DayTradeToWin Reviews – Learn how to day trade with free day trading strategies

Best Trading Computer Performance Tips

Many day traders have many windows open on their computer screens. How do you create a clean layout? The tedious (wrong) way is to spend a whole bunch of time manually dragging everything into place. A faster way is to let a window management utility do that for you. In the following video, a couple recommendations are made.

Essentially, the Divvy program is recommended over the other window manager apps. Divvy presents a grid resembling a computer screen. By selecting a window and dragging in the grid, you both place and resize the window. It makes more sense when you see it in action. If you have one screen and want to look at multiple charts, you can really maximize your screen real estate using the program. When you’re done, you can use your charting software to save the layout (i.e. workspace in NinjaTrader).

This next video discusses optimizations to the Windows operating system (OS) itself. These are privacy tweaks that can have a positive impact on trading software performance. You free up system resources. These resources are room for more CPU activity and memory space. Other applications, including your trading software, can make use of the resources.

Since you will be disabling Windows components, be careful. Read the descriptions and consider if the change will have an undesired effect. Before making any changes, create a restore point. If a problem occurs, revert to that restore point. Also, focus on the items that have a green check mark. The yellow/orange and red items may have bigger consequences.

The Windows OS performs a lot of hidden tasks in the background, including communicating with its servers regarding what you’re doing. If anything, you probably want a bit of privacy and that’s exactly what both of the Windows privacy apps provide.

Learn how to improve your trading computer further here.

What’s the Secret to Day Trading?

The goal of trading is consistent profitability that significantly outweighs loss and trading-related costs. Income surplus, lack of debt, and financial independence are dreams for most people. Understandably, trading draws many people in due to the relatively low cost and requirements. Many people have personal computers capable of running day trading software. The main financial requirement is qualifying for a brokerage account, but with the MES (Micro E-mini) and other more-affordable instruments, things have become more accessible.

This can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, many people want to find the secret to day trading or expect that hard work will pay off as it has in regular occupations. This is not the case. You can spend months perfecting your trading strategy all to have it wash away with months of new, seemingly chaotic price patterns. What good is an income source of it’s unstable? That is true – day trading can never be guaranteed stability because the next fluctuation of price has degrees of the unknown. No one is going to tell you that price will move by five points in the next 10 minutes with 100% confidence unless they are liars, insiders, have a time machine, or access to some special technology most are unaware of. And if any of these are true, why would they share their trading secrets with you?

The best option traders seem to have, considering time is always a factor (especially when looking for ways to make money), is to go with trading systems that have stood the test of time. Also, it is important to check out reviews to see what people are saying. In this industry, it is common to see many amateur trading operations pop up and disappear within weeks or months due to a system performing poorly or the business not following industry regulations.

In the videos above, two price action trading systems are reviewed that have been around for a while: the Trade Scalper and Atlas Line. Look at the multiple days and the outcomes. Did price actually drop as predicted by a Short signal? Did price actually rise as predicted by a Long signal? How often does this happen?

Futures Trading Hours & Platforms

Futures trading platforms are a dime a dozen. There is no need to list them all because Googling them yourself will provide sufficient results. NinjaTrader is one of the leading platforms because it provides useful features right after the installation. The main drawback is that it does not come with real-time data, so you will have to get a free data feed and apply it yourself. The support team at DayTradeToWin.com can point you in the right direction or you can fill out the form on the NinjaTrader website.

The trading strategies shown in the above video demonstrate indicator use across various futures trading hours but with the same trading platform, NinjaTrader.

Another thing that’s really important is understanding futures trading hours. The most popular futures market is the E-mini S&P 500. We consider the “open” to be 9:30 a.m. US/Eastern. The best time to trade is to about noon, US/Eastern, though there are plenty of good trades to be had after that and even during the evening. Indeed, futures trading hours are expansive, and one could be lured into trading nearly 24/7. A quick visit to the CME Group website shows that futures trading hours differ among all sorts of markets. By the way, CME Group often call markets “products” whereas NinjaTrader platform refers to markets as “instruments.”

The E-mini S&P 500 futures trading hours are Sunday through Friday, from 6 p.m. to 5 p.m. EDT. There’s a halt between 4:15 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. EDT. That “backwards” timing can be confusing, so think of it like this: Sunday often isn’t worth trading. Therefore, consider trading Monday through Friday. During those five days, note the market will first halt for 15 minutes between 4:15 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. EDT. Then you have a half-hour to trade. Then the E-mini will close for an hour from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. EDT. The market reopens at 6 p.m. and remains open throughout the evening.

Breaking Day Trading Rules Using Price Action

Classic books on day trading often advise conservative approaches. If your profit target and stop loss have a ratio of 1:1, then it’s quite possible regular market fluctuations will trigger a premature exit. If your stop loss is considerably less than your profit target, an early exit, even if a small loss, may be increased. Multiple stop losses for small amounts do add up. In addition, you will have to pay brokerage fees per contract, per trade. It may be better break those “day trading rules” and go with a strategy that’s more flexible for today’s markets, such as the Atlas Line, Trade Scalper, or ATO 2.

You should test the rules that you plan to trade by. One way to accomplish this is to use Market Replay. Market Replay lets you play back market data as though it’s occurring real-time. It is ideal for people who are occupied at ideal trading times. NinjaTrader 8’s Playback Connection lets you pause, rewind, and fast-forward playback. You can download data for specific days. Playback begins at midnight. Drag the slider to the time you want to start practicing. Note that you will have to wait for all of the price history to plot on the chart, which can take several minutes in some cases based on the speed of your computer.

See if you’re following trading rules and keep track of your performance with the Playback101 account and the Trade Performance area of NinjaTrader 8. You’ll want to see greater overall profits than losses. Test for multiple weeks and months. Markets and price action can by cyclical; some days and weeks will perform better than others. NinjaTrader provides $100,000 of “play money” by default. You can reset the Playback101 or Sim101 account whenever desired. Also, the $100,000 can be reduced to an amount such as $4,000, which is far more realistic for futures trading.

Day Trading for Fun & Profit

Firstly, we must say that no profit or guarantees are being alleged, here. Trading of any kind involves a certain level of risk. Not everyone is ready for trading. You should consult a professional financial advisor and possibly even a broker to determine if trading is right for you. Just because a trading system was 100% successful in the past does not mean it will be successful in the future. Read all the disclaimers on the trading websites and materials you come across.

With that said, believe it or not, day trading can be fun. There is probably no other “profession” that one can do at home that can potentially produce big profits in short periods of time. Sure, you could be a CEO of a company and watch big sales role in based on the hustling of your employees. But that’s not the same as looking at charts, bringing up your various trading indicators and systems, quickly analyzing the market to determine if a trade is present, and then executing if you feel it’s the right time to place a trade. There’s something great about the freedom and low-overhead of controlling your own participation in the markets.

From DayTradeToWin’s many online seminars, we’ve seen many demonstrations of “being your own boss” by trading the markets. For years, the underlying techniques have remained solid. The ATR (Average True Range) is often a tool to assess risk, whether the market is too volatile or how much profit to go for on a trade. We’ve seen the ATO 2, Atlas Line, and Trade Scalper give countless price action signals. We’ve even see profit potentials described. Now, perhaps more than ever, people want to be self-reliant. Some people opt for “side-hustles.” Whether that’s making soap and bringing it to a local farmer’s market to bring in an extra few bucks or crafting desks out of reclaimed wood. Other folks consider day trading using the computers and a small bit of software know-how they already have. If you’re going to jump into the markets, think if it

Day Trading Rules for Dummies

When it comes to trading, figuring out what works and what doesn’t can be a costly process. You could buy every day trading course and software that exists, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, and be left with very few that are worth anything. From our experience, what works best is to focus on price itself. Yes, the main reason why charts exist is to show how price moved over time. By looking at this movement, patterns emerge. What group of candles commonly exists before a trend up or down? What unique candle types often occur before volatility increases? These are questions traders begin to ask themselves as they practice and learn the art of day trading. Stick to specific rules and avoid the “day trading for dummies” approach. You’re smarter than that!

What are the best day trading books? Well, books are often wide in scope. They teach standardized methods. If you could go to your local book store and jot down all of the trading techniques, there would be no reason to buy the book. Book authors probably wouldn’t want to share the techniques that actually work in some $40 or less book. If anything, you’d probably have to pay a few hundred dollars or more to make it worth the trader’s time to teach you anything of value and day trading rules that are specific to what’s going on in today’s markets. This is why day trading courses, such as those involving live training, may work out better for you.

Another problem with generic trading books for dummies is that they often do not consider the learning curve of the trading platform itself. For example, NinjaTrader is not going to be discussed in any useful detail in a dummies trading book. You’re going to need materials that go into depth. Each trading platform is different. On DayTradeToWin’s website, you can find a free Get Started Trading Guide that is written for new traders, or “dummies” as some may consider themselves to be.