For this post Id like to share my setup so you can better understand the decision making process of what I am doing and how trading decisions are delivered.

Tech

Core i7 – 16GB Ram – Two Video Cards – Five monitors 24”. Will likely add another 3 screens but dont have much room for the mount arm so will postpone this decision. Overall decent trading decisions could be generated and executed using only 3 screens, that is the best solution for beginners.

Platform

Takion – one of the fastest, reliable and advanced for prop-trading. At the beginning its rough and complicated but once you get used to it, it becomes the best trading software you will ever experience. To get a demo, please write me an email at trader521 @ playbooktrading.com.

Charting

TC2000 – best value for money and its direct linkable to Takion so its very easy to use.

Overall setup

The preparation for trading has the following process: (1.5hrs before market open).

1. Check world markets via – https://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/europe/ and news via https://www.investing.com/economic-calendar/
2. Check Daily and H1 Futures via tradingview SPY (es1!); QQQ (nq1!); Gold (gc1!); Crude Oil (cl1!).
3. Check ETFs and Sectors for setups.
4. Search for Interesting Earnings via https://briefing.com/investor/calendars/earnings/ or https://estimize.com/calendar
5. Search for interesting Gaps that might trigger the setup.
6. Analyze Stock Arena and Sector Stocks considering sector ETFs and specific ideas on Daily chart.
7. List trade ideas for Long and Short on daily Setup List.
8. Wait for Market/Sector/Stock to confirm your setup.
9. Trigger the trade with calculated risk.

I do follow a very clear playbook and search for specific setups on daily and intra-day. We will cover the playbook and trading business plan in the future posts.

A lot of traders including myself have a struggle in exiting the position. After applying a more mathematical approach I decided to use Reward to Risk Ratios combined with tier system for exits. Once I have a trade trigger, I will exit gradually in 3 tiers on reaching 4 to 1, 5 to 1 and the rest I will trail by pivots on the triggered time frame. In my experience that will give a better exit average than just hit and run exits. Also this subtracts the emotions out of the equation so once the trade is on, I will just set the limit orders at specific levels according to my calculations.

Sometimes when I do have more time (more than 10 seconds) to take the trade decision I do use the trade calculator that is in the screenshot, that helps get a more exact number of shares loaded in the position to keep up with the math. If you need one of these, let me know and we will email it to you. It is adjusted for 10% of the size in case the price already moved a few cents in the direction of the trade. All you need to do is to setup the risk per trade, that should be a % of your equity (suggested 0.5-1.5%).

That is it for now. Feel free to ping me questions via Twitter or Email posted in this article.

Wish you a great trading session!

— @Trader_521 —

I would like to present myself as Trader521. I will use this nickname for the purpose of confidentiality and explain you a little bit of my trading concepts. First of all trading is not easy, but is should not be hard. When it comes to placing trades, its all about mathematics, probability, risk and reward. Over years of trial and failure, the wisdom of the trading game finally touched me with its magic hand. I know lots of you are struggling with your strategies, indicators, fundamentals and other factors that you might think are very important in trading. Ill say two basic concepts that should be at the base of your trading:

1. Psychology (this is something that can make the best trader in the world lost tons of money in a short period of time – recommended read is Mark Douglas – Disciplined Trader and Trading in the Zone).
2. Math (knowing your probability of a profitable trade, make sure you have a decent risk reward when it comes to taking profits, I am looking for at least 5 to 1 Reward to Risk).

These two factors will make pretty much any strategy work. This is the bread and butter of every successful trader even if he or she does not realize that.

Over the next blog posts I will develop these concepts more detailed and show you what to look for when placing a trade, executing a setup, setting up the sizing of the trade, manage it and taking profits on the way.

I hope you are all well and are ready to start your next and last step in becoming a profitable, highly effective trader.

I would like to thank you for your time in reading this post.

— Trader 521 —