I opened the margin account first to be able to short, and second so I didn't have to wait 3-5 days for the cash to settle, never to use the balance above my investment. The cash account isn't under pdt so if balance is 5000 and you use only 1000 at a time, you'll have 5 trades a week instead of 3 under pdt. If you hold overnight, pdt isn't an issue.

Taurus you make some good points. Also, paper trading is a good way to try to learn consistent set ups

Definitely set your limits bro. As a combat vet myself, it was discipline in the Army yes, but this is a new type of discipline. You are talking more mental fundamentals when dealing with money. Limit yourself, and don't try to get rich quick. A good 250-500$ a day is what most dream about anymore. Trading with a 5000 account as mentioned and using up to 10% on day trading is enough.

I recommend that you fund with at least 10k to start but you'll be PDT restricted if you're American. It's better to have 30-40k if you want to day trade equities. For futures, I recommend 5k or better 10k per contract.

RE: the percentages, if you're underfunded, you'll realize that you're risking a lot. If you're using all of your funds,then you're taking on too much risk. "Never put all of eggs in one basket." It's better to risk 1k to 2k on 10k+ vs 500 on 1k account.

What chart pattern has worked the best for you?

Thanks everyone for reading, it was really just to blow steam but thanks for the help

@timothysykes I am looking at me. And what I'm saying is I don't see what's wrong. I've sought help from Goode, Croock and Grittani, with Goode being extremely helpful and the other 2 not getting back to me. (this is not a dig at them, I get that people are busy). But you got me: I am admittedly messed by my losses. And of course I'm embarrassed by them but I'm not embarrassed to show them. Profitly doesn't play well with my brokerage, and manual input is too time consuming and uploaded with mis

too time consuming and uploads with mistakes

Additionally they teach you alot about reading what you see on your screen at all times.. and another good supplement Id recommend is http://vultictraders.com/ tell Him Kraig Sent you .. between those two im confident that when I reboot my account ill be profitable 85-90% of the time my paper trading proves that .

Good luck.. let me know if you want or need any more advice... obviously Ive lost a lot of money already... But ive learned alot and 50% or more of my losses were before I learned with tim and some of it was technical malfunctions and then what finished me was the Holiday and not understanding sympathy plays.. id be happy to share my experiences with any trader I can

thanks for the advice, i will look into those things, thanks again

On the scan, it's pre-market activity that you're pulling. The big gains already happen, that's where waiting for the dip to buy comes in, continued high volume is important too. $GPRO was a recent exception to pre-market. Rumor came about 10:30 ish. (had to jump in quickly). WTW and KBIO were billionaire plays with days of opportunity to play. We just need to be ready for the next one. I'm guilty of chasing stocks but a big loss reinforces the rules: Cut losses quickly and wait for the trade t

MACD/RSI is not the end all solution to trading. On Wallstreet there is computer rooms with hundreds of million dollars worth of servers and computers. If it was that simple, those computers would simply filter out and trade the MACD/RSI indicators your describing. You have to have a overall view of everything. Also papertrading is delayed 20 minutes whereas the market is real time. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Try to find better trade entries.You can use your indicators but also look at the momentum of the stock, where does it look like it's heading and how quickly is it heading there. Use these key indicators to determine when you will hop aboard. Sometimes you will see that if you wait for the right time, there seems to be no good entry and you lose interest in trading the stock. Move on to the next, not all setups are good setups.

Do you look at different time segments, or just 1? 5 min and 30 min 1day. Long term is different.

Analyze each of your trades to see where you went wrong and how you can improve. Really take a good, objective look at each one. Try to remove yourself and all bias from the analysis.

You should check with a ss specialist/attorney.

I don't think you could lose you health insurance because of your disability, depends on what state you live in. For Social Security I'm not sure, but to be safe, check with your health insurance provider and talk about it and social security provider as well, is not like is going to happen right away

^@TheVulcanTrader

Checking back, dis SSA answer you? They may restrict how much savings you accumulate but success with trading will change your life!

In review, each had an opportunity to buy a the dip. They just didn't look as tempting as the billionaire play. Thinking I'll try to reserve my plays for the billionaire plays, though will take great discipline.