DG

[DG @dgcap_]

@kkernttb

[DG @dgcap_]

@1769_alex VWAP

[DG @dgcap_]

@RealSimpleAriel Duuuude....

[DG @dgcap_]

@RichardMoglen @DanZanger, @RealSimpleAriel and @NickDrendel

[iain @ohiain]

There wasn’t 1 dramatic turning point where everything suddenly clicked for me.

It happened gradually over multiple years of removing unnecessary noise.

In the beginning, I was constantly bouncing between different strategies, indicators, timeframes, information sources, and opinions about how the market “should” work. I would scalp for a while, then day trade, then swing trade, then try to combine all 3.

I was learning a lot, but I wasn’t building any real consistency because I never stayed with one approach long enough to understand it deeply.

Eventually... (2.5+ years in), I started subtracting.

I stopped trying to trade every type of market. I stopped filling my charts with 100+ different indicators. I stopped listening to 10 different traders who all had completely different philosophies. But most importantly, I slowly moved away from scalping + day trading and committed myself to strictly swing trading.

That transition wasn’t instant either. It took me years to understand my own personality well enough to realize that swing trading fit me better than other styles.

I now can be patient when I have a clear thesis. I like studying weekly and daily structure, finding leadership, waiting for compression, and then giving a position time to work. I’m much better when I have fewer decisions to make. When I was day trading, I could have a great swing trade working, get bored intraday, take three mediocre trades, and give back everything I had made.

That happened more times than I’d like to admit. So 1 big mistake that kept me stuck was not necessarily a lack of knowledge, but it was a lack of commitment to 1 style.

I was trying to become good at everything instead of becoming great at one thing... and if I could go back and fast-track my journey, I would be incredibly harsh with myself about one principle:

Become a really good loser.

When I was first introduced to the market, I was the trader who would quickly sell a winner when I was up 20-30%, but I would give a losing trade far too much room because I wanted to be right. I would take profits the second I felt relief, then become patient with the exact trades I should have been impatient with.

That math does not work for very long.

You can have a decent win rate and still struggle if your average loss is larger than your average win. I had periods where I was finding great ideas, but my management was completely backward. I was cutting my flowers and watering my weeds.

The first thing I would tell any newer trader is to set hard rules around risk before worrying about finding the perfect entry.

For example:

1) Know exactly where you’re wrong before you enter.
2) Always have a stop planned for each trade + use a hard stop if necessary.
3) Risk an amount that you can genuinely accept losing without becoming emotional.
4) Do not widen your stop because the stock is “close” to turning around.
5) Never, ever, ever average down.

Those rules sound simple, but they need to be treated like laws.

I also am a firm believer that exposure should be earned.

If my current positions aren’t working and nothing is giving me cushion, I don’t need to keep adding more names. That is one of the fastest ways I’ve found to get chopped up. I start small, let the market confirm that my process is being rewarded, and only then do I increase exposure.

My winners earn me the right to become more aggressive.

The second major lesson is learning how to hold winning trades longer.

This was extremely difficult for me early on because taking a quick profit feels good... it gives you instant confirmation that you were right. But the biggest winners in my career have usually required me to sit through normal pullbacks, inside days, and periods where the stock wasn’t doing 2 much.

I had to build rules for that too.

I personally trim into strength and then trail the rest using higher lows, key moving averages, and the overall character of the stock + environment. I don’t manage every position exactly the same, but I try to remove as much subjectivity as possible.

I'm not trying to sell the exact top. That’s unrealistic.

What I'm trying to do is to stay involved while the trend remains healthy and give the trade enough room to become something meaningful.

That combination changed everything for me:

-small losses.
-larger winners.
-one style.
-one system.
-fewer decisions.

Less noise.

The market started making sense once I stopped trying to master every possible opportunity and started focusing only on the opportunities that actually fit me.

So my answer is that consistency came from knowing myself better, committing to 1 style, and creating rules that protected me from my own WORST tendencies.

There was no magic indicator or single setup that fixed everything. It was years of subtraction, repetition, mistakes, and slowly building a process I could actually trust.

And the mistakes that kept me stuck the longest were overtrading, switching styles, taking profits too quickly, and allowing losses to grow larger than they ever should have.

1) Cut your losers.
2) Give your winners room.
3) Find 1 system that fits your personality.

Then go DEEP enough with it that you no longer feel the need to chase every other shiny object in the market.

My 2 cents.

- iain 🩵

[DG @dgcap_]

@PrimeTrading_ Great stuff, Alex. Quick tip: try zooming in your browser next time (CTRL+ or Cmd+). The high resolution makes the text a bit too small to read on some screens.

[DG @dgcap_]

@RealSimpleAriel Beers and pizza on you??? You must be rich!

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. I know @realDonaldTrump and family did.

250 years ago we declared independence from a king who ran the colonies as a family business. In just 18 months the Trumps have made King George look like an amateur.

A $620 million Pentagon loan, the largest in the program’s history, to a company Don Jr.’s firm bought into three months before.

An Air Force drone contract to a startup the princelings took public through a golf course company they own a piece of.

The Army’s largest drone motor order ever, to a company where Don Jr. sits on the board and holds millions in stock.

A $24 million Pentagon robotics contract to the company that employs Eric as Chief Strategy Advisor.

A stake in the largest undeveloped tungsten deposit on earth, in Kazakhstan, backed by $1.6 billion in US government support.

Jared’s fund seeded with $2 billion from the Saudi crown prince, now $6.2 billion, 99% of it foreign money from Gulf governments. Over $110 million in fees collected from the Saudis alone. He negotiates American foreign policy with the governments that pay him.

$2.3 billion from crypto ventures their father regulates. More than a million people bought in and lost $2.3 billion. The money didn’t grow. It simply moved from the subjects pockets to the crown’s coffers.

And the next one is already drafted. A proposed ATF rule that will allow guns to be shipped straight to your front door. The government’s own estimate is 3.3 million home gun deliveries a year. Don Jr. sits on the board of the online gun megastore built to cash in. He holds 300,000 shares.

And that’s only the fraction they’ve allowed us to see. Not one subpoena served. Not one search executed. Why hide anything when you own the investigators?

Me? They searched a laptop for six years. Federal prosecutors. Grand juries. Subpoena power. Congressional hearings. They found nothing. I made about $200k a year selling paintings when my Dad was President, and they made my paintings part of an impeachment inquiry.

For six years they’ve asked Where’s Hunter? What about the laptop?

Wrong questions. The right one is 250 years old. Does America belong to a family?

They’ve given their answer. Long live the King.

[DG @dgcap_]

@Snipertradez15 @SRxTrades A monthly fee

[DG @dgcap_]

@Venu_7_ @ShakePryzby1 You are so good

[DG @dgcap_]

@cfromhertz $AAPL looks like a short :-)

[Murray Rothbard @MurraySuggests]

The Iranian navy, which has been destroyed eight times, has apparently closed the Strait of Hormuz again, because the United States, for the seventh time, won the war that wasn’t a war, so now the United States has to open the Strait of Hormuz that was already open before the not-war began.

The not-war began because Iran had uranium that was totally, completely, beautifully obliterated, so they can’t build the nuclear bomb they weren’t building, which is why the United States had to start the not-war it definitely didn’t start.

Now the United States, which has nuclear weapons, is threatening to use nuclear weapons to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, because nuclear weapons are far too dangerous for countries with nuclear weapons to allow other countries to have.

If the United States saw the United States doing what the United States does in other countries, the United States would invade the United States to liberate the United States from the tyranny of the United States.

[Brett Erickson @BrettErickson28]

Trump now finds himself in an entirely new situation with the War in Iran.

He doesn't hold the cards. He has no notable leverage. And he can't simply declare bankruptcy for the seventh time and move on.

And it shows.

Donald Trump is not a statesman. He is not a diplomat. And I think, in many ways, this is what endeared him initially to many of his voters. He was businessman that accumulated billions of dollars of personal wealth through casino's, real estate, television, golf courses, and a multitude of endeavors.

You can say what you will, but at the end of the day, you don't accrue a net worth well beyond a billion, or even hundreds of millions of dollars, without being "successful", so let's put that partisan argument to the side for now.

But all throughout Trump's life, he's held the upper hand. He grew up wealthy. He received significant financial assistance from his father. And he had an effectively unlimited financial safety net in the event of failure. These are not points meant to be political hits, nor are they able to be refuted. They are simply the facts. Reality.

As a result, Donald Trump always had the leverage. He was a trust fund baby. Again, this is simply the truth. It is reported that Fred Trump left his children around a billion dollars when he passed away in 1999. Trust me, if you know beyond a shadow of a doubt you are set for life regardless, you live life differently.

What this means is that Donald Trump, throughout his business career which WAS hyper-successful, never HAD to succeed. He could also walk away if a deal was not in his favor. He, by definition, always held the cards. Generational wealth.

And don't get me wrong, President Trump was savvy in his exploitation of this reality. You'd be a fool to enter a deal you didn't think was highly beneficial to you if you didn't have to make a gamble. That'd be stupid.

In every transaction, every business dealing, it was either in his favor, or he walked.

Because. He. Could.

And when business endeavors failed to pan out? Bankruptcy could be declared. Again, save me the partisan takes, Donald Trump declared bankruptcies on his businesses six times. And he was RIGHT to do so. That's the correct financial decision... but it's an off-ramp. A quick fix.

These same realities - holding all the cards, being able to walk away, having a legal escape valve - do not exist in the quagmire he finds himself in with the Iran War.

The reality facing Donald Trump is one that he has never had to navigate before. Iran does not care that he is wealthy. It's irrelevant. Trump can't simply walk away because Iran would retain control of the Strait of Hormuz and it would destroy Trump's legacy. There is no emergency "bankruptcy-equivalent" escape valve here.

Now, Donald Trump has to sit on the other side of the table at a time when the stakes are the highest they have ever been in his entire life. No training wheels. No safety net. Trump's been thrown right into the deep end with perhaps the most savvy negotiators in the world.

President Trump holds effectively zero leverage with Iran.

There is not a modicum of domestic American support for this war. It was never sold to the American people. Many see this as Israel's war that is not "putting America first". The goals and objectives have changed by the day. For this reason, alongside the unlikely chance of success in the first place, a large-scale ground invasion is not a serious suggestion being put for by anyone with an above room temperature IQ.

Iran holds insurmountable "escalation dominance". If the United States targets Iran's energy infrastructure? Iran will retaliate massively across the Gulf. GCC countries have already made it abundantly clear to Trump that they fear Iran. That they don't trust the US-bought military equipment to protect their infrastructure or civilians. Iran can cut undersea cables. Iran could close the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and further cripple maritime shipping. Anything the US can do to hurt Iran, Iran can do tenfold to hurt the global economy.

Reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force? We tried that under Operation Freedom, and it was so ridiculous and stupid that it was canceled within 48 hours. Some are suggesting we try again, but seem to entirely misunderstand reality (as they have throughout the entire conflict). What? Is the United States supposed to effectively occupy the Strait of Hormuz until the end of time? How many vessels per day would be able to navigate the Strait of Hormuz with US naval escorts? What would the costs of this be? Can we adequately protect our sailors? Why wouldn't Iran, again, utilize their escalation dominance and shut down the Bab al-Mandeb or strike Gulf infrastructure? It. Doesn't Work.

The unfortunate reality is that President Trump holds no cards. He has no meaningful leverage. His ONLY option is making concessions at the negotiating table...

Is this something Trump is even capable of navigating in the first place though? A President, one who has made perhaps the gravest mistake in the history of American foreign policy, one who has never experienced these constraints before, one who has a litany of allies ready to turn their backs on him the second he capitulates... A man who's entire legacy will not be, "Trump the Businessman", nor will it be "Trump the President". It will eternally become, "Trump the Failure".

But it's his only choice. The Iran Hawks and Israeli Lobby that surrounds him, and they do, are prepared to claw him to shreds on Fox News and Newsmax. We saw this exact situation play out just this past weekend when initial terms of a potential Memorandum of Understanding was leaked. His so called "allies" in the United States turned their back on him immediately, leaving him with almost nobody remaining. Not after the Epstein Files. Not after this Iran War debacle.

Donald Trump now finds himself in an entirely unfamiliar situation. He doesn't hold the cards. He has no escape valve. And there is no realistic scenario where he can credibly claim victory... The only path forward is the one that will permanently destroy his legacy.

But it's the only way to end this war.

[Marios Stamatoudis @stamatoudism]

That is an interesting topic. Here's is my take on this⬇️

Trading psychology is often used as the number one thing to blame for failure in trading, and that distracts people from looking at the elephant in the room, which is investigating deeply how flawless their trading system is. An efficient trading system can boost trading psychology because the frequency of big emotional swings slows down. Operating long enough within an efficient trading system, along with the experiences you gain and getting rewarded by it, helps with confidence and other aspects. So, an efficient system has an impact on psychology.

Psychological stability and strength in trading come from genetics, how you grew up, conditions around you at the current time, and experiences both in life and trading. A person who has hit the jackpot in psychological stability and strength is not guaranteed to succeed in this game though. Psychology itself does not enhance your trading system.

I think that to be successful, the biggest weight must be put on solidifying and answering all the questions related to your trading system. Knowing the ins and outs of your system helps with expectancy. And expectancy has a big corelation with psychology because it makes the ''surprises'' rare. If you know that you can get a 10% drawdown in a month from the system you developed, that 20 consecutive losses are within the normal boundaries in a bell curve distribution, that getting an outlier is around a 5% chance of your winning trades, and many more etc. etc., then the occurrence of big emotional swings becomes more rare.

So, in order to make money, the psychological traits you develop from operating within an efficient trading system are enough. If you want to stand out and become a trading legend, then it comes down to both operating in a really solid trading system, having good psychological traits genetically, good conditions in life, and perfect adaptability and stability in random events.

The same goes with sports. An efficient work routine, a mind that tries to exploit edges, preparation, and execution are, to me, more important than developing the perfect psychology. We have really good athletes. We have a few top-of the top athletes. These are the ones that are lucky enough in the genetic aspects and did equal or more work to develop both their system, learned from mistakes, and enhanced their adaptability through time.

A system always creates the "rules." Psychological stability determines the likelihood of deviating from these rules. If you deeply understand their importance and the "why" behind them, deviation becomes less frequent.

[DG @dgcap_]

@EliteOptions2 Kamala is crushing. If you think otherwise, you are just blind and deaf

[DG @dgcap_]

@AdamMancini4 Hey Adam, I've just subscribed to your newsletter. Great content. However, I'm missing info on how you find your levels. Care to point the post that describes that? Thanks!