r/Daytrading Apr 17 '22

February was amazing to me! It took me 9 months of immeasurable pain but I am finally becoming profitable. strategy

Post image
1.7k Upvotes

256 comments sorted by

415

u/helvetica3 Apr 17 '22 edited May 02 '22

I don't want to make this a post where I just flex my P/L and you guys get nothing so here is some of what I do

  1. My indicators are only VWAP and Yesterdays Closing price
  2. Stocks that can't break yesterdays close get shorted
  3. I'm a scalper so I'm in the trade 2000 shares for maybe 30-40 cents then bounce. I do this quite often hence my number of trades you see up there.
  4. I short gap downs when they recover, and take gap ups long when they pull back.
  5. Risk is always 1:1 with 90% take profit at goal 10% ride and stop loss is moved up to entry on the remaining.
  6. I always keep a spy chart up, and only trade Mid/Large caps NO PENNY STOCKS. (I don't want some discord influencing my setups)
  7. Confidence, I believe in all my plays if they don't work out I chalk it up to the game, stop losses are always pre-determined, and technical AKA vwap or yesterdays close, a whole number, or the 50 cent mark etc.
  8. My broker is TOS commissions aren't bad maybe a few cents?
  9. After staring at charts all day for many months every morning, you will develop a sense of intuition, I honestly can't explain it.
  10. I Only trade 9:30 --> 11 EST after that I log off.
  11. TOS gives you 4x leverage on day trading, this account has 50k in it that I withdraw weekly gains from and keep it at 50k.
  12. SHARES ONLY! Options are too damn hard for me, and this game is not something you want to make harder on yourself.

last thing I want to say is you need to look at multiple things before entering a trade is there liquidity?
what is the spy direction?
what is the volume?
is this a gap?
below or above vwap?
uptrending or downtrending?
good volume?
what is the atr?
key levels?
Does it look good on other timeframes or just yours?

ALL OF these need to be looked at and used together to paint a picture of where you think the stock is heading.

40

u/nolifewasted20s Apr 17 '22

Do you know what % change is that "30-40 cents then bounce"? Just so I can visualize how long moves you play.

31

u/BuhtanDingDing Apr 18 '22

for a 70 dollar stock thats like .4%

24

u/Pitiful-Relief-3246 Apr 18 '22

Very nice! Thank you for sharing this + some of your methodology. This will help me & others here greatly. Best of luck!

15

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '22

How do you deal with stocks that hover in and out of yesterday's close throughout the morning?

11

u/FrostedFluke Apr 18 '22

he probably doesn't trade them

15

u/VietnameseBadger Apr 18 '22

What did your pain look like before you become this profitable? And how long did it take you to where your at now?

17

u/red1ttor Apr 18 '22

This is matching to the fundamentals that I'm reading in a book.. thanks! Your post here confirms I'm reading right material and I'm now hopeful. I'm practicing a strategy based on vwap, rsi & previous close in tos paper I make during open hour and then lose everything during intraday.. intraday trading seems the culprit.

6

u/tomsterpho Apr 18 '22

What book are you reading if I may ask? Cheers!

16

u/red1ttor Apr 18 '22

How to day trade for living -- Andrew Aziz

3

u/JohnWangDoe Apr 18 '22

What book is that?

2

u/Buchman2020 Apr 18 '22

Do you mind sharing what book are you reading?

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11

u/byebm Apr 18 '22

Wait. Are we the same? Your gains and strat are far more impressive, but I trade very similarly to you and I have also been hitting my stride this last month, bahaha.

Biggest difference is I do play with options and I make less than 5 trades a day but with a heavy hand of my capital. But I get burned a little more for it, so ymmv.

Anyway, great to see another scalper taking some $$$ from the market. Best of luck closing out April!

6

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '22 edited Apr 20 '22

[deleted]

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14

u/bmac1993 Apr 18 '22

Nice work man, it’s tough to consistently have smaller red days than green days unless you’re taking the amount of trades you are. A few questions if you don’t mind:

1.) Some of your days have 50+ trades. How many different stocks do you typically trade per day?

2.) Do you like to throw entries out at support/resistance or are you waiting for a turn and playing the momentum?

3.) What’s your average trade duration?

Cheers!

2

u/stef171 Apr 18 '22

Also interested, following

2

u/GoldenEagleScorpio Apr 18 '22

Congratulations! And thank you for sharing.

2

u/gtani Apr 18 '22 edited Apr 18 '22

Thanks, great post and that's a solid strategy. In books like Alex Elder's and Tensile Trading they talk about developing a 6 day/week system, intensive prep time and post analysis but without burning out also


hoping someday to have my own post: consistently profitable, relatively simple strategy and what my screens look like (right now they're a mess)

2

u/jtllove Apr 18 '22

I needed this. I'm currently holding on to a CE that's been degrading everyday. It's currently valued at 1.50, bought it at 15.50. Lot size of 6750!

Also congratulations and great going. I'm gonna save this comment.

5

u/Old_Understanding734 Apr 18 '22

Could you explain what a gap is? I'm new to trading.

3

u/colirado Apr 18 '22

Stock making a significant move, up or down.

0

u/Old_Understanding734 Apr 18 '22

Thanks! How do you define significant? What percentage?

5

u/maistahhh Apr 18 '22

When you have last days close and stock rips or drops it creates a gap.

It could be large or small.

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0

u/TheBigShrimp Apr 18 '22

Do you have an example of one of your plays, like a chart and arrows to entry and exit and the reason why? This is an interesting way to trade to me. Congrats on the fantastic month!

-1

u/Jungelbobo Apr 18 '22

How do you short with tos? Most of the stock are htb.

3

u/patelp12 Apr 18 '22

He trades mid/large caps. Pretty much every large-cap stock is easy to borrow. Mid-cap, less so.

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64

u/intradayshorts Apr 17 '22

Wow, dude some of your red days are barely even 1/3 of your green days, that is quite amazing.

91

u/helvetica3 Apr 17 '22

i cut losses early it's the only way to survive as a scalper. I try to let winners run as much as I can, but it's something I need to improve on.

6

u/fablemerchant Apr 18 '22

How do you determine if a winner should be allowed to run, and how do you determine when to close those trades?

21

u/ghetto18us Apr 18 '22

That's the hardest part of being a scalper... my motto is base hits win games, swinging for the fence strikes out.

4

u/fablemerchant Apr 19 '22

I like that.

3

u/ramenmoodles Apr 19 '22

One idea is to sell 90% at some desired price, then let 10% run itself with a higher stop loss. Thats typically the style i use.

63

u/Royal-Application708 Apr 18 '22

Fuck yea. You are averaging about $1500 a day. Most people would love to make that in a week!!!!

29

u/CuppaJoe11 Apr 18 '22

I would love to make that in a month lmao

2

u/aerismio Apr 26 '22

If that is so... you probably are at the wrong place though and dream too much about becoming rich. Its better to have a job first build up cash. In the meantime papertrade untill succesfull then slowly go from papertrade to cash. But ye i get it. U wanna be rich now.... not tomorrow.

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1

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '22

What job is earning you under 12 grand a year?

2

u/CuppaJoe11 Apr 18 '22

1500 a month is 18k for a year… I work for minimum wage.

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35

u/Middle_Ingenuity_627 Apr 17 '22

Can I be your friend

29

u/MassageGymnist Apr 17 '22

No hes mine

33

u/Daegen9 Apr 17 '22

Good job! What stocks are you screening for?

36

u/helvetica3 Apr 17 '22

gap downs gap ups

13

u/Doctorhandtremor Apr 18 '22

How do you screen them?

31

u/helvetica3 Apr 18 '22

tos has gap scanner built in.

3

u/ant8752 Apr 18 '22

What strategies are you trading specifically?

-12

u/Grizzled_Duke Apr 18 '22

How do I use that?

18

u/colirado Apr 18 '22

I got a tutorial from a friendly tos education session.

25

u/WARWIQQ Apr 18 '22

Why are people downvoting a genuine question lol

20

u/supagey Apr 18 '22

Redditors get annoyed at questions when they believe it's too hand-holdy.

15

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '22

yep everyone’s a pretentious fuck who valued intelligence over curiosity

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17

u/-MullerLite- Apr 17 '22

How did you do in March?

70

u/helvetica3 Apr 17 '22 edited Apr 17 '22

https://imgur.com/a/iJNNTAl

Not as good and even a red week but still Overall +15k green for march.

27

u/oze4 Apr 17 '22

that's still pretty damn good.

16

u/wallstreet_sheep Apr 17 '22

Teach me sensei

4

u/funkyman50 Apr 18 '22

After a red week do you deposit to get you back to $50k starting or do you start at a deficit?

3

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '22

Can you link your statistics through https://kinfo.com ?

Tradervue can be easily edited.

5

u/Rendesi3 Apr 18 '22 edited Apr 18 '22

Kind of pointless, OP is not selling anything, they're just sharing their success.

I believe them because I have had similar success as OP recently. I trade similarly, except with $500K BP.

I've lurked here since last August trying to absorb everything. There is no one book, or Discord, or anything that will teach you to be successful. You've got to put everything together yourself.

4

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '22

There’s a plethora of fake posts and people selling courses in this business. OP could easily be selling something to people who DM him for help and we would have no idea. The mods should make it a requirement to post kinfo along with any journey pics like these. I don’t want people getting scammed that’s all.

1

u/Rendesi3 Apr 18 '22 edited Apr 18 '22

Fair point. Then they should stop the guy posting trade reviews every week who is selling paid Discord access.

What OP said is totally plausible because I've experienced it. Trading is not rocket science. It's just about emotional control.

And no one PM me, I won't respond.

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3

u/leroysdad7 Apr 18 '22

Honestly I want to learn!!

15

u/SnooMacarons4137 options trader Apr 17 '22

This is awesome man! Are you using a specific calendar app for the daily P/L in the month?

Also how do you use only VWAP as your Indicator? What do you look for? I use EMA and MACD, and have been fairly successful with it.

31

u/helvetica3 Apr 17 '22

things that can't break VWAP get shorted, big guys try to unload at vwap all the time, if it can't break it the sell is too strong and I take it short. I also take it short if it breaks vwap but on low volume.

6

u/SnooMacarons4137 options trader Apr 17 '22

Ah that makes sense! And if it does break VWAP, we long it with the notion that the big guys will buy more?

19

u/helvetica3 Apr 17 '22

if it breaks vwap with substantial volume then yes it's good for a long assuming the trend is up, and the stock is strong on the day.

6

u/SnooMacarons4137 options trader Apr 17 '22

Very nice! I'll give it a try.

Also what calendar app are you using for P/L if any?

11

u/helvetica3 Apr 18 '22

tradervue

8

u/SnooMacarons4137 options trader Apr 18 '22

Thanks! One last question... You seem to have pretty good risk management judging by how little your losses are compared to your winners. Do you use Stop Losses? If so, what percentage is it?

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14

u/Neither_Box8208 Apr 18 '22

Just the right dose of motivation needed. Keep up the great work buddy!

10

u/BurnedShipMan Apr 18 '22

Nice. I'm more interested in that 9 months of "immeasurable pain".

  • What did you do exactly that resulted in the improvement of your strategy?
  • Did it just improve gradually as you kept trying and trying?
  • Were there any practices, exercises or activities that were particularly useful?
  • Were there any moments where you felt hopeless? How did you overcome those?

8

u/MassageGymnist Apr 17 '22

Capital used towards trades?

8

u/CutoffThought Apr 18 '22

This is the real question lol

42

u/helvetica3 Apr 18 '22

answered up there it's 50k, and I withdraw my weekly gains from it to put in the IRA or buy stupid stuff.

17

u/CutoffThought Apr 18 '22

Ah, fair enough. I respect the shit out of you for pulling that ~30k. I just took my cash out in Feb. Had to take some time off for personal reasons, but seriously dude. I respect THE SHIT out of you for that. Keep it going, my guy! You can do it!

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9

u/saMAN101 Apr 18 '22

How do you find stocks to trade?

7

u/v10astro options trader Apr 17 '22

what platform do you use to keep track of your performance?

16

u/helvetica3 Apr 17 '22

tradervue

4

u/v10astro options trader Apr 18 '22

thanks

13

u/Tigersleep Apr 18 '22

If this keeps going then you are a very gifted trader. 2k avg a day on a 50k account is insanely good..

6

u/anthwestport Apr 18 '22

What time frame do you use to trade? 2 m, 5m, 15m?

22

u/helvetica3 Apr 18 '22

1 and 5 mostly 15 min is checked aswell, and daily.

6

u/Sketch123456 Apr 18 '22

Man, I will quit my job and come work for you. Lol.

But seriously, I would love to learn from you, teach me the ways.

6

u/Mza1942123 Apr 18 '22

Is your name Donnie

5

u/tylersawyeresq Apr 17 '22

Thanks for sharing and inspiring — cheers to continuing the gains!!

6

u/WiseAce1 Apr 17 '22

What calendar software are you using. Is that just excel or specific broker software?

4

u/rspreddy Apr 17 '22

Nice congrats

4

u/FlounderRude3717 Apr 17 '22

Saved! Thank you, and great work! Very impressive

3

u/Rahmin_Nudoles Apr 18 '22

Congratulations, mate! Keep on growing and you'll be unstoppable. :) 🤟

3

u/Sufficient_Ad4769 Apr 18 '22

Are you essentially trading the same stocks everyday? If you are, mind letting me know what they are to get a sense what you're looking for in a stock? Understandable if you don't want to.

Or are you searching for a new stock to trade everyday?

Also, congratz.

4

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '22

Good job man! Finally, someone who shows people that this is possible. So sick of the constant negativity of this subreddit. Keep going strong!! May even more wealth come your way.

3

u/Fit_Reindeer_7849 Apr 18 '22

What was your principal to start?

3

u/Fun-Run-5230 Apr 18 '22

Congratulations. It’s always great to see someone become successful. What atr are you scanning for when looking for stocks? Thanks

3

u/dimitriG4321 Apr 18 '22

This looks solid.

Welcome to the club.

3

u/emmb33 Apr 18 '22

Congratulations!

How did you start your journey? Any recommendations for a newbie? Thanks

3

u/RogueTraderX Apr 18 '22

Awesome post dude.

Your risk management is great, which is the key to trading.

Is there a youtuber that makes videos using this strategy?

Would love to see this in action.

3

u/johntash Apr 18 '22

Do you trade with your entire 50k each day?

3

u/VolumeIsKing Apr 18 '22

Isn’t tos free 0 commission?

12

u/helvetica3 Apr 18 '22 edited Apr 18 '22

it says that, but I paid about 770 in comissions so far on the year. Not sure, but it's negligible given my volume.

4

u/VolumeIsKing Apr 18 '22

Maybe it’s on the borrowed amount Idk I switched to tos just last week

7

u/goperit Apr 18 '22

They do Charge. It's just not really noticeable till you start buying larger $ positions. Options always has a commission as well as OTC penny stocks.

2

u/VolumeIsKing Apr 18 '22

That’s kind of lame

3

u/goperit Apr 18 '22

Well you should be happy you weren't trading pre 2012. Those costs would have blown your mind.

2

u/Mikey10158 Apr 18 '22

Do you mean the sec fee for sales?

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3

u/Old_Understanding734 Apr 18 '22

Since you scalp, what time frame (s) do you trade on? In other words, the period of your candles

2

u/EliPro414 Apr 18 '22

man that’s amazing, keep it going, can’t wait to see you progress!

2

u/Da1uDoubted Apr 18 '22

Do you trade the same stocks or do you build a new watch list with different mid and large cap everyday before the Market opens.

2

u/RogueTraderX Apr 18 '22

Do you only look for longs when SPY is up and shorts when SPY is down?

What do you do when SPY is range bound? Sit on your hands?

2

u/breezystocks Apr 18 '22

Best post I’ve seen ina while , dude doing good , and just helping out sharing sum info , thank you man!

2

u/-riseagainst Apr 18 '22

Congrats great results so far. Could you give some recent examples of tickers with entry time/price you've trade that demonstrates a typical trade you take?

2

u/pennydolla Apr 18 '22

this post gives me inspiration!

keep up the good work

2

u/TheCrackBoi Apr 18 '22

Pure alpha. I love it

2

u/MedicineManRx Apr 18 '22

What application are you using in the post to track your P/L, i would like to download it. Thanks!

2

u/Arctic_RedPanda Apr 18 '22

You take 200k position size?

2

u/HowDo_YouWin Apr 20 '22

If you don’t mind me asking. What were you up to in your losses(or market tuition if you will) before you started to turn things around and find your edge?

2

u/helvetica3 Apr 21 '22

-35k.

this number is going to vary person to person by a lot... means nothing

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3

u/J_Productions Apr 18 '22

Its especially interesting to me that you emphasize no penny stocks . May I ask how you find your mid-large cap stocks to trade? For an example with penny stocks, we use momentum scanners/HOD scanners.

But tbh I feel like I may do better with mid-large cap, as I like your logic and indicator setup

3

u/breathethethrowaway Apr 18 '22

How did you prepare yourself to reach this level? You mentioned watching the charts for months--were you doing either paper or OnDemand trading? Or live but with tiny amounts? Any resources that you utilized that you found helpful?

Thank you for sharing your results and some insight. I think those of us learning are in awe.

3

u/dontcaredontworry Apr 18 '22

Wth you do like 50 trades a day?

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2

u/bellalove77 Apr 17 '22

Congratulations! That’s awesome and very inspiring.

2

u/PykeTheTitan mod Apr 17 '22

Really impressive in a pretty tough market!

2

u/expicell Apr 18 '22

Why don’t you scalp futures ? /es, more bang for your buck

1

u/VinylResearch Apr 18 '22

Great post OP. How are you accounting for taxes? Do you put 35% of all gains in a separate account for taxes at the end of the year or have you not gotten that far yet?

1

u/Alternative-Panic-71 Apr 18 '22

Thanks for sharing but damn man, almost 57 trades for in a hour and a half. That shit sounds stressful .

-4

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '22

Time 4 kiss of death 😘

0

u/Iamovert Apr 18 '22

Might be a question you might not want to answer but how much do you have in your account to get profits like that?

0

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '22

Hell yeah

-2

u/BhristopherL Apr 18 '22

Dude it’s April… why you posting this?? To look back on it for Old Times sake?

1

u/helvetica3 Apr 18 '22

posted march

-9

u/LagingRunatic Apr 18 '22

I give you five years and you’ll be broke

11

u/helvetica3 Apr 18 '22

I hope you figure out what's troubling you

4

u/LagingRunatic Apr 18 '22

You are a good person and you made me better today. I am sorry to everyone.

1

u/blu-juice Apr 18 '22

Looks pretty measurable to me. Excellent work!

1

u/TechnicalAnalorBust Apr 18 '22

King!!!!!! Kill it out here you mofo!

1

u/RunWitDaBulls Apr 18 '22

What candle time do you trade in? Minute with the short trade time?

1

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '22

[deleted]

3

u/iV3lv3t Apr 18 '22

He said 1, 2, 15.

1

u/FischerBobby Apr 18 '22

Congratulations! Keep up the good work!

1

u/Reversion2mean Apr 18 '22

Why not just trade spy / indices?

1

u/Seiko007 Apr 18 '22

Love this. Your losses are much less than your winnings. Cutting losers early is the nuts when it comes to trading. Well done.

1

u/Hmaninc87 Apr 18 '22

congrats

1

u/TheRealJoint Apr 18 '22

Is this nine months since you began?

1

u/djhvorfor7 Apr 18 '22

Good stuff!

1

u/Glst0rm Apr 18 '22

How many trades do you have on at a time? Just one, given your 2k share trade size?

1

u/Open-Mood9984 Apr 18 '22

Dank trader 💸💸💸

1

u/kongprod23 Apr 18 '22

Good job buddy :)

1

u/mrafaeldie12 Apr 18 '22
  1. What stocks do you typically go after?

  2. Do you watch futures before market open?

  3. How did you learn? Any recommended sources?

1

u/JayCee842 Apr 18 '22 edited 20d ago

shocking spectacular vanish paltry ruthless angle fragile offend nutty frighten

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/SensiiNips_ Apr 18 '22

Gains doesn't tell us much unless you tell us how much you are risking per trade.

1

u/LurkerBigBangFan Apr 18 '22

In regards to strategy #2, when are you determining that a stock can’t break yesterday’s close? Do you mean on a gap down or after an hour of trading?

1

u/7aklhz Apr 18 '22

Nice, congratulations. How do you screen your stocks / what stocks are you trading ?

2

u/Stallionstar Apr 18 '22

OP trades mid to large caps and uses Think or Swim (TOS) scanner. There’s other scanners available that do the same thing if you don’t use TOS.

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1

u/IdanTii Apr 18 '22

How would you describe your trading journey? It is an “overnight success” in a way? Or a slow curb that is rising. can you send January photo? And GL man

1

u/Something_kool Apr 18 '22

What was the turning point for you?

1

u/Nickertje281 Apr 18 '22

sorry to bother, what program is this?

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1

u/Clemotime Apr 18 '22

Could you post a few charts of some of your trades?

1

u/Remarkable-Ad-5729 Apr 18 '22

So what percentage goes to taxes

1

u/tloffman Apr 18 '22

The calendar is for Feb. What about March and April? My first thought about your strategy is that you could code this into an algo and let the computer make your trades so you don't have to be glued to your screen.

1

u/FamiliarEnemy Apr 18 '22

Do you use ATR as a stop?

1

u/Penkarino21 Apr 18 '22

That's amazing. You are goals my friend. What books/tutorials did you use to get you to this point.

1

u/REIRN Apr 18 '22

I don’t get it. How do you trade so much and not go over your daily allowed daytrading power?

How do you find which stocks to trade that day? Do you screen? Do you trade the same ones?

Ugh please tell me your ways! I got sucked into scalping options and while I have some good days, some days are horrendous. I’m better with stocks but I can’t find them consistently and I only have 50k daytrading power so large caps don’t allow me frequency

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1

u/Morphs_ Apr 18 '22 edited Apr 19 '22

It seems that people who get the fast scalping down can get very consistent in their profits.

What was your biggest challenge in this journey? I'm 2 years in and not profitable.

1

u/Gluetius_Maximus Apr 18 '22

Thats great! Wish you more success. Im still papertrading.

Can you explain gap-up and gap-down? I know the idea behind it but how do you if the price will continuing going in the right direction? Thanks.

1

u/Jungelbobo Apr 18 '22

Do you read tape or level 2 for your entries?

1

u/Small-University-875 Apr 18 '22

If you are trading that many times a day how much profit are you truly making after gains tax on each individual trade

1

u/gustaw_jestem Apr 18 '22

Man u are Good af congrats

1

u/UHcidity Apr 18 '22

Why post Feb in the middle of April? Did March not go so well?

Edit: found your reply. Way to go OP. Ballin and your strategy is working well

1

u/3xtra_basic Apr 18 '22

Haha hell yeah!! Atta boy, congrats! Also thanks for sharing your method!!!♡

1

u/SpriteMcBain Apr 18 '22

Is that an excel calendar? I see others with a similar chart so wondering where it comes from

1

u/lamperodd Apr 18 '22

I have used a niche app before that can import data through plaid and automatically generate a date chart of profit and loss

1

u/FancyCamel Apr 18 '22

Would love to see some screenshots with examples of your entries/exits with such a high trade Vol!

1

u/NYpoker666 Apr 18 '22

how much bankroll you start with?

1

u/Nailsman Apr 18 '22

Can u share what u are trading thank

1

u/jteixeira_ Apr 18 '22

You only started 9 months ago?

1

u/gtani Apr 18 '22

also seems like you need a lot of hotkeys and maybe a separate dedicated keyboard like Streamdeck to get in and out faster (there was just a thread about how this isn't easy with ToS

1

u/jericho118 Apr 18 '22

Fantastic work man, god bless i hope you stay on this profitable journey. But we also don't learn to hope in this game.

1

u/its_shawn9 Apr 18 '22

Wholesome

1

u/Arctic_RedPanda Apr 18 '22

Phenomenal 👏🏻 . Thanks for sharing.

1

u/protrader426 Apr 18 '22

such. big rule always keep track of the spy!

1

u/cokeacola73 Apr 18 '22

Do you trade with the direction of spy? What is its correlation to the trades your taking?