Woohoo! It finally arrived. I'm just a chapter in so far and really enjoying it. I like the intuitive approach he takes, even to explaining TA. I did statistical genetics research for years so I'm a bit of a stats geek and think this is gonna be fun. Although trading seems to be way more about psychology than math.

Hey everyone. We have moved on to our next phase of our "learning journey"! This month we start to cover Technical Analysis. The first module is up and it covers what technical analysis is, and the difference between technical and fundamental analysis. You can access the module here. Couple points: TA is a big big topic. I don't plan to master it in 2 months studying a bit through the week and the weekends. But I do plan on getting a good introduction to the main components. TA seems to be something that traders constantly improve and learn more about, and once we start paper trading things will sink in even more. So again just keeping some realistic expectations. Also, I didn't mean to mention that the news does not affect the price of a stock (it might have come off that way a bit in the podcast I think). I wanted to point out that the pure form of TA seems to say that price action discounts everything - the chart is all you need. I did some more digging and found this from the WIKI (created by the RealDayTrading reddit group). Bottom of page 243 from the WIKI is the start of the post about "Should News Influence Your Trading". I highly recommend you read that section. You can download the WIKI here: https://www.reddit.com/r/RealDayTrading/comments/ze4zxe/the_damn_wiki_in_word_and_pdf_format/

I just ordered my copy and am interested to read this given that so many people seem to suggest it as a fundamental book for day traders. I've heard various snippets of the book in different posts, including Tyler's episode 13. The idea that there are particular traits (i.e., discipline, independence, agency in decision-making) that successful day traders tend to have certainly makes sense, as does the idea that operating from a place of fear or poorly-managed 'emotional' states would not be conducive to success. So, it also makes sense that working to attain and maintain an appropriate mindset (and some sort of emotional equilibrium) will be important to the long term viability of your career as a day trader as well as your profitability. However, as a psychiatrist (and someone who has spent nearly 30 years helping people better understand, manage and make optimal use of their emotions and also training physicians and other psychiatrists to do so), I know with certainty that most people cannot will themselves into or out of emotions simply because they know that a different state would be optimal for trading. I won't go on too long here having not read the book yet. But, I am looking forward to seeing what practical suggestions the author has for, say reducing 'fear,' and whether those seem achievable for the average person. In my experience, most people do not know the difference between anxiety and adaptive/productive emotions (including fear, which is different from anxiety), nor are most very adept at recognizing or managing anxiety. (And this is more complicated to get into, but even those who are capable of recognizing and managing anxiety sufficiently such that it does not impact their capacity for rational thought, often do not fully appreciate what underlying emotions are driving the anxiety in the first place and, therefore, they remain subject to emotion-based decision making.) Sorry, that was longer than I anticipated, but since psychology is such a big part of successful day trading, I'm eager to see what the leaders in the day trading field have to say about it.

I've been doing some background reading (and listening to Tyler's podcast episodes) to brush up on the basics. I've opened an Interactive Brokers account and am looking forward to getting started with learning the simulator and trading workspace. I'm a little torn because it looks like Tradovate might have some very user-/learner-friendly features (and is recommended by imantrading) but is only for Futures. Since I haven't settled on any particular instrument(s), going with IB seems like the best option for now. Looking forward to learning with Tyler and this group.

I am curious, what is your favorite way to track and analyze your trades? I am trying to decide my best approach to journaling my trades. This is hard because my instinct is to write each one out like a science experiment in this very aesthetically pleasing binder I purchased in hopes of later reviewing my trading psychology. I am concerned however that I might be going too much into the "science" of it and due to my hyper-fixation tendencies, I may accidentally OVER analyze the data or get in my head too much. Alternatively, It seems like there are TONS of online resources that can just import trades and calculate win ratios and so on, essentially doing all of this for me... And after re-reading this, I have determined that I may already be "in my head" too much 🤪