The Mind of a Day Trader

I've been reading a lot of self-improvement books & articles lately and have really been enjoying the content, so I figured I'd gather some of my findings & reflect on them in my own words to share with you and how I feel they tie into trading.  Since I've left the workforce and pursued entrepreneurship, some of the thoughts I'm about to share have begun to resonate much louder with me as I see them start to play out personally.  Disclaimer:  This is not an anti-establishment message telling you to go drop out of school. I just use this example as a vehicle to portray my logic here. It is just my take on one of the main reasons things are the way they are in our lives, and why our failures influence us negatively much more than they do positively. It's simply some thought provoking & controversial content for you to reflect on - something to think about if you're having issues in any aspect of your life, perhaps you've fallen into thi...

The beginning stages of this game are brutal. You’re going to be horrible at it. You're going to feel stupid. You’re going to put in endless hours of work, and you’re still going to lose money and make the same mistakes over and over again. In just about anything else when you are learning…if you put in lots of hard work, you’ll get better at said task at a rate of time relative to the amount of work you put in. The harder you work, the faster you'll get better. Trading is not one of those things, so don’t burn yourself out at the beginning of your journey staying up until 3am every night thinking the answer to all your problems is "I just need to study harder" or it's in some book or DVD or online. It’s not. You just need screen time & experience.  There are ups and downs. In the beginning, more downs than ups. There will be moments of clarity early on when you're going to feel like you’ve “turned the corner and finally figured it out”…….you have...

I was having a discussion with one of my guys the other day…he saw some others in the room making some really nice trades, and he said to me “Dante, what are they doing that I’m not doing?” Putting in the time outside of market hours…in addition to screen time. Going the extra mile. I told him he needed to be more dedicated and put in more time – and his response was simple, and fairly logical when taken in context, he said: “Put in work how? I don’t know what to do.” And at first I was frustrated with that response…but after contemplating it for a minute, it made perfect sense for him to say that. If you are a newer trader, the market is a very scary, fast moving and overwhelming place. Everyone tells you to “go find your niche” but they don’t really tell you how to do it. Just that you have to do it. "Figure out what you're good at, and then go through charts every night, seeking out your strong setups, and study them. See which ones worked, which ones didn't, and why....

A quick preface to why I am writing this blog post: I am in a transitional period of my trading journey. I had the best month of career in January totaling just under 27K in profits on 16 green days and 4 red days, which built on a very good December as well. I am becoming comfortable and consistent, and have decided to try and make “the jump” to really sizing into positions soon. To date, the largest position size I would ever reach would be about 8-10K shares, and even that was rare. Most plays for me end up being between 2-6K share size on names between $3-$15 primarily. That has been my comfort zone, and I am looking to branch out of it in the name of progress and growth. If you wake up every morning and go through the motions of your 9-5 job, simply “tolerating it” for the salary, something is wrong in my opinion. I enjoyed my job, but that is the situation I found myself in, and I was becoming increasingly unhappy (I was a financial analyst for a little over 3 years afte...