This is going to be quite long but, helps explain how ive been able to be profitable now 10 days in a row.

A little background on before I started trading... by age 12 id learned basic strategy of blackjack and by age 19 learned counting (perks of growing up in Vegas) i have always been great at simple math, statistics and probabilities on the fly. After the crash of 2008-09 and trying to by 1000 shares of $BAC at below $5  (missed everything as the FOB i was on in Iraq was rocketted and hit the internet killing the internet for just over a week) and saw it later hit over 30(when the internet was back on).  so, naturally I thought i could kill it in the market the first time i stepped foot into it but, would still be 5 years before i even had the courage to complete my applications for a brokerage account.

I first saw an article on Tim Sykes late in 2013 and shortly thereafter became a challenge student in Decemberish timeframe. I thought, hey I taught myself how to count cards and was a profitable blackjack player buy age 19 making more money on the BJ tables on the east coast on weekends as i was as an E2-E3 in the Army, I can trade stocks no sweat. Mistake one was this thinking.  My second and more fatal mistake was to not study anywhere near as much as recommended. I watched the entire dvd pack mailed to challenge students but, still have only watched maybe 3-4% of videos on profitly as my German internet isn't the greatest.

My first trading acct. I managed to stay positive for a short while but, got switched shifts at work and my work shift covered the stock market hours for almost a year. My remedy for this was to drain my 10k I had in my accounts and put it towards the principle of my 2013 BMW M3. Toward the end of 2014 I got sent back to day shift and decided to fund my account with 5k this time and started back vigorously in the market and studying. by middle of February I was up around 1k and lacking confidence as I'd fallen into my old bad habits of trading Tim Alerts. needless to say up until recently I was the epitome of the worst case scenario challenge student. The toward the middle of February I read The Disciplined Trader by Mark Douglas and then something clicked. I started looking for a different pattern that fit my style and found it rather quickly.

Today is my 10th day profitable, not only profitable but, not a single trade being a loss (making 2-3 trades a day and only 2 being long) (EDIT: HAD $12 loss in $HART ON 24 FEB BUT, DIDN'T SHOW THAT ON MY SURETRADER ACCOUNT),and now am up nearly 4k in 2.5 weeks bringing my acct. just shy of the 10k mark. I feel as I have truly become self sufficient and profitable after almost a year and a half as a horrible example of a challenge student.

 

I figured I'd write a quick blog posting as I got so much response from my twitter tweet about 9 days straight without a losing trade  to cover the couple questions I got PM'ed and thank you everyone for the congrats yesterday it really made my day to see that the trading community is as tight nit as it is on this site and among challenge students.

 

-Joe Dimmick

 

 As a challenge student Tim leads you too water. I suggest you take a drink as he can't force you. I made the mistake of not taking that drink and took me a year longer than I expected to really get to where i wanted to be.