What a difference a year makes

I feel like I have grown a shit ton as a trader over the past year.  It's crazy looking back at how little I knew even 3-4 months ago.  I am making trades and entries I would have never made a short time ago.  My best days used to be 300-350 dollars.  Now I can make that in 1 trade.  It all has come from more experience and screen time.  If you are still new to the game and still feel lost, it will get better if you are persistent and most importantly learn.

I love this quote I saw posted yesterday- "Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm"  That's how I have felt about stock trading my first 2 years.  It was nothing but failure after failure but I still loved it.  Because I knew there would be light at the end of the tunnel if I stayed persistent, continued to learn, and found my niche. 

Stock trading in hindsight can seem so easy.  You see the support, the resistance, the pattern, boom there's the entry.  Ahhh it was so easy, how did I miss that?  Well when things are moving fast it can be difficult to spot things and it can be tough to get your hands to make the entry even though you know you should.  Mostly because of doubt or previous losses.  

Learn. Figure out what you are good at.  Figure out what you are comfortable with.  Figure out what actually works in the stock market.  It took me a while to figure this out but I now have a system I can use day in and day out.  I used to be a breakout trader.  They seem to be the easy thing to do.  You buy the breakout and it's supposed to go higher.  Well to me there were too many negatives to this strategy.  Mainly risk/reward.  Just think of the change in your game if you can risk 20 cents instead of 50 cents on a trade.  Obviously your risk is smaller if you are wrong, you can buy more shares, and you can get more of the move (and scale out easier if you wish)  Below are a couple examples from today (3/1/16) and one from Friday (2/26/16).  I don't think I would have made these trades a few months ago, now I salivate when I see them.

Looking at these charts, I honestly don't think I would have made any of the trades a few months ago.  Now I look at stocks charts like the game of chess.  You have to look at the big picture and before you get in determine where the stock can move to.  You have to see 30 minutes, maybe even hours in advance of what the stock might do.  Only then will you get dollars out of a move instead of scalping for 20-30 cents.