Currently, I am watching challenge webinars as I've applied to the millionaire challenge and Tim just said something that sounded like exactly what I needed to do; which was use these blog posts to type out my thought processes and thesis. I've been doing this on twitter for awhile but this just seemed like a better place for me to do since I am not limited by character count.

A little backstory: Around early March I started listening to podcasts about day trading and it awoke a long forgotten passion that I had when I was a kid.  Most kids want to be a doctor, lawyer or a professional athlete.  I only ever wanted to do one of two things-either become a sports agent or a stock broker.  After doing some digging about all the moving parts there are in the stock world I realized I was more drawn toward day trading.  Soon after I stumbled across one of the legendary Tim Sykes youtube videos while surfing for information and was instantly hooked.  It was over for me.  I began buying books, listening to podcasts, and watching as many videos as I could find.  It's been about a month and a half of full on absorbing information and I know that I have a long way to go but I've never been more passionate about wanting to do something.  I've completely altered my daily routine and am now an early riser-I used to be strictly a night owl up till at least 4 am every night. I'm working two jobs at the moment which finally comes to a close April 26th at which point I'll only have a part time job and will be re-enrolled in school in the fall (I have one year of college left) so I am not stressed for time to make a bunch of money.  Obviously I want to in the end but as I'm still a newbie that is not my goal, I want to become engulfed in knowledge.

Trading so far:  Around the middle of March my mom allowed me to use her TDAmeritrade account and the leftover money that was on it to go ahead and get my feet wet (only $500 in the account).  I remember the first day I watched the market open and was completely lost, everything was moving a million miles per hour but that's besides the point. On this account I was obviously extremely limited in my position sizes and was mainly getting killed by commission fees but it was a great learning experience as I didn't blow it up.  I dwindled my way down to around $300, mainly trying to just play off of Tim's alerts and chat alerts which obviously never worked out for me, until I finally hit a breakthrough.  I realized how simple the ABCD pattern was and had finally saw one developing, I had a great entry and a perfect exit and made my first gain of around $75.  Clearly, I was a professional.  This led to me opening up my own account which I've been a little too cavalier with in all honesty but have made gains and losses all the same as I battle through my mistakes.  I like the mistakes, it's the only way I know I'll improve.  In times when I've made a very stupid call I go back to some of the words from podcasts with Tim Grittani on steady trade and remember that it's okay to make mistakes as long as you can manage them and learn from them.  All of the greats have made them so expecting not to make them is naive.  And without trying out different strategies how will you ever know what you're good at or which style best fits your personality.  Among all of the videos and podcasts of the successors of Tim Sykes one thing has stuck out to me over all the rest-follow your own compass.  It's not about following the tips and alerts it's about being able to identify the plays on your own and to figure out how you trade.  Each one of us are different when it comes to this. I don't want to follow the crowd I'd rather be a free thinker.  This is why all the losses on this marathon will be used for the betterment of strategy development.  My main goal in the short term is to not blow up, learn how to cut losses quicker, and figure out how I want to trade while I have the lifestyle that I do.

As of right now I am testing different strategies as I've been able to identify what I am good at, mainly ABCD patterns and some of my o/n positions on FGD's, and what I'm bad at-being too patient and swinging for the fence a little to much-so I know what to come back to when I'm ready to start grinding and I know what to avoid in the future.  But I'm the kind of person that I like to know all the angles which is why this week I will be attempting some swing trading strategies mainly based off of technical analysis and candle patterns.  Documenting this process is my way of seeing what works for me and what does not. For anyone that's read this congrats you made it this far, now lets get into it.

$NBR: As of right now, this is my best position that I'm currently in.  I looked at the chart last night and decided that I wanted to swing this type of trend. Although it's not the quick gainer I'm normally drawn to this one just seemed to me as a steady grinder. Since the crash at the end of the year this stock has been steady climbing, with obvious retractions.  But I was drawn to it's ability to stay within its range over a great period of time.  It's an energy play and as I tweeted about earlier this week or last week I forget, these markets have been overlooked.  So I bought in last night at 500 shares at 3.88 and sized in another 500 shares at 3.92 to bring my average to 3.9.  My goal is to let this ride for the remainder of the week and possibly into next week depending if holds trend and continues to climb.  I am looking for an exit above 4.1 ideally 4.2 but will not get greedy.  It's on second green day status as of the typing of this blog post so I'm expecting some pullbacks here soon at which point if it drops near my current position prize I will definitely be adding because the yearly chart just looks good.  I would not be surprised to see this one eventually get back up to $5 in all honesty.

$EPE: Yesterday Pennystockmeg alerted that she would be swinging $EPE.  That is the main reason this ticker even popped up on my radar.  As I studied the chart after its 10m volume day and preceding days I realized how much this chart looks like a bull flag setting up-especially after the doji created yesterday.  It is a former runner that also declined an insane amount towards the end of last year so I'm sure there are a lot of bagholders.  I am mainly holding this one until the next spike which I feel is coming very soon.  The big engulfing candle with 10m volume is what was really attracting to me, followed by a very small red candle still within its range.  As long as the following days stay within the range of the 10m volume candle I will be holding into next week.  I am looking for an exit above .4 as I'm not going to be greedy, I've been too greedy in the past so I'm trying to cut that out.  In this stock I took a 2000 share position size at roughly .317 and might repurchase more today depending how it closes.  It was red on the day all day today until this last hour and turned back green, I think a reversal is coming.

$PURA: This is probably the worst swing I've purchased so far, as I bought way too soon.  When I was purchasing this stock it was holding VWAP very nicely for hours right under a key resistance yesterday and the hour before close it tanked.  There was a huge bullish engulfing candle and then the close just tanked it. Rookie mistake plain and simple.  This stock is a former runner and recent earnings winner, and unfortunately a pot related stock which all of them are down at the moment. Ideally I should have waited till right before close to take a position in this stock but I did rebuy lower to get my average down some.  Might have been the wrong call but I'm not looking for anything crazy out of this one. This morning it spiked to .09 as soon as market opened and that's the exit that I'm looking to take, I don't think that's out of the picture at all. I like how there is a clearly defined support level on this stock and is showing what I believe is a bullish triangle pattern when looking at the yearly chart. Probably shouldn't have taken the position size that I did on this one but I'm fairly confident it will spike again although I did not like the day it had today.  Will be watching this one closely in order to cut if this starts going too far against me.  For future test strategy positions I will not be taking as large of position sizes and if this one bites me then I'll just chalk it up as a lesson learned as I will not let it get too out of hand.