This Trader is Ready to Trade Live

Bella,

I am a huge fan of One Good Trade. Currently, I am wrapping up The Playbook. My friend and mentor put me onto One Good Trade after I had expressed interest several months ago in trading, and I have fallen in love with the profession.

My desire is to become an intraday trader, but I want to go about it the correct way. I have been trying to take each lesson from each of your students and other mentees to heart and apply them to myself. I’m a former college football player, and I am now in my second year as a college coach. I must admit I that I probably broke some copyright laws because our linebacker motto is “One Good Play, and One Good Play, and One Good Play.” One must be able to turn the page and not let past trades (or plays) affect current performance.

My undergrad is in psychology, and I feel that I have an understanding concerning trading about what is important. Putting oneself in a place of psychological strength is paramount.

So, with all of that being said, I am approaching the 3/4 months phase of my trading knowledge. I feel that my understanding of technical levels and the overall function of the market is not lacking, even though I am always striving to learn more. I try to keep adding to my playbook slowly but surely, and I have a great mentor who helps guide me along and we do a nightly review at the end of each day.

My question to you is, what is the optimal time I should start thinking about opening my own trading account, move away from paper trading and start practicing with real money? I have been practicing on freestockcharts.com by dropping arrows during real time (to me at least) and typing in my orders and stops. I also do a bar by bar review, creating my own simulator since I’m not in possession of the higher end tech yet.

I’m not in any hurry to expedite the process of trading real money. I am most concerned about going about the process in the correct way, and I would appreciate any guidance you can offer.

Once again, I love your books, man, and you and I share a very similar sense of humor. I wish nothing but the best for yourself, Steve and the rest of the guys at SMB, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thanks Bella and take care

@mikebellafiore

At SMB here is some of what we have new traders do to build a trading Foundation:

1) Complete a five-week training program which teaches most of what they need to know about markets and trading

2) Expose them to numerous trading setups

3) Ask them to start developing their own PlayBook

4) Do a detailed trade review after each trading session

5) Archive a setup that made the most sense to them in PlayBook form

6) Assign a mentor to them

When new traders start trading live they do so with restrictions as they enter what we call Trader Development:

a) 200 shares until they are profitable during a ten-day period

b) a tight daily stop loss

c) a weekly stop loss

d) a monthly stop loss

From my seat it feels like you are ready for Trader Development with trading restrictions. The goal for traders during this period is to build a PlayBook that makes sense to them, from their live trading experience, mentoring and coaching. Traders still sit in review sessions intraday and after the close during Trader Development as they continue to be exposed to trade patterns that we discuss. During Trader Development they proceed through their learning curve:

1) lose money

2) lose less

3) flat

4) consistently profitable

5) expand their PlayBook

6) trade their favorite setups with more size and frequency

I hope that helps.

You can be better tomorrow than you are today!

Mike Bellafiore

One Good Trade

The PlayBook