Greetings!..aaand a few questions

Hello Everyone!
I'm ecstatic to have found this forum! I have been main-lining the posts with all my spare time the last few days. It's great to find a place where people are sharing their experiences/insights, and all on the same foundation.

I figured I would do a quick intro since through your posts I've gotten a sense for some of you, and would like to afford you all the same. Also, it'll help all of my dumb, dumb questions in context : )

In '12 I realized I wanted the independence that comes from having some form of income that didn't depend on anyone elses decisions but my own. By luck, my friend pointed me to WSB. Immediately took 1-5, started practicing. Was disciplined the first 8 months, and things were going really well.
Lost steam, I felt like the fact I KNEW that I wasn't trading realy money, and it was biasing my decisions, but wanted to "finish the practice year" before started with real money. Started skipping days. By the time the year mark came up life stuff happened. 2013 was basically cycles of 1 month on, several off. I'd say "practice for a month to get back in the swing, then real money" I would trade, sometime would come up, months off, rinse repeat. Still, each pickup went pretty well.

The ability to pick up like that leads me to agree with BigChartTrader when it comes to big chart trades about news not being important and most of it being in the time of year and charts.
A looming concern for me is that the success I've had was not so much skill, but just the luck of good stocks. In 2012 it was Aapl and Goog mostly. In 2013, NFLx, TSLA, GOOG, and one that I haven't seen mentioned here a lot, DDD. On any given week if you threw a call at one of those stocks, odds were good you'd be profiting.

This year I’m determined to trade real money. I don't have a large cushion, and I want to work on deadening the adrenalin response of laying real money out there.
First tier goal: Don't zero out this year AND be cool like the other side of the pillow when my moneys in a trade. Second tier goal: End year with at least the 5k I started with (I'm using Tradestation). Anything above that is bonus.

Darcy, your small chart trading suits my temperment, and I will be implementing and practicing soon. Though all the trades I've done have happened to be big chart trades, it was really difficult to walk away from the screen and not obsess. I like the idea of being in and out the same day.
On the other hand, I also agree with BigChartTrader and rookies older, well-off friend, if you master big charts, you have more profit, less stress. I see that as an end game for me. Using and learning it well early on, while supplementing growth more frequent small chart trades. At a certain point taper off the daily stuff, you know, when I'm on some beach somewhere ; ) I would like to learn both well.

I look forward to being an active part of the community and sharing my experiences that hopefully provide utility, or at least entertainment with terrible trades.

And now questions... : )
I’m setting up Tradestation workspace now, but I’ve seen a lot of good stuff here about TOS. When you guys say its free, does that mean free free? As in, you get real-time data for free?

For those that are using MA’s and "E" charts, I’m assuming the MA is a simple moving average, not exponential, is that right?

Thanks again all, and sorry for the novel!

Hi and welcome to the forum. TOS is a free platform, once you have opened an account there I believe there is no account minimum. When I opened mine, I only deposited $10. Strategy Desk also can be setup to have the look of QCharts. I use both SD and TOS.
The moving averages are simple.

TOS charts are free as long as you fund an account, you get real time quotes.

I've been using TOS charts for about 2 years now after switching from qCharts... I've been very happy with it. They are pretty good with their live chat support also. I use the OSX client almost exclusively, but I have run it on Windows for a short time as well. I didn't see any real difference.

Welcome to the forum!

I use Think Or Swim on Windows 7. It works great. I try to set mine up to look as much like Q-charts as I can, since that is what I was used to. Yes it is free. All you do is setup an account much the same as you did when you opened your Optionsxpress account. You don't have to fund the account to use TOS. Without funding the account you have realtime level 1 quotes.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2014 05:49PM by RichieRick.

Thanks for the info guys! I went ahead and downloaded TOS. Man, I can't believe these last years I could have been using that beauty instead of jury rigging analysis from other places. Realtime data AND CNBC.. swoon : )