I just got back from a trip visiting family where I was forced to abandon my sweet three screen setup. I had only a laptop and an HDMI connected monitor to trade with. How was I possibly going to be profitable?!

Well, to my surprise I killed it everyday.

Today I got back from my trip and overtraded my brains out. I had poor entry into stocks that I should not have been trading period. It was a good trading day for many people too. I lost most of my trades along with $1400 dollars! What the hell happened?!

After going over my trades, the answer is simple.

I have been trading the action at my house and trading the charts on vacation. At home, my center monitor has lvl 2, small charts and my order entry similar to Tim Gritanis setup. My center monitor is my largest monitor and the side two are a few inches smaller. The center monitor just attracts action. It is the centerpiece of my whole setup.

When I was traveling, all the "action" associated stuff that is on my center monitor at home was on my tiny little laptop screen. We are talking about a <15" screen. All the charts and studying tools were located on my large attached monitor that I spent most of my looking at.

I have mentioned in previous blog posts that my best trading days are when I spend most of my time looking at charts and drawing on them. I can't draw on charts well when they are very small and located on my smaller monitor off to the side. I just gravitate toward making order entries.

If I have any advice to give its this:

Wake up with the intention of studying charts. Draw on charts and look at charts as if you are trying to crack a hidden code. If the code isn't cracked, don't trade the stock

I fixed my setup. My large center monitor is now just charts. I love chart analysis and should be doing it 99% of the time. We will see how it works next week!