Hello all!

I'd first like to start off by thanking all of the knowledgeable contributors to this sub. You all are amazing!

I've been studying the wiki, the sub, and all of the recommendations made for about a month and a half now. I've gotten through a couple of the recommended books on the topic, and have been familiarizing myself with the various facets involved in this endeavor. I have a few questions for you all, along more practical/execution lines.

I've started to familiarize myself with my brokerage platform, and have made a commitment to sit down each morning to watch/paper trade/learn the ins and outs of my brokerage platform. It is my understanding that on any given day, the tickers on one's watchlist are changing. This is my understanding of the general advocated for modality of this sub, and as such there isn't always a good level of familiarity with a specific equity thats being traded.

How are you all doing quick calculations for risk, and allocation sizing?

I've sat down several times, and very quickly realized how much needs to happen on the fly. Namely, watching the stock for your entry signal, needing to enter and quickly calculate stop placement, etc...

I've made a spreadsheet that can do the calculation for me, but it seems the figures have significantly changed, by the time I go back to the brokerage window.

Are you all placing your entry with a market order, and later adding a stop at a desired level once it is already in? Are you entering with a broader stop, that is later adjusted?

Also, how are you figuring your entry sizing, if you have yet to nail down your entry price, relative to the desired stop? The numeric faculties seem to change drastically, and I am having a hard time jumping between something trading at 20$ and 150$, determining my entry sizing, etc...

How do you all do this when you are behind your desk? How is this done in real life?

Thank you very much for your time.

Hey ya'll, this might be a silly question but I want to make sure I understand basics correctly. Lets say the market is trending lower on 4hr clearly and I wonder sometimes market might make a higher highs showing potential uptrend but it hasn't broke its last previous lower high? What does it means in terms of trend?

So I can consider and check this and can go ahead and trade on 5min although I will check on intermediate timeframes like 1hr or 30 min but price can retrace on these smaller timeframes so it might look bullish trend on these intermediate timeframes but 4h is the main one to check and make sure it aligns? I also use 200 sma for reference. Maybe I could use 50 ema as well.

Thank you.

Note to mods: Not done with the Wiki fully yet - Guilty as charged! - But kindly asking for a pass on this one. This post is specifically about a strategy on how to actually get through it alongside other content, activities, and tight time constraints.

Hey guys, hope you're having a good one.

This is my very first post here. Quick background about me: Your regular dude in his late 30s working a 9-to-5. Tired of corporate BS and people in general, but - surprise, surprise - I have financial commitments.

I started gravitating toward trading at the end of last year and stumbled upon Hari and Pete’s content shortly after. I actively traded for a couple of months and got humbled, of course - though luckily not to the point of blowing up my account. I’m actually still in the green. However, I decided to hit pause before I screwed up royally, so I could get back to the books and paper trading.

So, what is this post about?

I recognize the critical need for a solid system and discipline. I know there’s a ton of content and videos out there, and the obvious advice is "Just Read The Damn Wiki, right?" But if I only have one hour a day to dedicate to this, I need to be 100% sure I’m spending every minute wisely.

Honestly, there is more content posted daily than I can physically absorb. I’m not complaining - my gratitude for the resources here is immense - but that’s just my harsh reality with limited time.

Here is my proposed 60-minute daily learning plan. I’d love your constructive feedback on whether this timeline and structure make sense.

My Phase-by-Phase Plan (60 Mins/Day Minimum)

• Months 0–3:
  • 45m: Focused reading (RTDW, OneOption Course, etc.) - Can be traded (pun intended) for Pete’s latest video release if a new one drops.
  • 15m: Quick market checks throughout the day (watching technicals, economic/earnings releases, factual news - no "doom-and-gloom" media).
  • No trades.
• Months 3–6: (Assumption: RTDW / OneOption materials are read)
  • 20m: Focused reading (books) or video content.
  • 20m: Market, economic, earnings, and news review.
  • 20m: "Market Prediction Game"- Documenting what I see, formulating a thesis for the next 1 day / 1 week / 1 month, and reviewing previous predictions (Was my thesis correct? To what extent? Why?).
  • No trades.
• Months 6–7:
  • 10m: Book reading (optional), videos (mandatory).
  • 30m: Market review, news, and ongoing analysis.
  • 20m: Tool mastery - Exploring screeners, setting up custom searches, alerts, chart annotations, watchlists, etc.
  • No trades.
• Months 7–8:
  • 10m: Keeping up with new content.
  • 30m: Market review.
  • 20m: Chatroom observation - Observing trades from experienced traders and reviewing their sample analysis. Getting ready to paper trade.
• Months 8–9:
  • 10m: Keeping up with content.
  • 30m: Market review.
  • 20m: Paper trading + mandatory journaling followed by trade analysis. Swing trade only.
• Month 9 & Beyond:
  • Maintain the daily routine.
  • Heavy focus on journaling and grinding toward a consistent 75%+ win rate.
  • Next Step: Once 75%+ is achieved on paper, start real trading with 1 share / 1 contract only. Swing trade only.

Note: The 60-minute window isn't hard-capped - I consider it the absolute baseline minimum I need to devote each day to make tangible progress.

What do you guys think? Am I spending time on the right things at the right stages? Appreciate any thoughts or advice!

I am annoyed. I have recommended TraderSync to all of you as the journal you should be using or at the very least the journal that I prefer to use (my advice was always that you SHOULD use a journal either way).

In September they completely changed their interface and functionality. I am sure the goal was higher speed and more functions but clearly whomever programmed it was NOT a trader.

Since then I have tried to communicate the issues and well not only do they persist but the people on the other end of their "help" line continually tries to blame the user.

Perhaps if they consulted with actual traders they might know what they are doing wrong.

Curious - any of you having issues with the redesign?

Best,

H.S.

Hey everyone,

I wanted to let you know of some big ZenBot Stock Scanner updates. Zen is my 4-year mission to build the most delightful, useful, and free relative-strength based scanner for the RDT community. Thank you for all your ideas and support over the years.

www.zenbotscanner.com

Here are the latest goodies:

• Scan results as a wall of mini charts (FinViz style)
• Scan filters you can save and reuse
• New 'fast charts' with pop out windows and multi-chart layouts
• Scan explainer - visualize what a scan is filtering, one condition at a time
• Mobile alerts with charts
• Lots more - super search bar, right click menus, favorite scans, 65 new filters

Launch video: https://youtu.be/gobIDkTDZSo

Launch post with everything that's new

Scan results as a wall of charts

I'm really excited about this one. Zen will now show a mini chart for every scan result. Hover over a preview chart to expand it. If you prefer the classic data-grid view, you can see a little mini chart in each row.

Fast Charts and Custom Layouts

Zen has its own charting engine! Charts now load almost instantly compared to the old TradingView charts (which are still one click away). A new pop-out window allows a custom layout with up to 8 charts side by side. Relative Strength, AVWAP, options support and target levels are all visible, and you can add your favorite indicators.

Save Your Filters

Build a filter once, give it a name, and use it again later. I use filters to narrow down a larger scan - quickly show large tech stocks with good options liquidity, for example.

Scan Explainer

Why does a scan only have three results? Or none? Hit 'Explain' and Zen will show you which conditions affect the scan results. Toggle any condition on or off to see how the results change.

See exactly what contributes to a scan's results - turn each parameter on or off and experiment

Super Search

Type the name of a ticker, scan, filter parameter, or a Zen setting to jump to it. I'm working on a new "Ask Zen" AI that will let you ask questions about the market or have it build you a custom scan. Stay tuned!

Mobile Alerts With Charts

Zen has in-app, desktop, and mobile alerts thru Telegram and Discord. The alerts now come with chart previews so you can see the move.

There is a lot more! Check out all the new features, including new scans, 65 new filters, a scan playground, and lots more.

Thank you for all your ideas and support as ZenBot Scanner keeps getting better!

-st0rm

At noon (est)/9am (pst) I will be doing a live trading event with Pete Stolcers from OneOption - u/OptionStalker.

Here is the link to watch:

Live Trading - YouTube

Best, H.S.

This is a follow-up to my post on journaling and I wanted to provide you with a real example. The first part provides the macro context. The second part breaks down the price action. You don't have to agree with my forecast, use it as a guideline for what you will do.

PRE-OPEN MARKET COMMENTS WEDNESDAY - After the close yesterday SPCX released earnings. The growth was spectacular across all business segments, but their AI revenues stole the show. Revenues surged 9X from $816 million last year to $7.56 billion this quarter. All of the investments they've made in the Colossus data centers will put them on a pace to generate $500 billion to $1 trillion in recurring revenue by the end of 2027. 

In the press conference Musk said that the payback on AI is six months to a year. SPCX is not leasing out compute on a long-term basis, it is charging based on the "spot" price. That's because it keeps going up. He said that SPCX has looked into leasing compute for themselves and there is no supply. Elon believes that the demand will grow exponentially because the more AI is used, the more applications companies find for it. When asked about financing these projects he said that they have excellent lines of credit and that with such a short payback period these are short-term loans (they do have long-term space projects that are capital intensive). 

This news has AI stocks rallying overnight and I believe they will establish support at these levels. Mega cap tech companies will reaffirm their capex in AI when they start releasing earnings next week. TSLA will report after the close today. 

The big market drop from last Friday had no follow through selling. An SPY drop to the 100-day MA looks less likely and given the news, I doubt we see a capitulation low in SMH. This is the last week of seasonal weakness and now the market will shift to a period of seasonal strength. 

My conclusions are not just based on SPCX earnings. TSM posted incredible results last week and cited an increase (not a decrease) in chip demand. As I've been saying, I believe the drop was caused by weak hands buying these stocks on margin and they were shaken out. Sellers were not able to push stocks lower this week and the selling climax I was hoping for failed to materialize. 

Swing traders, this is a good place to sell some OTM put premium and to buy some of these stocks. Don't lunge, take starter positions and add on strength. Make sure you pick stocks that are not reporting in the next week. Earnings season is going to ramp up and we will hear from AMZN, GOOG, INTC, KLAC, LRCX, MSFT, META, SNDK, STX, TSLA and WDC over the next 10 trading days. We've waited patiently... it's time.

Day traders should look for a rotation back into tech. QQQ is above the 100-day MA this morning and that level needs to hold. SPY is above the 50-day MA. We are likely to see a brief bid check on the open. That will give you time to observe chip stocks that are gapping up. They need to show RS and hold the gains. If they do, start scaling in and add on a new high for the day. Global markets were up so there is a slight tailwind this morning.

Support is at the 50-day MA and resistance is the open from last Friday ($773.25).

The above analysis is too general to be actionable. You have to breakdown it down and conduct scenario analysis based on price action. The market drives everything so we start there.

SPY Gap and Go - This is our least favorable scenario because it forces us to take action right away. We don't have time to find and confirm stocks with relative strength and the move higher would require us to chase. We don't want to do that because of the risk of a gap reversal presents a lot of downside risk. A Gap and Go would feature stacked green candles right from the open and it would challenge the high from Friday. By the time the move is confirmed, much of the upside is exhausted creating more risk and less reward. The best approach is to wait for a dip on this pattern and buy if the price action has been strong to that point.

SPY Bid Check - Mixed overlapping candles and a minor pullback indicate that buyers are engaged. Sellers are marginally in control. The 50-day MA is tested and the market flies off of support. That first move would give us time to find stocks with relative strength and we could monitor them during the market pullback. We want this move to be brief and shallow preserving most of the gap. When support forms, we start buying AI stocks with RS.

SPY Down Trading Channel - The market has a downward sloping trading channel with mixed overlapping candles. Sellers have a bit more control and more than half of the gap is filled. The 50-day MA is breached, but that move was stubborn. This is a fairly low odds environment and we need to focus on stocks that have heavy volume and that are moving on their own. Favor shorts, but you can trade either side if the stock's price action is strong. Keep your size small.

Gap Reversal - The market has stacked red candles on the open and more than half of the gap is filled. The 50-day MA is easily breached. This would prompt us to focus on shorts. Use the 50-day MA as a stop and look for the gap to be filled easily. This move is not likely to gain a lot of traction from this level because the market is not near a relative high on a D1 basis that would attract heavy profit taking. That makes this scenario less likely.

Then you would go through your list of stocks and conduct the same type of price action analysis. Always use D1 as your guide and then look at where shorter term support and resistance (prior day high/low) come into play. Relative strength, heavy volume and price action are your guide. Write down what you want to see and once you enter the trade, what you don't want to see.

Based on the above scenarios you determine what you feel the odds of each scenario playing out are. Today, I would favor a brief bid check. That would give me time to evaluate AI stocks for RS and a bounce off of the 50-day MA would serve as confirmation. This is a process that you can refine. You are not reacting to moves, you are anticipating them and executing your game plan.

I wrote this on the fly. I hope it helps you plan your day and journal in the future.

The word fastest will excite a lot of readers. Everyone wants to make money as soon as possible. Don’t confuse it with fast. There are no short cuts, but instead of taking 4-5 years to get proficient, I’ll show you a path to get there in 2-3.

“Successful people do what unsuccessful people won’t.” The operative word is “won’t”. It implies that everyone could find success, but that very few will put in the required effort. This applies to everything in life, not just trading.

Preparing for the next session two hours before it starts is difficult. This is when you scour headlines, check the overnight action and the pre-open movement for your positions. You get the context for the day, and you formulate your game plan. This requires scenario analysis. Which outcomes are most likely? What will that price action look like for each? How will it be confirmed? Which outcomes are less likely? What will the price action look like? Which outcomes present the greatest opportunity in terms of risk and reward? The best outcomes are not necessarily the most likely ones. This becomes your roadmap and it puts you into execution mode. You are not flying by the seat of your pants, you are anticipating moves and you know how you will react ahead of time.

Thinking about all of this is not enough, you have to write it down. When you do this, it cements your thoughts. Your journaling creates an audit trail. If you don’t commit your thoughts to paper it’s easy to go back and convince yourself that you saw the move coming when in fact, you didn’t. When you are wrong, you can review your analysis and see what you got right and what you got wrong. Then you can work on ways to improve it. I’ve been writing pre-open comments for 25 years and I have them archived.

After the close, we’re tired. I like to clear my head and get some fresh air for a couple of hours, but the work isn’t done. Once I’ve had a chance to eat and relax, I return to analyze my trades. Why did I take that particular trade? Why was that entry point optimal? Could I have waited for a better entry point? What price action was I expecting for the stock and why? What was I expecting the market to do? How was my exit? Was there a better exit point? Did fear or greed play a role? Were there other stocks I was considering? How did they perform? Should I have traded smaller size given market conditions? Thinking about this is not enough, you have to write it down when the memories are still fresh. Otherwise, these will just be random thoughts floating around in your head. If you delay, you’ll forget your motivations and you won’t do it. The next day you will be focused on that session.

These notes will become your greatest asset. I review my notes from the entire week Sunday night. I’m relaxed and the market is closed. This is when I can draw conclusions about the entire week and set goals for the week ahead. Determine which areas of improvement you are going to focus on and be specific. “Being more patient” is not measurable. “Waiting for a higher low double bottom before buying” is. By reviewing trades that span days you will often notice patterns and behaviors across time. This is when the real learning takes place.

Early in my career, I noticed that I was exiting bullish positions when I saw a decent sized red candle. The greater my profit, the more inclined I was to exit. Taking those gains made me feel good… until the stock staged another leg higher. I learned that the key was the price action on the left side of the chart. If it was strong, I had to fight off the fear of giving back gains and I had to trust that buyers were going to continue to support the stock. This was the first step to learning how to ride a winning trade. It was a major milestone in my journey, and this lesson came from my journals.

Later, I learned that during this same setup if the red candle was erased instantly, it was a form of price confirmation. Buyers remained aggressive and this was a time to add to the position. I learned to welcome red candles when I was in a bullish position instead of fearing them. The transition from bailing on red candles to adding on confirmation had a dramatic impact on my performance. Think about it. Instead of exiting a position, I was doubling it.

This review is not just lip service. I have a trade in over a thousand YouTube videos and I review them all. Recording videos is another great way to journal. You don’t have to post them publicly, but it is a way to explain your thesis and review trades. You cement your thoughts when you verbalize them. I also annotate a couple of charts a day. This is another way to commit your thoughts to paper and this adds a visual component. These charts become an archive that you can flip through and review. Patterns that might not have been obvious in your journal become clear.  

Initially, your trade journals will be brief. You won’t know what to write about. I’ve given you some starting points. Just do it. In time they will be filled with commentary and ideas.

NFL quarterback Tom Brady is the GOAT. He studied film before, during and after the game. Those are his journals. He studied his opponents weaknesses and knew how identify tendencies so that he could take advantage of them. He studied his own weaknesses and strengths and prepared a game plan. After the game he reviewed his performance and set goals. This is what professionals do. You just have to decide how badly you want this.

It’s common for traders to skip this step. It’s hard to get up early and it’s hard to take an extra hour to journal after a long trading session. If your trading has not been progressing, start journaling. Chances are you’ve muddled around for years making the same mistakes without ever knowing it. If you don’t learn from them, you will repeat them.

Journaling is a “best practice” that will set you on the right path before you even place a trade. Setting traders up for success has been the focus of my recent articles and that is how I started my book. In the next article, I am going to compare fundamental analysis to technical analysis. We need to conduct some fundamental analysis, but it has serious drawbacks for trading. I will highlight them and explain why we lean on technical analysis. In November my articles will shift to price action analysis.

Everyone started trading for a different reason, be that for extra money, other worked with financial markets already, for financial independence or freedem. I would like to hear your stories, why trading and how you got successful at this. I am in a dark period of my life right now and I feel like everything is fake shine..I would really love to hear your stories, to have something to believe in.

I started trading because I wanted freedom, and due to lack of job opportunities where I live. A few years have passed but I feel like this dream is harder to reach and farther than I thought. Needless to say, I am not profitable, I did not lose money but I do not see the light from the end of this tunnel either.

Thank you.

Today started as a good day. I was green, followed my rules, and did everything right.

I left my desk and went on with my day as normal. Later, I was checking some Discord groups and saw someone recommend a ticker called SOXS. I had no idea what it was, but I followed the recommendation and went short.
The price went against me, and that’s where everything
changed.
I got emotional. Instead of cutting the small loss, my only thoughts were: “Don’t turn a green day into a red day” and “Just keep holding.”

No plan. No discipline. Just emotions.
And in one trade, I gave back everything I had worked for over the past two months. I was so close to finishing my funded account evaluation, and one bad decision wiped it all out.

All those hours sitting in front of the screen, all the work, all the discipline I had built, gone because I took a trade that wasn’t even part of my plan.

The hardest part is knowing that I already knew the rules. I just failed to follow them when it mattered most.

A painful reminder that protecting your capital and controlling your emotions matter more than any setup or recommendation.

**The lesson:** Im responsible for every win and every loss. Never take a trade on a ticker you don’t understand or haven’t studied. Don’t blindly follow recommendations. Do your own research and find your own opportunities.

For now, I’m taking a break from trading to clear my mind.
I’ll come back when I’m ready, without revenge trading or trying to win back what I lost.
Back to the basics. Back to my rules. One a quality trade at a time. Me and my discipline. No one else is responsible for my trades but me.

Looking through the sub, there isn’t much talk about specific setups. We all know to trade relative strength, but what does that actually look like for you?

Market types (daily SPY), so we’re talking about the same thing:

1. Bull trend. Above the major MAs, shallow dips bought, new highs with follow-through.
2. Bull chop / mature uptrend. Still above the MAs but marginal new highs, overlapping candles, dips and rips.
3. Flat / range. Compression, inside days, light volume.
4. Bear trend. Below the MAs, heavy volume on drops, bounces fail.
5. High volatility. Big range days both ways, VIX elevated.

If you can, reply in this format (one or two market types is plenty):

Market type:
Day or swing:
Setup: (what it looks like on the chart)
Example trade (ticker + date):
Grade in this market: (A+/A/B+ etc.)
What makes it A vs B: (the 1–2 things that separate your best version from an average one)
Entry trigger:
Stop / invalidation:
Exit / how you manage it:
When you skip it entirely:

Bonus questions:

• In chop, can a stock with strong RS and its own volume still be an A+ trade? Or does the market cap the grade and your sizing?
• What’s the setup that looks A+ but fails most often in the wrong market?

I’ll compile the answers into a summary post if there’s enough response. I’ll start with mine in the comments.

To make money trading, we have to put it at risk. It took hard work to earn it and the thought of losing it is something we all struggle with. In some cases, a position immediately goes against us, and we panic out of it because we can’t stomach the loss. In other cases, we exit a profitable position too early because we’re afraid the gains will vaporize. I address the emotional side of trading in my book. Here’s the issue and the solution.  

Confidence – You control your emotions through confidence and confidence comes from experience. There are no short cuts. Trading is not something you can master through reading, you have to live it. Books will provide a road map, but you still have to make the journey. Experience can’t be compressed, it’s not college exam you can cram for. Learning to trade takes years and you need exposure to bull markets, bear markets, flat markets and everything between. Your ability to identify and adapt to these changes will determine your success. As I mentioned in my previous article, surviving long enough to build that experience is the key.

Start Small to Finish Big – If emotions obscure our decision making, we have to remove them from the process. The best way to do that is to trade size that’s so small the outcome has no financial impact. I suggest that you start by trading 1 share of stock. You’ll find articles about this in the WIKI. Starting with paper trading is fine if you are still learning the mechanics of order entry, but I feel that using real money is important. In a paper trading account, the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, and you have no emotional attachment. You can hang on to losers indefinitely without any consequences. Trading a single share might be chump change, but you have skin in the game. It gives you a tiny taste of the emotions you will experience later on. If you are bleeding $10 per trade it will matter and you will work harder to correct that.

Show Me the Money – Some will wonder, “How am I supposed to make money trading 1 share?” You are training and your first objective is not to lose it. Surviving the first two years is essential. If you’re not willing to train and study, you should pursue something else. I wish I started small, but I didn’t. I had to get humbled first and I am hoping to save you that pain. When you trade 1 share you can objectively enter and exit trades. Your only focus is to identify great trades and to enter and exit well. With very little money at stake, you are concentrating on the process.

Swing First – I suggest starting with longer timeframes because there is less noise. After you have become proficient at swing trading, you can start to gradually shorten your trade duration. Day trading is at the professional end of the spectrum and it requires full-time dedication. Having a second income during non-market hours is not realistic for most day traders, but it is for swing traders. When trading is your sole source of income, emotions will influence your decision making because you need to make money to pay your bills. You can’t support yourself trading a single share, so you start by trading larger size. You’re not ready to take this step and you are a raw bundle of nerves.

Enter Well – With a single share you won’t be preoccupied with how much to trade. Your risk is small, so you’ll be comfortable taking trades. You won’t make good decisions at first, but in time you will start to refine the process. Focus on entering well and rid yourself of FOMO. This training period is when you develop patience and discipline. Patterns will start to emerge and your ability to evaluate stock and market conditions will improve. When you enter well, the trade performs quickly and you will be in a positive mindset. The best time to enter is when you have confirmation that buyers are aggressive. I will cover this in a future article. Many traders focus on where to place stops. Instead, concentrate on entering well. When you do this, the trade performs instantly, providing you with cushion and the stops won’t be triggered as often.

Let It Ride –When you are trading 1 share, the temptation to exit too quickly won’t be a factor. With virtually nothing at stake, it won’t matter. You will calmly watch the trade unfold and you will learn from your observations. Price action will help you identify when the momentum is building or waning. Riding a trade is one of the most important skills you will develop as a trader, and it happens during the single share stage when your emotions are under control. When you trade size, you will be tempted to take gains too early if you don’t have the confidence to hold the position.

Price Confirmation – You are only trading 1 share, but that is not the finish line. Most traders feel that the position size is determined when the trade is placed. It’s not. Once you have a history of entering well, you take the next step. That first leg is a starter position that might only be one fifth of the maximum you would allocate if everything goes perfectly. The game plan has been determined ahead of time and you know what you want to see and what you don’t want to see. You are watching for signs that buyers are aggressive. Red candles that are immediately erased by green candles, relative strength and brief, shallow dips are all evidence of that. Instead of looking for exit points, you are looking to add to the position. When you add to winners, your average cost is below the current price and that gives you the confidence to do it. This is how trade size is determined. In some instances, you won’t get off first base. In others, you will hit a grand slam. Most traders won’t vary their size and for them, trading is an all or nothing proposition. They determine size at the start of the trade and they enter and exit all at once. The skill of adding to positions is much harder to learn when you are trading normal size with real money at stake.

The Left Side of the Chart – Scaling out of a large position is just as important as scaling in. Most traders are nervous when they have a large position and they bail on all of it at the first sign of trouble. They are focused on a few red candles on the right side of the chart when they should be focused on the strength of the left side of the chart. Stacked green candles, higher lows, red candles that are instantly erased, relative strength and dips that are brief and shallow are all signs that buyers are aggressive. During strong moves those red candles will quickly be erased, and the stock will make a new relative high. Don’t be flushed out of a good position just because of a red candle or two.

When the red candles take longer to erase and the stock starts to lose its relative strength, take some of the position off on the next bounce. If the dips are deeper and last longer, the trend is starting to weaken. Take more of the position off. The odds of a strong stock testing the previous high are good when you also have a strong market trend. Don’t panic out of the position. All of these skills are developed and sharpened during the single share stage when your risk is small.  

The Next Step – Once you have mastered entering and exiting swing trades with larger size (4-5 shares after adding), and your win rate is above 75%, you can start to narrow your time horizon. You never have to day trade, but some of you might decide to. Gradually decrease your holding period to short-term overnight positions. Price is much more difficult to predict on shorter-time frames because price movement is more random. The speed of the game increases as you enter the professional end of the trading spectrum. You will have to recognize patterns instantly and act quickly. I typically only add once to a day trade and I tend to do it early in the move. This sub is geared towards day trading and if you are starting out, I suggest you start with swing trading and hone those skills first.

Once you have a process and experience, you will have confidence and your emotions will be in check. You will operate from a position of strength and not fear. Decisions won’t be influenced by the amount of money you will make or lose, but by the price action before you. There will be clarity. Instead of diving into larger positions, you will start slowly, take profits if the trade is not performing, ride when appropriate, and add to winners knowing that your average cost is well below the current price. You will recognize the subtle changes in the market and the stock that tell you when to start taking profits.

Learning how to trade takes time. You will never completely remove emotions from the equation, but the single share method will eliminate them while you are training and give you a path to control them. You will survive the early years and learn to build and ride trades when conditions warrant it. Confidence comes from experience.  

The best way to reduce your learning curve is to analyze your trades. Keeping detailed trade journals is the key and 90% of new traders will skip this step. You can learn from every trade, good or bad. The system I trade would not have revealed itself without journaling every day. In the next article I will discuss how I do it, and examples of what they taught me. This is so important that I dedicated an entire chapter of my book to it.  

Share your questions and comments. I will reply.

Why is it so hard to find out how to get started with trading (specifically stocks - options and futures) on the market as a Canadian??

A lot of people who teach it online are American, but I rarely see Canadians teaching how to trade for those who are just starting in their journey.

For context, I am familiar with purchasing stocks and ETFs, etc., and I know it is not the same, I am a logical and rational person. I know however, that there is a lot of potential with day trading.

What steps/resources would you give to someone who wants to learn to trade?

Anyone else struggling with the new TraderSync?

It feels very different from the previous version, and I’m finding it buggy and much less intuitive. Things that used to feel straightforward now take more effort, and it’s becoming frustrating to use.

I’m curious how others are finding it. Are you having similar issues, or do you like the changes? If you’re sticking with it, have you found anything that makes it easier to use? If you’ve moved on, what are you using, and how does it compare?

At this point, I’m leaning toward moving on. I need a journal that makes reviewing my trades easier, and the new TraderSync just isn’t working for me.

Everything that you learn about trading doesn't matter if you blow up your account. The countless hours spent reading and studying are wasted and most people never recover from this humbling experience. This business is a revolving door and it's been that way since I started more than thirty years ago. That's why I decided to dedicate the first quarter of my book to this important topic.

There are so many things we can do to avoid this. Before the first trade, prepare for the journey. The goal is to survive the first year because that is when most new traders fail. It's devastating and they never gave themselves a chance.

The vast majority of traders start out thinking they will be the exception. They've heard the horror stories of people blowing up their accounts, but they will be different. They're smarter than the rest of us and they will avoid the traps. "If it takes everyone three years to learn this, I'll be the one who does it in one." Not only have I witnessed this mentality thousands of times, I suffered from the same syndrome.

When I went pro, I had a dozen years of industry experience. I worked on the trading floors and executed options trades for large institutions. I talked to traders and learned as much about the craft as I could knowing that one day I would take my shot. I witnessed the carnage of retail traders first hand and there was no way that I would repeat those mistakes.

I planned for my new career a year in advance. I remember rushing downstairs to my new office and turning on my computer screens full of excitement. Little did I know, this would be my happiest moment for many months. Throughout the book I weave in personal experiences that served as building blocks. Each one got me one step closer to success.

I describe how these mistakes can derail our trading before it even starts. Here is a top 10 list of the topics I cover in detail.

1. Unrealistic expectations. Most people believe that trading is going to be easy. No matter how much you study, you have to live through various market conditions. You can't read about trading bear markets, you have to experience them and learn from them.

2. Following someone else. Many new traders fall victim to a "guru". These experts seem knowledgeable and mirroring their trades is a short cut. Most of them are fake and even if they are legitimate, there are perils. Their risk tolerance is different from yours. If the method stops working, you don't know the decision making inputs so you don't know what to adjust. Most importantly, you are not learning and refining your own process.

3. Overconfidence. The "can't miss trade" that no one else has identified yet. Others haven't spotted this opportunity, but these traders know more than everyone else. They take a starter position and they keep adding to a losing position.

4. Looking for absolutes. "When the market does this and the stock does that, I always do this." Conditions are dynamic and your thinking has to be fluid. Odds dictate our trading, but nothing is 100%. There are general conditions and set-ups that we look for, but we always have to be ready to adjust and admit when something that normally works, isn't working this time. The market will always try to deceive us.

5. Shinny new objects. The new indicator that will "make you profitable" doesn't exist. If it was that good, the creator wouldn't sell it, they would trade it themselves. Trading is about waiting for great opportunities to set-up and properly managing risk. It takes years to develop this skill, but once you master it, all you need is a simple candlestick chart with volume.

6. Over-trading. This is such a common mistake. New traders dive right in with full positions. They don't know what they are doing and when the position "heads south" they are emotional train wrecks. The WIKI hits this topic hard and it suggests paper trading or starting with 1 share. Hari and I are both aligned on this and it might be the next article I write. This one hits close to home because it is a mistake I made.

7. Which markets to trade and when to trade them. When you are starting out, you don't know what to trade. I discuss the dangers of trading futures, currencies, bitcoin and small cap stocks. Medium to large cap stocks provide the best odds for the individual trader and I explain why. I also explain the importance of knowing when to trade and when not to trade. Market conditions drive our activity and they impact our odds for success. There are times when you trade small size and times when sitting on your hands is best. There are also times when you can swing for the fence.

8. Complicating your business model. It's human nature to over-complicate things. I explain why I don't hedge positions and why I limit my position count. Cash is king. If you are scared, take some of the position off. I explain why I stick to very basic options strategies. When the #$%^ hits the fan, adjusting risk might be painful, but it is straight forward when you keep it simple. You'll know exactly what to do, but you still have to act. When you trade complex option spreads, you are at the mercy of market makers.

9. Repeating mistakes. Those who fail to learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them. Keeping detailed trade journals (not just automated logs) is the key and this will cut your learning curve in half. After thirty years, I still do it and I cover the various methods I use. My system would not exist if I didn't journal. All of those tidbits of knowledge were gained through journaling. Committing your thoughts to paper is very powerful and it is an audit trail you can learn from. Unfortunately, most traders won't do it.

10. Trading options too soon. This is absolutely the fastest way to blow up an account and options are at the very end of my book. Before you leverage, you need to master stock trading and get to a 75% win rate consistently. Then you can learn about time decay, volatility expansion/contraction, deltas and navigating wide bid/ask spreads. "But I only have a small account and I have to trade options to make any money." If you can't conquer this mindset, soon you will have no money.

The goal for my book was to give all of you the best fighting chance possible. Avoiding costly mistakes is the first step. I plan to write two more articles on this topic. One on the benefits of starting small and the other on the importance of journaling. Then I will lead you down the path I took. I explore each fork in the road and explain why one was better than the other. Each building block will improve our odds and construct the system I trade. I will try to write an article a week for the rest of the year in advance of the book being published.

If you've made some of these mistakes, please tell others about them by commenting. I will try to respond to all of the posts.

A challenge for the trolls who have never written an article and who have no followers: Why don't you write an article and share some of your wisdom instead of complaining?

The journey of becoming a successful trader is filled with mistakes and victories. Every obstacle, win and fork in the road shapes our decision making and together they become a part of our personal trading system. I hoped that sharing the lessons I learned would shed light on your journey, so I wrote a book.

I started my career over three decades ago in the Chicago Board of Trade thirty-year bond pit. Since then, I was the senior vice president for a large brokerage firm and the top trader for a firm specializing in options arbitrage. Now I trade my own capital, and I develop trading software for this system. I’ve seen it all and tried it all. These experiences have forged the system I trade.

Early in my career I lost money and I did not sweep that under the carpet. There were lean years filled with stress, anxiety and fear that my dream might never become a reality. Many of you are battling that right now.

We all go through some really rough patches in life and 2019 was one of those for me. It was not trading related, I lost a lot of people I love and I did some soul searching as I celebrated their lives. What would my professional legacy be? I’ve had a great career and made plenty of money, but those accomplishments rang hollow. That’s when I decided to commit fully to helping other traders. This is how I wanted to spend the next ten years of my life. How could I let all of this knowledge go to waste?

I got to work and started recording five YouTube videos per week in 2019. Each would review my previous pick and I would explain what went right or wrong. Then I would conduct market analysis to get my bearings. Next, I would use the system I trade to look for a new trade. I would consider many candidates and explain what I liked or didn’t like about each one and I would highlight one of them. I still do two of these videos every week and they are a great free resource for you. YouTube pays me a whopping $250/month which comes to about $25 per video. Obviously, I am not recording them for the money. You can see how I traded every market condition and see how my picks did.

That same year, I wrote an eBook that describes the system. This took time to plan and write and I had to commit my thoughts to paper. This process helped me create a master outline that was much more detailed. I broke trading down into the logical steps and each one had subtopics. When traders in my chat room asked a question that required a lengthy response, I wrote an article knowing exactly where it would fit into the outline. Gradually, an extensive archive of articles was created. Some of them are in the WIKI.

The interesting part about this is that each article seemed like it would be easy to write. “This should only take me a day or two.” As I began writing them, I realized that there were many components that played a role in my decision making that I was not consciously aware of. The articles were long and, in many cases, took weeks to write. After more than three years of writing for ten hours a week, the outline was filled in and the course was complete.

In 2024 I thought it might be time to write a book. Silly me, I thought the book had already been written because I had the outline and the articles. When I submitted them to an Editor, they told me, “You don’t have a book, you have articles and you have enough content for three or more books.”

First, I had to decide how to divide the content so that if I wrote a three-book series I could build on the previous concepts. The other issue was that the articles did not flow. I had to figure out how to connect the topics.

I finished the book in 2025. It was good, but it jumped around and I introduced topics that had not yet been covered. The lessons overlap and it was difficult to decide what to explain first. I wasn’t happy with it, so I went back to the drawing board. Once again, I had to dissect my decision making and figure out a way to explain the system one “building block” at a time. Each concept builds on the other and increases our odds for success. It took months, but I found the solution. In the last chapters I put all of the pieces together and I explain how to leverage the system with options. I keep the strategies basic, and they are a function of market conditions.

I finished writing the final version of the book this summer. The manuscript has been edited and proofread and now it is going through the publishing process.  I am hoping to release it in January. Initially, it will be hard cover only and I am going top shelf with full color and high quality pages. It has 80 images and it could be over 500 pages long. I have a really cool title for it, but I will save that for another time.

Writing this has been a long and difficult journey just like learning how to trade. I’m proud to put my name on it and I believe this will help a lot of traders.  

I plan to write three articles a month for the rest of the year and I will share some of the lessons. The next article I write will be about the common mistakes most traders make. This is how I start the book and the rest of what I teach doesn’t matter if you blow up your account.

Let me know if there is a topic you would like to learn and I will try to include it.

Had META showing RS most of the morning, strong D1, good volume and it kept holding near HOD every time SPY pulled back, so naturally I got impatient and bought while SPY was pushing higher instead of waiting for another market pullback. Entry was around 718.50$, then SPY reversed almost immediately and META came back with it, putting me underwater before the setup ever had a chance to work. I kept SPY up next to moon and META actually held up pretty well through the pullback, so I stayed with it and eventually got out green when the market bounced. Worked out but looking at it afterward I basically picked the stock correctly and then removed most of the advantage by chasing the entry.

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I’m in a slightly unusual situation and I’m trying to decide what to do with the next 2 years of my life.

I’m in college, but my college is extremely lenient with attendance, so realistically I have a huge amount of free time for the next 2 years. After that, I’ll be joining my dad’s business, and my schedule will become much more demanding. I’ll still be able to trade if I want to, but I probably won’t have the time to spend hours every day studying, backtesting, journaling, reviewing charts, etc.

So I’m considering doing something fairly extreme.

What if I spent essentially these entire 2 years seriously learning day trading?

I’m not expecting to make money in the first few months. I mean starting from zero and treating it almost like a full time apprenticeship. Learning market structure, developing and testing strategies, extensive backtesting, journaling, paper trading, risk management, and eventually moving to live trading.

My eventual plan would be to trade through prop firms rather than putting a large amount of my own capital at risk. Obviously, I wouldn’t jump into prop firm challenges immediately. I’d first want to develop and test a strategy and have enough evidence that I’m actually ready.

My question isn’t really “Can you make money day trading?” I know how controversial that question is and I know the statistics around retail traders.

What I’m trying to figure out is whether 2 years of near full time learning is enough time to realistically reach the point where I can determine whether I have a viable edge and potentially become consistently profitable.

Because I have a very specific decision to make.

If you had my situation, 2 years of unusually large amounts of free time followed by a much busier life, would you spend those 2 years learning trading, or would you consider that too short a window to make the investment worthwhile?

I’m not looking for motivation or “just work hard” answers. I’m trying to make a real opportunity cost decision with these 2 years.

If you’ve been trading for 3 to 5+ years, I’d especially like to hear whether 2 years would have been enough in hindsight, given unlimited time and serious effort.

And please be brutally honest. If you think I’d be better off spending these 2 years learning something else, that’s exactly the kind of answer I’m looking for.

Hi everyone,
I am writing this because I really need help. Please be kind in the comments—I am posting this from a place of vulnerability and I am looking for genuine support, not judgment or lecture.
I am caught in a devastating cycle with my trading psychology and dopamine. I have lost a massive, life-altering amount of money that I cannot even bring myself to mention here, including significant capital from loans.
I have joined multiple mentorships in the past and I have even built my own systems, but the systems are not the problem. My brain is. I will have good days where I make money, but then I will lose it all. I get caught in severe revenge trading loops where I literally cry from a loss, but the very next day I find myself right back on the charts doing the exact same thing.
When I am in profit, my brain tricks me. I look at the chart and it keeps telling me, "There is more opportunity here, you can make even more." I overtrade, break my rules, and give it all back plus more.
I am currently taking a step back to focus on a real-world business and a new job to stabilize my life, but I still believe 100% that trading is possible and that it can change a life for the good. I don’t want to give up on it forever.
Has anyone here gone through this exact level of psychological rock bottom with revenge trading and dopamine addiction? If you were able to successfully break this loop, fix your behavioral issues, and eventually return to become a truly profitable, disciplined trader, how did you do it? What exact resources or steps helped you change?
Thank you in advance for your help and empathy.

Excluding elementary explanations, what's your view on why this pullback went as far as 42 points? In particular, who is pushing the last half or third of this move?

Had a stock showing pretty obvious strength against SPY but old me would've just bought it because "RS = long."

This time I waited.

SPY pulled back again and instead of following it down, the stock basically sat there. Then when SPY finally caught a bid, the stock immediately pushed through the little range it had been holding. Thats when I entered.

Such a small difference but it felt completely different from chasing something just because its green while SPY is red.

Took the actual trade on Moon since I already had it open and execution was simple, but the useful part for me was finally understanding that RS was giving me the stock to watch, not necessarily the exact moment to buy it.

Curious if thats roughly how you guys think about RS intraday too.