Wow what a crazy month. So many mistakes made, some good trades, the market crashing, and just very stressful. However, I came very far from when I first began on November 5th of 2018. I began the year by studying tirelessly for several weeks before getting a broker account. I studied about 15 hours a day. I still do that now because there is just so much to learn and I want to absorb as much knowledge as I can so that I can become a profitable trader. 

My first week trading was insane. I had no idea what was going on. Everything seemed to be moving so quick and I was like a little girl bouncing around in my chair at all the opportunity I saw in the stock market. At this time I could not recognize any patterns even though I had learned many patterns up to this point. 

Now things have calmed down so much. I'm at the point where I can recognize patterns, I just need to learn to time my entry and exits well, along with being more disciplined. I'm also very grateful for learning to trade in a very volatile market as it is discipling me from the very start to be very safe and lock in profits. The following is what I have done well, poorly, tips I have implemented to make it easier on myself, and what I need to work on. 

 

The good. 

The biggest thing that has finally given me some confidence is using paper trading. When I started I was really against paper trading because It wasn't real money and because I wanted to make money right away. It wasn't until I started losing a lot of my account that I gave in. And up until now it was the best thing I could have done. I can test patterns as much as I want. I was able to cut losses quickly and take profits. For some reason something clicked. I feel much more confident about trading and I have a sense that I am just one small step away from being consistently profitable. I am still studying every single day averaging about 12 hours a day or so. I watch a lot of video lessons and I watch an hour or so a day of the dvd's. I understand and am able to spot patterns forming. I spend several hours a day making watchlists. When I first started, the stocks I was watching did not really match any of Tim's stocks, maybe a few here and there. Now our watchlists are about 60-70% exact. 

 

The bad.

The biggest issue I have is cutting losses. Before I started trading I was so confident I will cut losses fast every single time, but unfortunately that has not been the case. This is what has led me to be down nearly 50% on my initial account of $2500. I'm down about $1300 as of right now. Also, I always had some numeric profit I would try to hit, and if I only played the chart I would have profits but instead the stock ended up dropping back down and I would get out with losses. Another huge negative impact on my account was following alerts. Every time someone in the chatroom or even Tim would mention a stock I could not resist to buy it even though it had run up by the time I bought. I found that every time I followed a pick I lost. Every single time.

 

Tips/Tricks.

-I turned off P/L and only play the chart. 

-I have sticky notes that I read every morning to convince myself to cut losses quickly. 

-I paper trade when I don't have any trades left, if I am trying to test a pattern, or if I am uncertain about what the stock will do. 

-I turned off the chatroom. I found this to be excessive noise and I chased many stocks and lost. I only would turn on Tim's commentary. 

 

Goals.

-I will only play the first green day pattern until I master it. I seem to really understand this pattern and I can see potential profits. This will keep me from overtrading. I will only trade other patterns if I see the perfect play on breakouts, dip buys, etc. 

-Reverse my downtrending profit chart and finally break even. My goal by the end of month 3 is to break even. I will do everything I can to make that happen. Again it's not necessarily about the money but to finally become a consistently profitable trader. 

-I want to organize my trades by the patterns they fall into. I think this will really help me see which patterns I am good at and which are profitable for me.