Diaries of a Day Trader

Sorry, been away for a while, paid for a mentorship program with a successful 8 fig trader, paid $2.5K USD, got alot out of it. Was invited into a discord chatroom with a number of traders who worked at some well known prop firms. Learning alot from these guys.

There are many ways to trade and invest, kinda like different poker player styles, you just gotta find yourself and become your own trader meaning you have to try things out with small size or paper money and once you have positive EV from those specific setups you start using real money. With anything, I practice risk mgmt, probably risk .5% of my account, sometimes you get stuck and can't exit without getting to 1% loss of your bankroll. I review my stats for each type of trade to make sure I have plus EV else they are tossed out of my playbook. I have been successful so far investing and trading and holding for a few minutes to years both long and short. I don't buy options much only once in while if the premiums are cheap like 0dtes, do sell options to collect premiums. I do handle small caps differently to mid and large caps. Prepare to spend thousands of hours to become consistently profitable. Not gonna just jump in and start winning just like poker these days.

For investing, you have to find stocks that are not talked about yet or have a negative view by cnbc and analysts that are ignored or neglected that become cash flow positive. An example of this is PLTR when many retail got in at $6 to $12 and now institutes are buying from the $60s and up. Another example is META that was out of favour and made no sense from a valuation perspective at $100/share, undervalued. Trading is more based on technical and news events.

I do think it is the only one of the many things I have done where you risk money to make money ( sports betting, horse race betting, poker) where it is still possible to make $1M in 1 year. I am having my best year but don't really want to post my results till 2024 is finished, just superstitious jumping the gun and getting the stock gods angry.

I'll post my results after 2024 is done, be more active here as well. Not really gonna get into strategies, just too much to write to do that. I work a full time job but wfh so not alot of time to write long posts on strategies, you could google them though it would take some time to get correct info from real profitable traders versus imposters, way more imposters selling some useless shyte on social media these days,

Was busy to post here, was learning and trading since I last posted, trying new setups, tweaking and tuning them.

Read alot about algo trading. I have a comp sci background so I want to create an algo to automate some of my trades when I have time though that may be a few years from now.

Having a breakout year in 2024, everything is coming together. I read alot about what some successful traders do/think and add some components of their style into my style. Kinda became my own trader in 2024, whatever that means, I mean I kinda know I don't trade exactly like anyone else. The only thing I concentrated on was being a better trader than the month before. I really don't compare myself to anyone else. I do think I can improve for the next several years.

Buy Fear and Sell Greed.
Slowly bought 1200 shares of CRWD avg price of $269 after that sw bug outage this summer tanked the stock like 50%. You make money due to emotional over reactions at the top (FOMO) and at the bottom (FUD).CEO of CRWD had to sit in front of Congress. SW bugs happen all the time, if it was a cyber hack then that's completely different. Pretty confident it would bounce back to over $320 in a few months which it did, currently in the $360s. I been in the cybersecurity field for over 25 years now, pretty sure customer retention was gonna be high, they reported 97% which is pretty good. These analysts are pretty stupid and have no knowledge of tech. Also, Sentinel One, the product the analysts were pumping as an alternative to CRWD didn't capture new customers as I expected lol. Holding CRWD till next earnings, they should be decent earnings.

I am in some NVDA as well, not a large number of shares, I don't think these analysts understand the difference between GPUs and ASCIC chips. Analysts pushing AVGO thinking NVDA has competition. Analysts seem to get alot of the tech details wrong, not going to know unless you understand tech which these wall street analysts have zero clue about.

Thanks.

Other similarities between poker and trading:

-Game/stock selection: can wait it out till you have a good strong bull market to long a breakout on a strong stock. Not getting chewed up by anties so can be very patient with stocks.
-Risk Mgt: same shit, respect your stop losses, need to exit a trade if it goes against you, you should have a plan to exit if your stock drops X dollars before you decide to enter your trade
-Playing too many hands/stocks: same shit, over trading and you get chopped up and start eroding your profits. Need to wait for good hands/stocks, you don't have an image to portray in stocks so u can be much more patient than poker since there is no anties.
-Tilting: same shit, get tilted, size up more to break even on the next trade, usually results is a big fat loss
- Need discipline: stick to the plan, cut your losses at the price u plan to cut and don't hold for a bigger loss, don't size up cause u r on a losing streak

What is better with Trading than Poker?
- No anties, no rake, trade fees are zero or very small so can just wait for the right setup
- Tons of liquidity on large and mid cap stocks: traders can get into a $1M dollar position without impacting stock price.
- Can add or take partial profits as a trade plays out in your favor
- Discrete: Nobody knows what your up to

What's so hard about trading?
- Just a long learning curve, takes thousands of hours over 3 to 4 years to get profitable. I mean you can buy spy off on day1 of ur trading journey and probably make money over a long multi year hold but if you want to make 200 plus % return a year you have to be a more active trader and be in and out of stocks over days/weeks.
- Traps: sketchy stocks especial small cap stocks where someone is trying to trap you, make a stock look weak so traders short it then they rip it higher or make a stock look strong and traders buy and they rug pull it. Have to watch Level 2 Data and be familiar with various traps and avoid them. Shorting is dangerous unless you know what you are doing and not getting trapped.

never heard of paid mentorships before

can you go into details over how you found it and chose that path and what it specifically entailed

I paid to be in a chatroom for a few years where the owner (verified to make over $10M in 2020) went on the mic every to scalp (buy dips, short pops) and get our quickly. I learned how to do that but there was another guy in there who was also a verified 5 figure trader (he was verified via broker statements to make 5 figs per day on average) who went on the mic when the owner was sick. He had a different style that worked well in 2022 when scalping wasn't working well. I liked his thought process. He liked to teach so he offered a teaching program where provided taped videos, powerpoints on his setups, critiqued my trades, traded over the mic explaining what he was thinking before he would enter a trade. This was for over a 6 month period. It wasn't a course on technical analysis. It was geared to traders who have traded for a few years. He hasn't taught it since. A ton of work for the guy to make up course material and be on the mic everyday for 15 people. Wasn't a money grab, really nice guy. One of the best traders I know who could do everything: short or long, scalp or hold over multiple days. More versatile than the chatroom owner who can only just scalp long or short. I don't think you want to be in a room with hundreds of people where you can't ask questions live while the teacher trades. Anyways, my style of trading was more like this trader so it benefited me. Don't pay for a teacher who is doing a style of trading u aren't doing. There's free stuff on youtube and twitter from profitable traders but you gotta figure out what type of trading you want to do then find someone who trades that way.

could you recommend some youtube channels, or even some specific videos you think are done by legit earners and are useful?

Theses are winning day traders (longing or shorting a stock and closing the position within the same day) who make money and have great educational free videos:
- Lance Breitstein: he will have a ton of videos coming out Jan 25 for free. I am a paid patreon member so will get some extra stuff that are on advanced topics.
- SMB Capital
- Dekmartrades

Swing Trading: (both traders below made alot of money using the "episodic -pivot" setup. Both are on youtube but have websites that explain the setups. I made the most money in Q1 2024 using this setup, it works well right after you get into a bull market from a bear market.
- Qullamaggie
- Stockbee

Don't watch an education video on trading futures or currency if you're trading stock and vice versa. Day trading and Swing trading are completely different too. Trading options is another topic as well that's is totally different, most people f up options or are just gambling.

Another difference between trading and poker is that it is the same level of difficulty going from a $10K broker account to $20K as it is going from a $500K broker account to $1M as your facing the same competitors (market participants) where as in poker you have to play higher stake against better players.

Only 2 days of trading left till 2024 is over so I decided to write about my P&L for 2024 now than later.

Of the 4 risk money to make money things (horse betting, poker, sports betting, stocks) I was profitable at some point in my life, I came to the realization in 2017 that trading would be the only one where I could make $1M profit in 1 year.

I traded weed stocks from 2017 to 2018 and make $1.2M Canadian profit learning from Chartman Dan who was probably one of the better weed stock traders back then. I was learning while I traded. Sold everything the day before Oct 18 legalization date in Canada. I was on reddit weedstocks every day. Was too busy to trade till March of 2021 when I was able to wfh as I had a Cybersecurity contract that allow me to trade in the mornings and start work a bit later. I started my learning then knowing I needed about 2 to 3 years to become a good trader. I became profitable in 6 months and was truly convinced that I could have a $1M profit year in the foreseeable future if we get a really nice bull market.

I would have never guess in January of 2023 when I did my first trade of the year longing SMCI after earnings report (episodic-pivot setup) that this was going to be the year. Started with $850K Canadian ($620USD) in Jan of 2024, currently at $2.6M Canadian (1.8M USD) for a net profit of $1.75M Canadian ($1.18M USD).

. I have 2 trading accounts so the dollar figure in the first chart is the sum of the two accounts and the second chart is the yearly performance of the bigger account. The smaller account grew 175% over the 12 months.

Let's party tycoon! Great job, I'm jelly.

Some good traders posting their 2024 P&L on twitter, many 7 fig profits one of the guys is in my discord pod posted on twitter $7.4 profit for 2024. Several other guys in my pod are over $1M.

Some guys on twitter who are legit profitable traders that I follow
@Jin67171
@madaznfootballr I started in his chatroom from March 2021 to Dec 2022 to learn how to scalp.
@kycefn
@Jackaroo_Trades

Tried shorting CVNA a few times after Hindenburgh Research published short report, had to cut first 2 attempts, 3rd one is good from $211s, try and swing the short if it closes weak today.

this just screams fraud to me

and it also conflicts with this which is also on the page

and this

to be clear, i'm not attacking you, i'm happy you shared those and did follow them all on twitter

i'm trying to be very open minded about this and this is something i do want to learn more about

i just see that guys website and want to understand what about that to you feels legit

If you plug in the time from 01/01/2020 to present you get the $11M fig. If you plus in 01/01/2021 to now you get $6.9M figure using the chart he has here. He is down $6M from his peak in early 2021, was losing from somewhere 2021 to 2023 and turned things around from

The above is just a chart so you have to look at his broker statements from 2020 to Feb 2023. He uses kinfo after Feb 2023. I was in his chatroom from March 2021 to Dec 2023 and his trades matched up to to his broker statements and his daily P&L he posted on twitter.
He was up $300K by 2020 ( I think he started in 2016/2017) when he withdrew money from the account and started with $50K which is the starting point ogf his broker statements. That is a margin account so $50K probably give you $200K buying power. I can tell you his several minute scalping trading style is very hard to replicate unless you can type and have fast reflexes like a gamer which he was but there were other traders in there like myself who were in trades for hours that did made money.

The CEO of Trade Zero interviewed Steven Dux on youtube several years ago. and the CEO was well aware of his broker statement and how much he made. I don't think the CEO would be involved in any fraud like that since it's not a win win situation for the CEO. Steven Dux is verified on kinfo. Dux isn't a scalper so has made way more than Madaz. Kinfo gets feeds from your broker to verify the trades. I would think I trade more like Dux versus a scalper like Madaz.

thanks appreciate that

Still holding my swing short on CVNA from $210.45. CVNA is 80% institutional ownership so it could take a week for some of these large holders to sell and take profit. It's currently at $191.45. I suspect there is some accounting fraud going on with CVNA.

CVNA Definitely some institutes started to sell their shares this afternoon. below $180 right now. Keep bleeding please. Turning out to be an easy short trade for me.

Covered CNVA short on the bounce. Shorted Quantum names QUBT and RGTI after Jensen's (CEO of NVDA) comments on quantum computing. covered 1/2.

Bought some DJT last week $34s, added more today, nice move today, start taking profits later this week. DJT running into inauguration

look man i'm saying this not to attack you but to help you out

if you're going to post trades, post them when you make them or don't post them at all

posting your wins after the fact is usually only done by liars and people with aspirations to scam by touting

even if you're able to produce receipts it's still meaningless because you could have made 5 trades that day and then only show the winners a few days later