IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE CHALLENGE READ THIS CAREFULLY AND LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES!

 

How I screwed up before the trading challenge:

• Used 100% of my $7,000 savings in an ETrade account to trade

• Traded the pump and dump $EVUS based on a pump e-mail newsletter

• Lost $5,000 when the pump collapsed and became a bag holder until I admitted defeat and walked away with only $2000 left

 

I decided I realized I had no fucking clue what I was doing and began to seek help. This is how I found Tim and the challenge. The price of becoming a challenge student put me in credit card debt for the first time in my life but I figured it would be worth the interest fees if I could make my money back. On top of my $2,000 in my ETrade account, I opened up a Suretrader account with an additional $1,500.

 

Here’s where I came in to the challenge with the wrong mindset and lost even more money:

 

• I thought I would get a few hot picks from the chatroom or exactly mimic Tim’s trades and quickly gain my money back that I had lost

• I thought I would trade now and study later

• I used margins and had no comprehension of position size

• In 3 months I quickly lost all $3,500 breaking all the rules

 

Over the past month I’ve started to trade less and less and when I do trade I have greatly reduced my position size. I’ve watched both Pennystocking DVD’s and have watched every single video lesson and webinar for the past month. Through this new focus on studying and less on trading I’ve learned these valuable lessons and have completely readjusted my focus for 2016:

 

• Studying is the most important thing you can do. For me this is requiring a lifestyle change from the constant partier I was in my 20’s to the dedicated student and purely focused individual I want to be now that I am 30 and it’s 2016.

• Without dedication there is no point in being in this program, I am sacrificing alcohol and some of my social life to put the majority of my time outside of my day job into this program.

• Positive attitude and the willingness to succeed is the most important trait to have. After I lost the initial $5,000 I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. It was all of my savings and money I planned to use to quit my job and travel for awhile.  It was devastating to lose it and then purely humiliating to lose another $3,500 as a Challenge Student who should know better. The price of what I paid for the program helped keep me in the game obviously since I didn’t want to waste it. But also Tim’s mentality and daily encouragement along with other students succeeding shows me that success is possible, you just have to achieve it. You can’t achieve success without hard work otherwise everyone would be rich.

• It’s a marathon, not a sprint. In 2015 I was only focused on getting rich quick. This was harmful because I was more focused on money instead of the game of trading itself. It's important to separate greed and emotion from your focus and how you play the game. For 2016 I am focusing on studying first and trading second, the opposite of my mentality last year. I might be starting a new job soon which will take a lot of my time but I will not let it distract me from my studying. I was originally focused on quickly becoming a successful trader and quiting my current job in only a few months after starting the challenge. While this is still my dream, I am now focused on furthering my current career while becoming a better trader at the same time. I will not focus on quitting my day job until I am a proven successful trader. This takes all the pressure off and allows me to focus purely on studying. My focus is on getting good at the game first... making profits will come when it is time.

 

So there’s my biggest mistakes and how I plan on correcting them this year. If you are still reading this here’s some trading tips that you probably already know but are the biggest takeaways I’ve had from the program so far:

 

• CUT LOSSES QUICKLY - Always get out before you start to sweat the loss. Think about the big picture, a small loss is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
  
  

• USE THE CORRECT POSITION SIZE - My position sizes were making me emotionally unstable and taking huge chunks out of my account when I was losing. Start small and when you prove yourself, increase them.
  
  

• CURB YOUR EMOTION - Don’t ever follow Tim (or any trader) into a trade. Don’t see something in the chatroom and immediately jump on it. I did this too many times, got lucky once and lost big all the other times because the momentum and spike was usually over by the time I got in. I would strongly advise against chasing.
  
  

• ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS HAVE A PLAN - I’ve had a few lucky trades where I’ve made a quick buck but they didn’t feel right and I didn’t felt like I earned them. I’ve had one trade (http://profit.ly/1MrbKN) in the entirety of the challenge so far that I researched the day before, practiced the night before, watched in premarket and executed after market open when the stock did what I wanted it to do. Never go into a trade and hope for the best, the only way to be successful is to have a plan in your head already, otherwise you will feel overwhelmed, make poor decisions and lose lots of money.
  
  

• TRACK ALL YOUR TRADES IN A SPREADSHEET AND POST THEM ON PROFIT.LY - I didn’t post my trades on profit.ly to begin with and didn’t track them because I was afraid that I would look like a bad trader. Be transparent and realize it’s ok to make mistakes but know when to stop and gather yourself if you are losing every time. There’s no reason I should have lost $3,000 before I woke up to the fact that I was doing it all wrong.
  
  

• DON’T FEEL LIKE YOU NEED TO TRADE EVERYDAY - It’s tough but only focus on the best setups because if you go into the day thinking “I’m going to make a ton of money today!” You will force trades and not let them come to you. Don’t gamble and make sure you are not relying on trading as a sole source of income to begin with. I had the mindset that I needed to make $X amount every day to quit my job and this was a terrible mentality to have because you cannot control the market. Instead, let the stock come to you and only execute a trade when it does what you want it to do. Quality > Quantity.
  
  

• INDEPENDENCE IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS - You have to be able to make your own decisions when it comes to trading. Like sports or any skill, you can learn how to be good at it from pros but you will never thrive and find success until you are on your own and developing your own styles and habits. You had help learning how to walk and riding a bike but now you do it on your own without assistance...a successful trader should also be able to achieve this independence and self-starter attitude.

 

So there it is….my Trading Challenge experience thus far. Like stated above my main focus this year is to study but I will paper trade and probably use Robinhood with very small position sizes (and no fees) to practice before going back to my Suretrader and Etrade accounts when I am ready. My main goal for 2016 is to make profitable trades the majority of the time, even if they are small profits. Time to get studying, best of luck this year to everyone.