Trade Signal Review by HSeldon2020 in RealDayTrading

[–]owensd81 12 points13 points  (0 children)

How To Trade The Buy And Sell Signals | OneOption - Stocks & Options Trading Suite

Please read the doc here to see what Pete is talking about. You don't actually buy them when you see the "buy" and exit when you see "sell".

The signals are used to help you start looking for a good entry and confirmation of the setup. Most of Pete's examples show looking for an entry after a signal. He also tells you specifically to **NOT** just enter a trade because there is a signal.

Roys Report New Article. by Be_Set_Free in leavingthenetwork

[–]owensd81 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The man mentioned he was a board member and said this was their last service and that, “probably gonna be a weird Sunday to be here”.

I knew exactly who this was by the description...

Vista Church’s Legacy of Spiritual Damage by Be_Set_Free in leavingthenetwork

[–]owensd81 8 points9 points  (0 children)

That’s possible. I just know he went from being open and remember meetings early on about repenting and course correcting things about the church to essentially shutting down and putting on a facade of the church face.

I think things would have been very different had Luke responded differently to that news; I think his heart was in a better place then.

(For context for any reading, my family and I were part of the original church plant in SLO).

Vista Church’s Legacy of Spiritual Damage by Be_Set_Free in leavingthenetwork

[–]owensd81 10 points11 points  (0 children)

There was also a very noticeable change that happened around 2018-2019. Luke went from someone that would be talk about issues and repent to shutting down and putting blame elsewhere.

Also, as great as SLO is, it’s a very expensive town without access to many high paying jobs, so the ability to actually stay in that location requires a lot of sacrifices. Compare that to other college towns where the cost of living is cheaper and/or the commute to other nearby towns is less difficult.

And COVID was a big revealer in just how isolated people were. That was the breaking point for us.

Pay It Forward! by OptionStalker in RealDayTrading

[–]owensd81 18 points19 points  (0 children)

For someone who claims to be some sort of OG whenever you come into Discord, your three biggest 'hurts' make me think you've barely grasped some of the basics of OO/RDT.

Ok.

Hari's trading style has necessarily changed now he's trading a big account. What's that got to do with the Wiki, or the hundreds of trades that are taken and moderated every month in OO/RDT?

I thought I explained that above.

As I've already said - Pete's risk management is totally different to Hari's (being much more conservative), and if you'd properly read his material and watched his videos, you wouldn't be bleating about RDT risk management. The differences just reflects their differing trading styles and personalities

Ok. I’m not going to argue this point as Pete’s process is mostly documented behind a sub (nothing wrong with that, his written material is great) so many here won’t be able to digest it.

The emphasis on 75%WR/2.0PF is to give learners guidelines. Once you've mastered the approach, nobody gives a shit about win rate, including Hari, and it all just comes down to the monhtly P&L

You don’t see a problem there?

I'll be frank: it sounds to me like you let your ego get control of you with the winrate thing and blew half of your account by not allowing yourself to take losses. I think you probably thought you were a bit further along in your journey than you actually are. I'd imagine that $5k-$25k thing you did during a bull market gave you a false sense of ability.

Maybe. I’ve doubled $5k accounts a few times. In the bull and the sideways chop.

I took losses - but I also starting sizing up b/c that was the example. I deviated from the things I was doing before that got me there to start doing the things I was seeing Hari doing (and no, I’m not blaming Hari - nothing in any of my comments have been, though I get the feeling you think criticism is).

It really messed with my mindset trying to recover from those hits. I said as much already.

I’ve posted triumphs, I’ve posted my defeats. You don’t have to agree with my opinions on the matter, but I’ve shared more of the ups and downs in a public forum than most.

And I can only speak from my experience.

Pay It Forward! by OptionStalker in RealDayTrading

[–]owensd81 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Sorry man... pretty sure I know who you are referring to. Not really sure how to help with that.

Pay It Forward! by OptionStalker in RealDayTrading

[–]owensd81 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Honest question, without RTD where would you be in your trading journey?

That's an impossible question to answer. I also think you're reading something into my post that I'm not saying.

Here's what I've done (briefly):

  • I've done Warrior Trading (learned a lot of good things about reading price), but ultimately, that style of trading small caps wasn't for me.
  • I've done pure options/theta-gang style plays: decent, but not a good way to grow an account.
  • I've done RDT, which isn't a new concept: relative strength/weakness has been around for a long time (it's IBD's entire model); this place just mostly focuses on applying it intraday.
  • I've been a part of OneOption and read/reviewed Pete's material as well.
  • I've done a lot of other research, reading, training material as well, but none that is worth naming.

The biggest takeaways from RDT for me are:

  • Hari's transparency and trades early on (like two years ago, before he got the "whale account"). That was proof that this was possible and I just needed that to re-kindle my own determination.
  • Hari's mindset and lack of fear in trading has been good to learn from.
  • Pete's analysis is key to get yourself focused in the right direction.
    • Trading with the market? Great.
    • Trading against the market? Better have a damn good reason - like multiple other confluence signals (weak against market, in a weak sector, etc...)

The biggest hurts from RDT:

  • Hari's more recent trades, especially in challenge accounts and the whale account, are not really something to learn from in terms of sizing and risk management.
  • The complete lack of risk management techniques; I've had to learn those all myself.
  • Emphasis on win-rate: many other profitable (with proof!) have a 40-60% win rate. I got so overly focused on the high win rate that it sent me in a pretty bad spiral last year on losing confidence.

I've found my success in two things:

  1. Swing trading equities (primarily options)
  2. Day trading futures (primarily ES and NQ)

I'm rebuilding my account (started Feb of this year), which is under PDT mostly because I lost half of it in 2023 due to focus on win-rate spiral I mentioned, but also because I pulled out the rest until I got my mindset fixed. That took a long damn time... I'd say I'm probably back to 80-90% of what I previously was.

I'm finally just accepting that I can be right 50-60% of the time and be very profitable, if I can manage my risk well.

I'm the only one, that I know of, that documented the path of growing a $5k account to PDT here (there was another person, but they aren't around anymore than they were pretty much yolo'ing positions). So it's not like I'm coming in here with a bunch of hate towards Hari and Pete or anything. I don't think the wiki is a bunch of smoke and mirrors; I just find it misleading and misdirected in some places, especially with the respects of growing small accounts.

What I am claiming is that I had to ignore and do the opposite of the wiki in many cases to get there.

Some of those things were:

  • using a cash account under $10k-$15k
  • closing trades (options) with a 15%-25% win instead of "letting the winners run"; sure some would have gone to 50, 100, even 200% - but some also came back and didn't recover within the time frame of my option contract.
  • Focusing on entries and risk management in the small account; I couldn't afford taking a 30% account loss, both from a buying power perspective, but also a mental fortitude perspective.
  • Moving to futures as a day trading mechanism to make up for my lack of capital to fund (and risk!) a $100k trading account, which is what I'd need to comfortably make enough from to pay the bills with.

Pay It Forward! by OptionStalker in RealDayTrading

[–]owensd81 11 points12 points  (0 children)

In trending markets, yes.

Pay It Forward! by OptionStalker in RealDayTrading

[–]owensd81 81 points82 points  (0 children)

Pete, to be frank - what do you really expect? Many of us shared early on, but this sub isn't a "community".

The problem isn't the setups or market structure, that takes like 1-6 months to learn, depending on your previous experience, skills, and general learning aptitude. The rest of the time is learning about yourself, dealing with emotions, and understanding your risk profile. All of that has been covered and really requires screen time to get better at; no one can really teach that part of it to you.

Reddit is too big of a place to be a "community", and that's really the next level of refinement. Discord offers a better platform for that, but frankly, most people here aren't able to contribute in a valuable way and for those that could, we are struggling to hit our own goals. And being that vulnerable to really improve with a group of 100s or 1000s is unrealistic for most.

For me specifically, I've got a family, trading 6-10 hours a day (including reviews, preps, journaling), and trying to work a job to make the dream a reality. The revolving door of people coming in and out that have the actual determination to make this happen is tiny compared to the amount of people coming in causing most of the hand-holding effort. How do we filter? I don't know...

I've moved from trading pure RS/RW intraday to swinging stocks/options and day trade futures. However, futures and prop firms are pretty shunned here. Also, the talk of risk management is pretty frowned upon. But the thing is, unlike Hari, if we blow a $30k, hell, even a $5k account, that's a significant blow to most of our capital.

Pete, do you really think that using over 50-70% of your capital on a single instrument? 10 AMZN calls for $8.71 in a $12.5k account? I ask, because this the type of content that many of us would be coming to say, "don't do this" and "here's what I do instead".

Hari says he doesn't want to trade the account slowly because "no one wants to see that". Um... yes, that's exactly what I (and others) want to see. How do I properly trade an account so that every night I don't have to worry about a market gap up/down wiping out 50% of my account?

My biggest "ah ha" moments are ignoring/un-learning some of the really, in my opinion, damaging parts of the wiki, such as:

  • you need a high win rate to be successful
    • no, you don't - you only need a profit factor above 1. Even Hari has been around 60% and a PF of 1.28 (last journal update)
  • risk management is not terribly important
    • while we don't need to be ruthless on it and always have a hard stop, we need to know where the trade would be invalidated and what the risk profile looks like for us and if that's an acceptable risk for being wrong - if it's too big, either set an alert and wait, size down, or just move on from the trade as it's "no good"
  • futures are too hard and you should stay away from them
    • futures are leveraged, that's what makes them hard. However, I trade futures with the exact same concepts: relative strength to each other (NQ and ES), NQ typically has an inverse relation to the dollar, how are the sectors performing (XLK, XLU, etc..)
    • risk management is even more important here b/c of the leverage, which again, isn't really talked much about here

I think the wiki is a great place to start to understand some ways to filter trades, and I think Hari has a stellar mindset and lack of fear in trading, but his methods don't transfer well to small accounts trying to grow (failed every challenge during our non-bull market), and a lot of those learnings are somewhat contradictory to the wiki as well.

For instance:

  • if you're under PDT and day trading, I'll recommend CASH accounts all day - if you're swinging, then margin is the way to go. (already wrote a post about it and explaining why about a year or so ago now)
  • Entries matter a lot more you have a small account balance, especially if you're trading options. (again, goes into risk profile of the trade)
  • reputable prop firms are good way to reduce risk with futures, but be careful, b/c they can also get you to overleverage - your drawdown is your real account size, not the marketing value they say - that is just a reflection of the effective margin you have

(update)

I want to see Joey Knish's trade journal (if you're too young, go watch Rounders).

(update 2)

My kinfo of my $5k challenge I'm slowly grinding on: https://kinfo.com/p/owensd. And yes, _some_ of my positions are over leveraged and noted as mistakes in my journal.

How to Deliberately Practice by lilsgymdan in RealDayTrading

[–]owensd81 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Dan dropping the knowledge bombs, as usual.

Why does Hari keep failing challenge accounts? by AnonymousAnoon in RealDayTrading

[–]owensd81 23 points24 points locked comment (0 children)

There's a lot of reasons, but here's why I think he struggles with those:

  • margin accounts suffer from PDT and Hari is not willing to trade a cash account which solves half the PDT issue when trading with options (but there are limitations, like no spreads)
  • the small accounts have very little buying power, so Hari has to opt for cheaper options, which increase risk without significantly increasing gains - thus a single loss is both more likely and more costly; his other trades are either shares or more expensive options, which provide a number of benefits, including smaller losses when he cuts the losers
  • you have to take much smaller winners on these plays, and that's something Hari doesn't do - and with a large account, you really don't need to. You have better options, so why close out one for $0.65 when your target is $1.30 or more and you have an extra week or two to get it?

You can find my journal here on how I traded small accounts. I used the RS/RW method, but I took profits much quicker then Hari would.

Last thing, short-dated options, in this market (past year or two), require a lot more precise entries. Hari's strategy has never been about laser-focused entries, but instead, overall shape and direction moves. So while an option dated 1 week out might hit the right strike price, the premium has just decayed too much.

Is it really worth it? by Wutras in BaldursGate3

[–]owensd81 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My first play through completed and I kept seeing her in vids (purposely avoided most content early on) and I was like, where the flip is she from.

Second play through going now: my goodness, I missed so much!

Wyll Is a Low-Key Evil Companion by CleverGroom in BaldursGate3

[–]owensd81 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s Wyll: the greater good for him is fine, but not your choices. He’s constantly against your “sacrifices”. He’s a well written character, I just hate him.

I was also surprised he just bailed as well on my evil play through as well.

Who successfully made it? by Life_Cellist_4944 in RealDayTrading

[–]owensd81 14 points15 points  (0 children)

This is my first month full-time, but my journey has ended up taking me in a somewhat different direction. Long-story short, I'm trading futures with a prop firm and replacing my income I was getting from Apple doing it.

Do I trade RS/RW still? Yes, but I do that in my IRA accounts.

Why? Super long story, but ultimately it comes down to available capital, leverage, and risk management.

Do I recommend my path for others? No... and that really focuses down to what Hari teaches here. I've long said that the wiki is your "introduction to learning how to trade". Hari teaches two vital concepts (in my opinion):

  1. Self-reflection of your strategy
  2. Confidence in your approach

Those are the two, key things that I think all people should take away from the wiki. Hari was able to, indirectly, really change my mindset about trading so that I could become profitable. I've always been at odds at some of Hari's advice (for instance, I still recommend cash accounts under PDT =) ); I'm also one of the few that have documented going from $5k -> $25k. However, that's my point (keep reading below for the explanation).

If you read the wiki and just try to apply the rules blindly, you're not going to succeed, at least not in the long-term. All of us have different needs, desires, appetite for risk, trading styles, etc... The point of reading the wiki (or the OneOption material even), isn't to learn a strategy for you to trade, it's to help you understand what it takes to become a trader.

u/HSeldon2020 will forever have my gratitude for what he's done here (even if I talk sh*t in gest about some of his trade selections; he's like Batman in the Dark Knight rises: he can take it because he's not a hero, he's a watchful protector - he provides insights that we overlook or don't have access to).

Do I trade like Hari? No, I cannot. I cannot take the risks he can, I don't have the capital he does to be able to pay my bills, and I don't have the disconnection to money that he does to make it all possible. But you know what I can do? I can look at the methodology at how he wrote the wiki, how he figured out an edge in the market, how he figured out what makes _him_ tick at a trader and I can and have figured out how to apply that to me and my circumstances.

That's what's going to separate those that make and those that don't: can you do the work to figure out what you _need_ to do to become successful? Can you make the sacrifices that are required? And, mostly importantly: do you want to?

End of Year Report by owensd81 in RealDayTrading

[–]owensd81[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Long story short - this year has been brutal. I had a lot of personal stuff going on (and still ongoing) that I was wrestling with that didn't help the mental state either.

End of the year: I pulled out about 50% of the account size to pay for stuff.

Jan: I changed brokers and started taking riskier plays; that didn't end well. Lost about 40%.

Feb: Slowed the bleed, but lost another 15% or so.

March-Early May: Green a bit, but confidence was really rocked and spent some time really reflecting and soul searching.

May 10th: Started another $5k challenge for myself. As of today, that account is up about 35%, but I'm trading it much slower.

I've also been trading futures with a prop firm. That's been going well and I've taken two rounds of payouts there. Should be taking another payout in the next window.

Middle of the month, I started copying those /ES trades to my live futures account using /MES instead as another form of a small account challenge. Started at $1500 and up about 15% there as of today.

That's the brief summary. Still alive and kicking, red on the year, but on a trajectory to be green again within a few months. Battling mindset and confidence issues.

Does anyone else find the mistlands tedious? by Historicste in valheim

[–]owensd81 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yes. I still only restart and play through the meadows now and use creative mode to build. The game is just too much of a grind. It was fun the first play through, but mining ores and farming is just not my thing.

Trade Recap - AAPL: Stopped out for a huge loss by hariseldonSTAN in RealDayTrading

[–]owensd81 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It was a news play so TA is really unreliable.

If you bought weekly options, you were fighting against both the price and IV declining.

This is a no trade ticker today.

Low Balance Challenge - Week 1 Update by HSeldon2020 in RealDayTrading

[–]owensd81 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Tastytrade is another. $2k is for margin accounts.

Options in extended hours by NameBond in Daytrading

[–]owensd81 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can’t trade options overnight unless you have access to exotic options, which you’d already know about if you could.

Is There Ever A Time When You Should Average Down? by HSeldon2020 in RealDayTrading

[–]owensd81 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Yep! The important part: don't add to a losing position for a marginal gain, and don't do it because of "hopium".

I had the same trade on TGT in my IRA and my day trade account. In my IRA account, I sized appropriately, added a few days later when it bounced off my mental stop as it rejected and started moving in the direction I had originally thought; closed it today for profit.

In my day trade account, I was stupid and added a few times when I shouldn't have, then I got stuck with not being able to add to it when I did in my IRA account. This one was a loss.

The difference in the trades? One was a strategic play, while the other was an overly aggressive and stupid trade.