Hey, My name is Derek and this journal will be more of a documented journey. The purpose is to help others and hopefully get help where I am struggling. I would like to update this once a month to sum up how the month went, struggles I faced and goals I met. Helpful comments are very much appreciated.
History-
I have been successful in the stock market since 2013. I have learned the emotional ups/downs, the greed/fear phases and the pain that the market can put you through. The biggest mistake I made was around 2008 when I placed a very very large bet on one stock to only watch is go down for 14 days in a row before I sold out at a 50% loss. Anyways I did make my money back the next year and developed a plan and risk management.
I have been in the trades industry since I was 17 working a 9-5 job as a mechanic. I have a wife and 2 kids. We are all active and stay busy. My family supported the idea of me quitting my job this year and making a go of day trading. We have been talking about this plan for years and 2018 was finally the year I pulled the trigger.
Day trade history-
This goes back a few years when I started to think about day trading full time. I did A LOT of research. I read A LOT of books. I wrote 150+ pages of notes. I for sure have read every popular book about day trading and charting. I still continue to read and watch videos but most of it is very repetitive. I have all of Al's books(hard read but best info out there). Then over the years I tested platforms, systems(never paid for anything). I narrowed down it to what spoke to me.
So now comes Jan 2018. I have 2 years of wages saved up. I have a 25k trading account opened with IB. I quit my job. I have a basic plan. I have to admit I was quite lost the first few months. My wheels were spinning but I wasn't going anywhere. My hole life has been working for someone else and now I have no structure, no routine, no rules. I wasted a ton of time and took over taking care of the kids and house chores. I ended up reading a personal motivational book that helped me develop values and characteristics that really helped me organize my day and personal life. My hole way of thinking and my actions needed to be stripped down and rebuilt.
Several months into 2018 I started sim trading different interments and strategies. I bounced around all over the place but the one thing that stayed constant was price action trading. No indicators. I just had 1 EMA and trend lines draw in. I sometimes used the price retracement tools. After a few months of messing around I got sierra chart and sim traded the ES. I started to see things over and over again and just traded a couple of setups. I kept 2 journals as I sim traded(TSJ and Evernote) I also kept track of how many setups happened every day, the range, the bar heights, etc. I went live in the summer and traded my rules. Well I was a nervous wreck and lost every trade I took. I went back to sim after a few days of live trading. I stayed in Sim until November.
Ok November and I feel like I am way better prepared. I am only risking .5% I have daily loss limits 2 setups. A tick chart that I have become very good? at reading. I have rules, journals, software, hardware, a trading time frame(2hrs) a good daily routine. I am rdy. Here is what my journal said my after going live again" First day live!, wow nerves. Watched my first trade turn into a looser:( Tightening the stop would of worked here, maybe .10 trail? I feared another looser so I quit after 7:20. missed a big move. Patience is key and don't be fearful. time to work on emotions. need 100 trade sample! GO FOR IT! "
My first week was all about managing nerves, I was shaking while trades were on. I sold early 3 times and took small profits because fear of turning into a looser(all did hit my targets) I also noticed after 1st trade of the day I was to scared to take another(fear of a loss). After the second week and a few nice trades my nerves did calm down. Overall the month of November I was up about 100 bucks! …