed I used Stock Horizon to help with intraday stock picks but they would send short and long alerts and most of the time it was done by 10 to 10:30.  I would catch one or two here and there but I found myself not trading my set-ups and I had a nice loss the last time I used it.  I’m sticking with Equityfeed because of all the options it will give me down the road as I perfect my strategy and I like finding stocks on my own for potential trades. I am not bashing Stock Horizon as it is a good service for those who do not have time to scan for themselves.

As far as chatrooms go, InvestorsUnderground is by far the best.  I have been in 4 to date and they do not compare to the information and support you get in IU chat.  Above all, they are always striving to get better and provide more.  I am only in chat during my summer break due to my work schedule but I follow what I can on Twitter.  I would recommend that you watch the Textbook Trading DVD before you start engaging in the chat though because you definitely need to know what is going on beforehand.  Nate personally answers all emails and Tweets and gives honest spot on advice.  If you want to learn from the best, Nate and his community are the best. The video lessons, webinars, and DVD’s are unmatched.

As far as videos I would only recommend Textbook Trading and Tandem Trader.  I believe IU will release a swing trading DVD by Michele aka Offshore Hunter, soon and I’m sure that one will be just as good.  I think all of the reviews on Investimonials speak for themselves.

One tool that I plan on re-implementing is Profit.ly.  I will start verifying my trades again and using their tools to track my progress and analyze my trades. As you can see I have the widget up already on my page with my pathetic newbie trades from earlier this year.  All are pre-IU and Textbook Trading.

Lastly, I will share the hardware that I use.  I wanted a mobile station so that I could move throughout the house because sometimes I like looking out over the deck in my backyard, sometimes I like sitting on my deck, sometimes I like looking out of the front window, and sometimes I like sitting on my front porch.  I wanted to be able to trade anywhere.  So I started out finding a desk that was light, sturdy, and had wheels.  I then started looking at different personal trading setups and saw that most had 3 screens so I started with three screens plus my laptop.  I quickly found that being a rookie it was too much to watch 3 screens while you are learning so I condensed it to only 2 screens and my laptop.  I can pack my station up in a matter of minutes and take it anywhere I travel.  Unpacking and setup is just as quick.  I have an ASUS - 15.6" Laptop - Intel Core i7 - 8GB Memory - 1TB Hard Drive that runs 2 ASUS 24” LED HD Monitors through two j5 create - USB 2.0-to-VGA Display Adapters connected to my laptop with a powered Belkin USB hub . I haven’t had any issues with this setup and I have been running it for the last 6 months.  I am looking to upgrade my laptop to a 17” screen only to make things easier to see. 

                                                                         Before

                                                                         After

This just about covers all of the tools I use to trade with.  I tried to keep things as simple as possible.  I am a firm believer in the KISS method.  When I started trading I would search for the cheapest and any free tools that I could get my hands on. I quickly learned that the cheapest or free was not always good and more times than not, you get what you pay for. As you can see I have a mix of both free and paid.  The tools that I use today are well worth the money and when used correctly pay for themselves 10 times over.

Ed

Questions from How I Started Trading I

Before I get to Part II of How I Started Trading, I want to answer a couple of Questions that were emailed to me about Part I.  They all centered on what was the most important concepts to learn.  Well to be truthful, I like to use the “KISS” method. (Keep It Simple Stupid) I found that the simpler I can keep things, the more I can remember and apply.  This is what I focused on learning and what I recommend learning before you start trading.

     

      1.  Market Terminology – I had to learn the market terminology to follow along with what is happening on Twitter, in chat rooms, etc.  Without this fundamental knowledge you will fall behind and never catch up.  The terminology I learned came from chapter 2 of Textbook Trading DVD.  It starts off with basic terminology like buy, sell, short, buy to cover, limit order, market order, margin, short squeeze, and the exchanges.  Then it gets into typical chat room terminology and acronyms and then Level II terminology.  However, there are a lot of free resources on the internet such as YouTube where you can learn this terminology

      

      2.  Basic Supply and Demand - Next, I learned about how supply and demand effects the price action of a stock and why the stock price moves up and down.  This is very important to understand and connect to what you are seeing when you are following a stock.  This knowledge, though it may seem elementary, is very crucial when you are analyzing the action of a stock.

    

      3.  Technical Analysis – If you are just focusing on day or swing trading versus long term investing, you must understand basic technical analysis.  In my opinion, the basics is all you will ever need.  In technical analysis you are basically looking at charts, identifying support and resistance levels, predicting possible entry and exit points, and setting educated risks.

a.      Charts – This gives you the story.  It allows you to visually see what’s happening as a stock is being traded.  I use candlestick charts and I believe there is nothing better.  I learned basic candlesticking.  None of the candlestick patters you read about in books or magazines, just the basics on how to read the candles.  I learned how to read charts over multiple time frames, daily, 6 month, 3 month, 30 day, and intraday charts.  I learned how to find support and resistance levels.  All these moving averages and studies on charts just add too much noise and for me, took my focus off of what’s truly important, support and resistance. Tell me which chart you feel makes more sense to you:

These charts are from FINVIZ.com which offers part of their services for free.  I always eliminate the “noise” from my charts.

Once I received this basic market education, I was able to follow trades and understand what was happening.  Only then was I able to begin studying the trade set-ups and developing my own comfort level for how I wanted to trade.  I was able to make educated decisions on what trading tools I needed and which ones made sense for how I wanted to trade. When I first started trading I did not do this and I lost money.  I was blindly following throwing good money after bad and there is no future in that.

WARNING!  There are a lot of videos and publications on the internet teaching their version of the same thing.  It is imperative that you pick one person and lean from that person and the traders in his/her community.  All of the “good” ones have free videos on their YouTube channel so that you can take a free ride along with them.  I took advantage of it and that is how I ended up where I am today.  Listening to too many people from multiple trading communities is a recipe for disaster.

How I Started Trading: Part I

How I Started Trading: Part I

Education First 

In my initial post I shared with you how I ended up with Nate and Investors Underground.  There were other guru’s that I looked at throughout the beginning of my trading career as well as other strategies so what I want to share is my advice on how to get started based on these personal experiences and challenges.  I do want to say for the record that I do not get paid by any of the services that I mention or use.  They are my personal preferences and work the best for me.

First I would have to say that if you are interested in trading because you want to make quick, easy money, you will be one of the 90% of day traders that lose money.  I admit when I first started I thought it would be easier.  I quickly realized that there are several elements to trading that will take time and dedication to master.  So I would say the first step in beginning a career in trading is to truly understand everything that’s involved in it, and I mean everything, before you make the final decision to fund an account.  Before I made the move to where I am now, I had to go through this process.
So what’s involved in being successful in day trading?
• Education
• Dedication
• Patience
• Managing Emotions
There are more but these are the main ones.

Once I understood the demands of day trading, I knew that in order to shorten my learning curve and give myself the best chance of success, I needed to choose 1 of the “gurus” to follow.  Even though I liked Tim Sykes, I didn’t like his trading style.  Well I didn’t like OTS’s and Pink Sheets.  I had done a little research on Nate and his DVD and knew he was into NASDAQ’s.  I liked the feel of trading NASDAQ’s so I knew that was the direction I wanted to go.  I did look at others and did as much vetting as possible for free.  I did not want to waste money to try each of them out.  Most gurus have Twitter, Instagram, and post videos on YouTube.  That is the best way to get to know them and get a feel for their strategy.  That is exactly what I did.  I took advantage of free tours and samples of their services.  I know each person is different and has different personalities so you have to spend some time getting to know them for yourself.  After this tedious process, Nate at InvestorsLive kept coming to the top.  His style seemed to fit my personality.  He made it a point to personally answer emails and not pass them off to someone else.  Coming from a service where you rarely got a personal response from the guru this was a breath of fresh air. So I bought his first DVD and subscribed to his chat.

When you are learning, you must be dedicated to studying and exercise patience.  Also, you only need to follow 1 person and their community .  If you are following multiple gurus who have different trading styles and philosophies you will get lost.  Again, one of my main recommendations is to filter out as much “noise” as possible.  I spent two weeks watching the DVD and taking notes.  I followed silently in chat, watched charts, and tried to connect as much as I could.  I never opened a paper trading account.  I just traded small size when I did trade.  I listened to the chat room moderators and followed them on Twitter.  I felt that if Nate chose them as moderators they closely followed his style and set-ups.

I cannot preach education enough.  I am not just saying that because I am a teacher.  I am saying this because it is a very important element of trading.  It is also a never ending process.  You are always learning.  You have to be dedicated to learning your craft.  This is why I say “EDUCATION FIRST”. Learn how to read charts and identifying support and resistance. Learn how to identify the set-ups. Learn how to find the stocks that are in play by scanning at night and in the morning.  Learn how to become self-sufficient.  You know the old saying, “give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”.   I want to be the fisherman!

Let’s sum up this blog:

1.Understand everything that’s involved in trading

2. Research the “gurus” and find one that fits your personality.  Make sure the guru is an active part of their community.  Do this before you drop any money into their service.  Make sure it’s a good fit for you then stick to learning from that person and his/her community

3. Make sure you filter out all of the unnecessary noise.  Listening to too many people who follow different gurus will leave you dazed, confused, and broke.  It wasn’t until I chose 1 person, 1 community that my trading success started coming

4. Invest in your education.  Your success in trading depends on it.  Purchasing InvertorsLive’s DVD’s Textbook Trading and Tandem Trader were the best investments I have made in my future.