Super awesome to put some faces to some names finally, pretty awesome to answer some really in depth questions at the 2023 conference as well. Lots of traders with a desire to become better. That’s a good thing. It takes a ton of trial and error in this industry to find out what works for you my biggest take away from the conference is everyone sitting on stage capitalized on the mania when it presented itself and worked on perfecting their strategies in the slow time. This is important for me and it ties into seasonality. As the market presumes to be bearish. I’ll focus on doing what I’m doing and not feel obligated to necessary push my size as I was beginning to. And wanting to, there’s a time and there’s a place for pushing size and capitalizing on my strategy’s and current market conditions are telling me take what I can get for now and just be prepared to push size when the opportunity finally presents itself. So far I’m staying pretty locked in and comfy with these $300-$400 losses in our current market. It’s not a cookie cutter approach everyone’s strategy , comfort, account etc is totally different so defining what you’re willing to lose in your strategy will be different than mine. My goal for 2023 was to not let my account take any big hits and proud to say I’m only a couple months away from succeeding this goal thanks to 2 golden rules. Rule number 1. Never add to a loser. Number 2. Always have a predetermined dollar loss in mind per setup and size in so I’m not risking more than that dollar amount. This has allowed my winners to almost always outweigh my losers and has been a huge push forward in 2023. If I complete my annual goal for 2023 I can set a new once in 2024 and I already know it’s going to consist of letting my winners run and having more patience. Trading is like stacking blocks. One at a time and in uniform is the best way to build the tallest and strongest wall. Happy to say 2023 has been a great year of profitability especially in such a slow market where other traders have been simply trying to survive. But it’s not luck it was hard work dedication and the thirst for financial freedom. There’s no expiration to become a successful trader just know that, everyone’s pace everyone’s life style is totally different. It’s up to your dedication on how fast you want to speed up that learning curve. I do have to say met some great people at this conference probably the funnies response was “Jayray you’re not at all what I thought you were, you’re a lot more hillbilly than I imagined” literally will be laughing at that comment for years to come. Great meeting you all. Never forget it’s strictly business out here. The second you get comfy is when you get run over. Every day is the chance to learn something new no matter how far along in your career you are. God bless and trade on! If we met at the conference let me know what your favorite thing was would love to hear it🤘🏻

February was a slight let down for me as I made less than January but considering world events it was still a success. Had a total month profit of $997.69. Still a good month for me and still trending the right way. What is aboslutely crazy is that my Average Win/Loss were almost identical to January. Jan Avg Win 21.65 by Feburary Avg Win 21.66. It doesn't get any closer than that. Jan Loss: 11.55 Feb Loss: 11.15. Jan Win% 66.37 vs Feb Win% 71.28. So I had some slight improvements in February. I am also trying to focus on taking less trades and narrowing them down to A+ setups with the current environment. There have been a lot less of ideal panic dip buys than in previous months which also has limited some profits. Best win of February was on a ZNOG overnight play that was a 42% win on a small position resulting in $171.00 almost nine times my average winning position.

Going to try to do a monthly recap every month so here is my first recap of the year! January was excellent for me once again achieving my best month since the craziness of last year with a profit of $1180. My favorite pattern is Panic Dip Buy or as we named it this week and probably more accurate is the Panic Flip Buy. Currently trading over 80% right on this pattern. On the month I was right 66.37% of the time and wrong 33.63% of the time. I would love to keep this going. This is the ideal win/loss rate! My average win was 21.65 and average loss 11.55. A 2 to 1 ratio is okay but would like higher. The first 2 weeks of the month I had 2 major mistakes which caused this number to be exaggerated. One was a risking breaking news play that dropped over 50% on me in matter of minutes with 0 bounce. I take responsibility for this and was glad I took a super small position. Secondly, I made a fat finger mistake increasing my posistion by buying 100k more shares than I wanted. Removing those 2 errors greatly improves my numbers. Reducing me to a $8.49 per loss average which is almost a 3 to 1 ratio. Overall a very good month. I have started to increase my position size on these panic plays as I am showing great proficiency in them. I took my largest win on one the last day of the month with a win of $144.70. Which was still less than a 1k dollar position! For Feburary I will continue to focus reducing any large losses and continuing to increase my position size. The largest mental hurdle will be increasing my size and being okay with a potentially larger loss on any position due to sizing. If I keep the percentage gain/loss the same as before I will be fine and thats the perspective I have to keep!

Happy new year! I closed out my year strong. My goal was to achieve the highest point of last year by year end but I didn't quite get there. I did end up +2684.24 at years end. Which to many that doesn't sound like much but I did make 95% of that since September. I finished the year off with what is my best month of +850. I did all of this with basically not taking any positions over $1K and many below $700. I've been gaining confidence in my setups and will look to increase position sizes soon. I have been waiting for the market to tell me when to size up. I hoping to see a hotter market with the new year. I will not size up day one of the new year I want to see what we have to work with first. Thanks to the few of you that have been following my journey and for anyone in the chat that has helped my in this process.

So quick update since my last blog post for my and others references. Since the previous post things have been going well. The switch from TD to Fidelity has been huge in my trading. Even in the slower market we have been having I'm still turning small profits. Since this post I have made $1406.61 and have been profitable for 3 straight months. The change has allowed me to take smaller size and still have similar profits. Additionally, the ability to sell partials into strength has helped me immensly. This is also helping me with my patience on stocks. Over this time frame I am winning on 55.8% of my trades. My goal is to get to 60%. I have only had 2 losing weeks in that time frame and those losing weeks were still very controlled one week of $20 and one of $60. Both very acceptable. I will continue to practice controlling my losses.

After much thought and consideration I will finally be leaving TD Ameritrade as my Broker. Looking at my own records since April without comissions/trade costs I have profited over $2K with TD's trade costs I am actually -$1K. This is unacceptable. I find myself stressed thinking I am a terrible trader because my account keeps going down when in reality I'm okay and just need to be more disciplined. Starting September 1st I should be full time in Fidelity and I am looking to see this change a positive result in my trading. Baby steps is all I want and consistency. In addition this gives me more flexibility to potentially scale in or out of trades without the concern of wasting 7-10 dollars per buy/sale. This should help with my fears and allow me to lock in partial winners much more often. Current strategy has always been to buy full position and sell full position at my exit. This thought process has always left me with fear of missing the bigger move or having to hit a certain profit goal every time. Wanted to mark this day for myself so that I remember when it changed and if it really did make a difference.

@AHirtzel just became a fully transparent trader today!